Written by Ernest Tan
Graduation Year: 2025
A very good afternoon to all guests, MBS faculty and staff, and fellow students.
It is a great privilege to give the valedictory remarks, and so I would like to first acknowledge our Principal, Dr Jason, Vice Principal, Dr Tony, and the English Department faculty, for giving me this privilege. Everything I have learnt I have learned from them, so if you like this speech, you can give them the credit – and if you don’t like it, I will take the credit! But in all seriousness, thank you Dr Tony, Miss Allison, Dr Barnabas, and all the other faculty and lecturers, for your lessons and also for the example you have set for us with your lives.
Last year, I came across a video on Instagram, posted by a church in Singapore. The video started with a clickbait title: Do Pastors need to attend Seminary? The rest of the video was about two pastors talking about how the apostles were “uneducated, untrained men” who learned directly from Jesus and did not need to go to seminary. Their conclusion was this: to be a pastor, you just need to learn directly from Jesus, and the best pastors will be found in the streets reaching people, and not in the seminary.
I think half the audience is now very angry and I should have gotten your attention. There are so many errors here, but instead of going into that, let us pause to consider something else. It raises a sad question – why do these pastors have such a poor impression of seminary? Perhaps all their experiences with theologically trained pastors were negative.
Dr Tony once shared with us this quote by C.S. Lewis: “Those who think holiness is boring haven’t seen the real thing. When one encounters true holiness, it is irresistible.” In the same way, I would like to say, those who think seminary is boring haven’t seen the real thing. When one encounters a true theologian, they are filled with the Spirit of Christ.
I say this to encourage all of us seminary students – that we have a responsibility to show to the world, and show to other believers, that theology done right truly draws people to Christ. The task of theology is not to have all the answers, or to be the doctrine police. Theological study should result in the glory of God shining through us more and more, so that others are drawn to Christ.
To be more accurate, what I mean to say is that lives can only be impacted when theology becomes doxology. In simple terms, Theology must lead to Worship – it must impact us before it can impact the world.
In the course of my study, I have always felt that I cannot stop, my reading is not done, my essay is not finished or my sermon is not ready, unless I myself have become gripped with the awe, or the love, or the joy of knowing God in a deeper way through the preparation of the material. As long as my theology has not become doxology – if it doesn’t jump off the page and make my heart sing, I’m not done.
Let’s be real: theological study is tough. I’ve stayed up till 5 a.m. to submit assignments. I’ve dreaded weekly Greek and Hebrew quizzes. Study has not been easy for me, and here I all the more want to take some time to acknowledge my classmates. For many international students in the English department, English is not their first language, and Malaysia is not their home country, so studying here is so much harder for them. Yet, by the grace of God, I have seen them persevere and complete their studies. I want to take this opportunity to honour them as well – would you join me in giving a round of applause to honour all the international students at MBS.
Now my point was this – theological study is tough and it doesn’t always feel rewarding. However, at
the same time, when we pursue God through theological study, prayerfully and with all of our heart, we do grasp truths about God that fill us with awe and wonder.
For example, in my area of ministry, one area of concern that often comes up is the problem of evil. If God is all-powerful, why does evil persist? The easy theological answer to this is simply – God is sovereign, and everything will turn out for good in the end even if we don’t understand it. But to be honest, that kind of answer is not enough for me to be filled with awe and wonder and the worship of God. In fact, even people of another near faith have that kind of view of God.
But Christian theology gives us so much more that we can say about evil. We can say that, even though we don’t always know the reason for evil, yet we have a God who does not stand far off when such things happen. We have a God who entered into human history, willingly bore suffering and pain with and for us, to redeem individual souls and restore all of creation. So even though He does not always take away the suffering, He is always with us in the suffering. And that, to me, is a message that fills me with awe and wonder and worship.
I say all this to illustrate the point – studying theology is often painful and difficult, but it leads us to the greatest joy and reward – which is to know God more truly, more deeply, more intimately. And we must study, we must keep pursuing the knowledge of God, until it transforms us. Because only when theology transforms us can it transform others.
To the alumni, my fellow graduating students, and current students – let us continue to pursue God by studying to know Him more and more.
To all guests and audience members – I hope you find this message relevant because in fact, “everyone is a theologian”. This is true in the sense that everyone has ideas about God. When our ideas are more closely aligned to what the Bible teaches, we are better theologians – and vice versa. At the end of the day, everyone is a theologian, and everyone can afford to be a better theologian. Everyone can seek to know God more and more, and when we do so, we experience great joy and reward.
In line with the theme of this year’s graduation, let me close from Hosea 6:3: “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”
May we all know and press on to know the Lord. Thank you.