A friend sent me word this morning that Dr. Charles Talbert died this past weekend. The obituary will say that he was a professor or religion at Wake Forest and Baylor. But for those of us who had him as a teacher he was so much more.
As I left my borderline fundamentalist church to head to Wake Forest I had more than one person warn me that there would be those who would try to destroy my faith! Even after I arrived I heard warnings that Dr. Talbert was one of those demons!
But Dan Stroup, my childhood hero and Wake grad had told me to take him. So first semester freshman year I signed up for Introduction to the New Testament with Dr. Charles Talbert.
Truth be told, I probably should have waited a semester of two, or three! I just wasn’t ready for the academic rigors of Wake Forest. I needed some acclimation time! Dr. Talbert didn’t give us that time!
He was a serious professor of religion. An expert in Luke-Acts he had written some of the authoritative works on those New Testament books. But he was also a deeply committed Christian, which led to one of the most instructive few lectures I have ever had.
The first week of class he talked about the difference between reading the Bible critically and reading it confessionally. Reading it critically meant understanding “sitz im laden,” the world view in which the scriptures were written. It meant understanding that the disciple Matthew probably didn’t write the gospel attributed to him, that Paul didn’t write all the letters in the New Testament. In reading the Bible critically we brought the same skills to the text as any Shakespeare scholar would bring to theirs.
He then went on to say that when he was at home, in the evenings, he would read his Bible confessionally. That meant he would listen to hear what God might be saying to him through the gospels, the Psalms, the Epistles. He would read to see how God might be calling him, just as Jesus called the disciples.
That distinction made, and still makes, all the difference to me! I watched as fellow students both at Wake Forest and later in seminary just couldn’t make that distinction and refused to hear anything that the professor might offer.
I remember the lecture we had on the Lord’s Prayer. Dr. Talbert distinguished between the versions found in Matthew and Luke. Towards the end of the class that wall between critical and confessional reading seemed to break down just a bit as he recited that prayer in a way I had never heard before. I told someone later that if he had offered an invitation I would have walked the aisle that very day!
My final year at Wake he was offering a class in Luke-Acts, his specialty. It was a seminar class, only about 8 of us sitting around a table with THE expert. It was so intimidating! I wrote a paper on the Kingdom of God in Luke Acts, perhaps the worst paper I ever wrote. (There were extenuating circumstances in my defense.). He ‘gave’ me a C! He could be gracious. But 40 years later that paper stays with me! The Kingdom of God is THE central message of Jesus’ preaching!
As I got ready to graduate I went to see him to get his opinion about seminary. The easy choice was to go to Southeastern Baptist in Wake Forest, NC. (It is on the Old Wake Forest campus.). Many of my friends and colleagues were going there. As we talked Dr, Talbert gave me some advice. He said, “Don, you grew up in a small NC town. You came to a small Baptist university in NC. Going to a small NC seminary won’t stretch you. You need to get out of the south. Southern Seminary in Louisville will do that for you. It is a southern city with a northern feel. The place will be as much of an education as anything you experience in the classroom.”
He was so right! I have shared that wisdom with many.
In writing on the post about his death, several friends commented that he was terrifying. And he was! But that meant you always came to class prepared. But you came prepared because you didn’t want to let him down! He was the quintessential professor, thorough, demanding, critical. But he was also such a compassionate teacher, mentor, and in later years friend. (I never could call him Charles, however!)
The difference between reading the Bible critically and reading it confessionally—maybe that was Charles Talbert. Thank you for your ongoing influence in my life.