Should We Be Renaissance Men?

See two helpful posts by Carl Trueman here and here.  A key point of the first is that we need to be careful about assuming we have to have a PhD in some field in order to have a correct or accurate assessment of it. 

One does not necessarily have to be a Milanese fashion designer to see that someone in the street is badly dressed, or even completely naked.

The tendency towards extreme specialization can occur even in theology because of the need to find something new to say about the Bible in order to get your degree.  Having said that, I admire those who have put in the time and effort and money to acquire PhDs, and for many I'm sure they're better equipped by having done so.

From the second post, I was motivated to learn my Bible better.  I don't need to be familiar with all aspects of contemporary culture.  However, I should be able to give some answer on all the key topics in the Bible, even if it is not an exhaustive answer.  In other words, I need to know at least a little about everything, rather than everything about just one thing.

Trueman says again:

In my experience, questions that touch on, say, how to understand the Bible relative to guidance, suffering etc. are always more common than questions on Scorsese.  That narrows the field of appropriate generalism considerably; and, indeed, obtaining a simple catechism (the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Heidelberg, either of Luther's) will give you a good guide to the kind of things of which I am thinking. Considered in these terms, the possibility of being a generalist does not seem quite so far-fetched.

On a related note, the second set of ideas is helpful in general conversation.  I don't need to know everything about cars in order to talk to someone, if cars are his thing, but I do need some basic information in order to ask the right questions.  Obviously, when dealing with the Bible we're considering more critical subjects, so we should strive to know more about the key ideas.  Especially if we're serving in some ministerial or leadership role, because people will expect us to know those answers.