Communication 101: Understanding Being Collaborative

It has been many years since I was a student of Dr. Daniel P. (Payton) Fuller at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.  It has also taken many years to learn from reflection what exactly made him different from a crowd of many other teachers.  One great impact alone that he had proves the value of his teaching: Dr. John S. Piper.  Dr. Piper (former lead pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN) is on some lists one of the top 10 most influential preachers in the world, in case you are not aware of his name.  I studied under him as well, but the main take away that I received was the approach to Scripture that Dr. Fuller had passed on the Dr. Piper.  I would like to summarize their communication approach to the Bible in a way that maybe has not been fully perceived.

There is a vision that Dr. Fuller has for Biblical studies and that vision is that of a Biblical theology rather than the other kinds.  An elusive goal to some, but to Dr. Fuller a task that you keep pursuing and pursuing with great joy!  His vision is one that required great discipline.  It required a commitment to the text that went beyond the ambivalence of differing interpretations.

In studying some materials from an unrelated field, I think I have stumbled upon a way to express his vision. The first set of words for his vision are these, when dealing with the Biblical text:

1) Ambivalence, facing it rather than avoiding it
2) Examination, performing it rather than quitting
3) Evoking a spirit in students of the Word, of cooperation rather than coercion
4) Way of reading, following a path all the way rather than another
5) Seeing, drawing out rather than imposing

Let me draw out his vision further through looking at two types of teaching (drawn up I realize in extremes and also differing as to when to apply them):

1) Collaboration versus confrontation
2) Autonomy versus authority
3) Completely prepared to read versus partially prepared
4) Way of reading versus technical jargon
5) Drawing out versus imposing ideas

I saw example after example of these things as a student under Dr. Fuller, under Dr. Piper, and under Dr. Piper's close associate, Tom Stellar.  Dr. Fuller probably carried out the vision most fully, Dr. Piper most successfully, and Tom Stellar probably most gently.  I wish I could have had them as teachers all at the same time with their relative strengths.  Add Dr. Garwood Anderson from Nashotah House Seminary in Nashotah, WI to this bunch and then the discussion about Scripture would really be thrilling!

But also it would be deceptive to say that all this was easy or fun.  Sometimes students didn't see the vision behind the method.  I myself had my differences with some of what was taught by each one, though Tom the least.  But in God's grace, I never lost the hold that Dr. Fuller's vision placed in my own spirit.

From my own experience of trying to teach people to "be Bereans" and search the Scriptures to see if these things are true, it is not an easy task to uphold Dr. Fuller's vision.  His approach using a method called "ARCING" was not layperson friendly at first.  It took awhile to grasp it and so the vision behind the method could easily be lost in frustration or lost in translation, if you like.

My own experience that taught me this the most, that was mostly due to a larger cultural gap, was that of teaching English-speaking Chinese college-age students this way of approaching Scriptures.  They were very bright.  I could tell that immediately.  But also they were not immediately happy with me introducing Dr. Fuller's method into their class.  You could say they were very frustrated.   They just wanted the rote answers.  I didn't give into that request, but persevered instead.

It happened that my wife and I at the time were the last people hired on staff and there was then a cash shortfall that followed not long after our hiring. Unfortunately, this meant letting us both go from this great church in Rosemead, CA.  Then came the announcement that they would have a meeting in which people could express their gratitude to us before leaving.  I was expecting that people would share with me some very awkward "thank you"s, since there had been some expressions of unhappiness with my teaching method. Boy, was I wrong!

I'll never forget that meeting as long as I live.  One of the students stood up and tearfully shared their good-bye and how they would miss my teaching.  I confess I was shocked.  This happened more than once, I don't remember exactly how many times, but I knew afterward that I wish I could have stayed!  Dr. Fuller's vision had again impacted another group of people, even as it impacted me.  This idea of digging in the Word and reading it for ourselves really changes lives.

As stated above in short form, Dr. Fuller's method really meant facing ambivalence (more than one interpretation of a text) rather than hiding behind one view to avoid all the others.  We really tried to face that in class.  It was fun to watch student's faces light up when the light turned on in their minds.  Examination had to be done patiently over time, but here again the text could surprise us.  We waited patiently rather than quitting and settling for an authoritative note in a study Bible.  Students also knew they could challenge me.  I was not there to coerce them into my view, but to collaborate or cooperate with them in learning from Scripture.  We also used an misunderstood skill called reading, reading, and reading again.  It was simple in a way once the fear of reading fell away.  The best part though was the drawing out from the passage rather than imposing on the passage.  We could mention great Christian names in the class and their views, but it was in drawing out from the passage rather than imposing on the passage that people began to see things they didn't know they could see before.  Those moments were fun!  And the sharing in the end helped me realize that the students were just beginning to get good at seeing things in the text for themselves!

The type of teaching that Dr. Fuller did really was the type described above.  Please bear in mind that these contrasts can be taken to ridiculous extremes, because there is a time for every purpose under heaven and some like to think every time is sunny side up (or sunny side down), but still the overall positive vision under Dr. Fuller was carried out as well as I think any teacher I have had could.  He really tried to live by collaboration versus confrontation as far as we as human beings working together under God to understand God's word and be confronted not so much by one another as by God and his word.

He showed too that placing even the greatest of authorities of Scriptural interpretation, like the great commentators of the past like John Calvin, could be dangerous.  He gave us some autonomy with Scripture to read it for ourselves and develop our own liberty and perhaps then find agreement or the liberty to disagree when Scripture made it necessary.  He also came to class rather completely prepared to read the text with the class versus partially prepared.  He gave us questions to answer, but we also looked further into the text and he had his reading tools ready and he knew that passage beyond what his previously prepared questions required.  I can tell you from doing ARCing myself in a modified form that it really does get you completely ready for questions.  He also gave us some tools to teach us the skill of reading the text versus falling into some technical jargon.  He used Mortimer J. Adler's book, How to Read a Book, as a great tool for how to read.  He used others as well, but Adler's methods do work.  Finally, and maybe the best, he was an expert at helping his students draw out ideas from the text (he called this being inductive versus deductive).  This idea of inductive is all over his material.  I will tell you he was good at it even when I disagreed with conclusions.  He wanted us in the end to be drawing out from Scripture rather than imposing our ideas.

Until this day, he still struggles in some of his interpretations of some of his texts that he has read.  He had or has a theological bias, but his efforts to overcome them were a great model of a great goal of a great vision. I am honored to be able to call up "Dr. Fuller".  I've had many doctors, even language doctors, but He was my doctor of the Bible.


In Christ,

Jon