Mental Gymnastics

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gymnastics

(used with a pl. verb)

(used with a pl. verb)

a.

Complex intellectual or artistic exercises: mental gymnastics.


An intellectual challenge!

Last Saturday, I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon at the ordination counsel of a good friend.He had served as an intern pastor at our church while attending Bible college and seminary. He is currently an assistant pastor of a church in our fellowship.

So I participated in a three and a half hour session of questioning him on his understanding of the Word of God, his ability to use Scripture to defend those answers and I hope challenging him to study some areas where his answers were "weak".

Since I am a fundamentalist, I believe in the inspiration of Scripture, and that Scripture should be our final authority for faith and practice. I find it a stimulating exercise to watch and participate in this process. I derive as much enjoyment from the mental challenge of attempting to answer the questions as I do from hearing a good man do well in defending his beliefs.

Questions about the God/man Jesus Christ, His ability to sin or not, His relationship to the Father, etc, and then backing those answers with Scripture is a real intellectual challenge. He got questions regarding the Canon of Scripture, inspiration, etc.

Practical questions about ministry, such as the role of music in the church, his understanding of the divorce and remarriage issue,

He was challenged on his personal prayer life, his personal witness, what he was currently reading, .............

Anyway, I had a great time. Because he handled the Word of God effectively in answering the questioners, because he clearly has a solid grasp of Biblical knowledge, and probably the most fun was forcing myself to mentally answer every question he faced, that was a real challenge and one I throughly enjoyed.



And yes the counsel did recommend to the church that they proceed with the ordination.