You never outgrow the gospel. Perhaps you’re considering theological training because you want more. You’ve learned your gospel ABC’s, and you’re ready for the rest of the alphabet. You’ve waded in the gospel for years, and now you’re ready for the deep end. You’ve regarded the gospel as milk, and now you’re hungry for meat. You want more.
Theological education is not what you’re looking for. There are no post-gospel graduate schools. At least, there shouldn’t be.
At ITM, we believe the gospel is not the ABC’s but the A-Z of theological education. It’s not the shallow end, but the deepest of deep ends. It’s no mere milk, but an all-satisfying feast. It centers our curricula, qualifies our faculty, and defines our learning objectives for all our students. We invite you to join us as one such student, for you’ll never outgrow the gospel.
You Can’t Outgrow the Gospel
Sure, you may think you have, but you prove my point. It’s been said that the gospel, rightly conceived, is in three tenses: Past, Present, and Future. You were saved by it (Eph. 2:8-9). You are being saved by it (1 Cor. 1:18). And you will be saved by it (Rom. 5:9). The message that justified you is sanctifying you and will glorify you. Like milk and meat, its singular source nourishes you at every stage. You can’t outgrow it.
You Won’t Outgrow the Gospel
You may try, but give it a day and your spiritual amnesia will kick in. We are a forgetful people, prone to wander and liable to drift. Granted, your wilderness may be Church History and your sea Systematic Theology, but untethered from the gospel anchor, you’ll soon drift into a sea of speculation. If Christ crucified is not your true north, you’ll see be lost in a desert of doubt. You won’t outgrow it.
You Don’t Outgrow the Gospel
How could you if it’s of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3)? Theological education that regards the gospel as prolegomena–merely the starting point–has forgotten Paul’s priority. If it’s the sum and substance of the Christian confession, ought it not be the sum and substance of the Christian classroom? The history of theological education is instructive: an implied gospel usually becomes a denied gospel. You don’t outgrow it.
So join us at ITM and learn why young and old, literate and illiterate, and the educated and uneducated will ever sing in one accord: “On Christ the solid Rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.” Indeed, you never outgrow the gospel.