Posts by Hayley Shoeppler

Southern Seminary professors receive endowed chairs November 12, 2014

Michael S. Wilder is congratulated by President R. Albert Mohler Jr. during his installation as the J.M. Frost Associate Professor of Leadership and Discipleship at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Nov. 11.
Michael S. Wilder is congratulated by President R. Albert Mohler Jr. during his installation as the J.M. Frost Associate Professor of Leadership and Discipleship at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Nov. 11.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary installed seven faculty members to endowed chairs during the fall 2014 semester. Each of the chairs “has a story,” said President R. Albert Mohler Jr., “one that is integral to the history of the seminary and to Southern Baptists and to the larger evangelical world.”

At the final installation ceremony Nov. 11, Mohler emphasized the “significant honor” of the event because professors are elected to an endowed chair by vote of the board of trustees. “Endowed chairs are the means whereby people who are committed to the institution make that commitment clear by providing not just current funding, but the permanent funding of an instructional position,” he said.

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In McCall Lecture, Hewitt examines leadership examples from political leaders November 10, 2014

20141106_5764Successful leaders need a strong will and disciplined life, said broadcaster Hugh Hewitt in the fourth annual Duke K. McCall Leadership Lecture at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Nov. 6. The lecture, Hewitt said, is important because of the mission of the seminary to send out leaders into the world with the Great Commission.

“I know what the mission of this institution is: it’s a volcano of leadership and it throws out leaders across the world,” he said. “Long it’s done that and long may it do so.”

McCall, the leader whom the lecture honors, was Southern Seminary’s seventh and longest serving president (1950-1982). Hewitt, a broadcast journalist and lawyer, hosts the Hugh Hewitt Show with more than two million listeners each week, lectured to the seminary community about the need for strong leaders in today’s society. He examined three leaders he esteems as important, and considered character qualities that he believes make each of the men good leaders. Hewitt knew some may not agree with him, so he asked the audience to suspend their judgments on the individuals he lectured about.

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Early life, tragedy of Southern Seminary alumnus portrayed in movie, ‘23 Blast’ October 23, 2014

23 Blast movie posterWhen Travis Freeman lost his eyesight in high school, he never expected his story to be told on the big screen. He just wanted to play football. But 23 Blast, a film based on his journey in early high school when he lost his sight after contracting an illness, releases Friday, Oct. 24, in 600 theaters across the country.

“The movie isn’t the Travis Freeman story,” said the two-time graduate from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in a recent interview. “It does a really good job capturing the spirit of my story. I want people to be encouraged whether by watching the movie, 23 Blast, or reading the book, or following me on Twitter or hearing me speak.”

The movie chronicles Freeman’s story as he went from a healthy teenager and football player to a hospital patient with bacterial meningitis that left him blind in 1993.

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‘Daily Dose of Greek’ provides a refresher for pastors, former students October 21, 2014

PlummerAs a New Testament professor, Robert L. Plummer is concerned that his former students are apostatizing. But he says graduates from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary are not turning from their faith, but turning from their Greek.

Plummer, professor of New Testament interpretation and the chair of the New Testament department at Southern Seminary, has taught introductory Greek courses for 15 years. After watching students invest so much time into learning Greek only to see their skills wilt from disuse, Plummer resolved to fight back against linguistic atrophy.

Realizing he may have a couple decades left of seminary teaching, he wanted to think of ways to buck this trend, and came up with a web project called “Daily Dose of Greek.”

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Floyd urges students to ‘complete the Great Commission’ October 20, 2014

Ronnie Floyd Oct. 16, 2014 chapelChristians in this generation need to complete the Great Commission, Ronnie Floyd said in a chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Oct. 16.

“Let us go to places where the gospel has never been,” he said. “We must complete the Great Commission in our generation, and we need to make a commitment together that their spiritual death will not happen on our watch.”

Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, urged students to fulfill the Great Commission and take the gospel to unreached people, both overseas and even across the street.

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Mission strategists discuss church planting, revitalization at Southern Seminary October 8, 2014

Aaron Coe, vice president of mobilization and marketing for the North American Mission Board, talks with a student at Southern Seminary.
Aaron Coe, vice president of mobilization and marketing for the North American Mission Board, talks with a student at Southern Seminary.

Without the Holy Spirit’s help, aspiring church planters are “doomed to fail,” according to mission strategists in a panel discussion on church planting and revitalization at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Oct. 2.

“I think the most important thing you can do is figure out who you and and who you are not,” Aaron Coe said, vice president of mobilization and marketing for the North American Mission Board. He emphasized the importance for those interested in church planting to realize their leadership capacity in certain contexts. “People who enter ministry with an uninformed idea of its realities result in disappointment,” he said.

Coe began the panel discussion, saying he thinks much of the struggle in church planting — a spiritual activity, he said — stems from men who “plant the church in their mind long before they plant the church in the field.”

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Sufficiency of Scripture essential to counseling, speakers say at Southern Seminary’s Counsel the Word Conference September 25, 2014

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Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. gave the first general session message at the Counsel the Word Conference, Sept. 18.

Affirming the sufficiency of Scripture in biblical counseling is a “radical idea,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at the school’s first Counsel the Word Conference, Sept. 18-19.

The conference, co-sponsored by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), featured popular practitioners Paul David Tripp, David Powlison, Heath Lambert, and others during the two-day event.

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Southern Seminary’s Norton Hall Band releases ‘Be Thou My Vision’ September 15, 2014

BG-346-2014 Norton Hall AlbumNorton Hall Band’s new album, Be Thou My Vision, has been named the favorite among the top five college worship albums in Worship Leader Magazine.

“Filled with stripped-down worship songs via the medium of reclaimed classic hymns, Be Thou My Vision is the all-around favorite,” wrote the magazine editors in the July/August issue. “It’s hard to beat beautiful production applied to cherished songs of the faith.”

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Work to the glory of God, Mohler says in Commonweal Project lecture September 9, 2014

Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. delivers the Commonweal Lecture, Sept. 3.
Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. delivers a lecture for the Commonweal Project, Sept. 3.

Economics and work exist to glorify God, according to R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in a lecture for the school’s Commonweal Project, Sept. 3.

“All of the Scriptures speak to the worldview and the understanding of life and the understanding of humanity and the pattern of God's glory revealed in human flourishing,” he said. “We have to live as gospel people, under the authority of the entirety of Scripture, understanding that not only the Bible but biblical theology must guide our considerations.”

In the first of a series of Commonweal lecture luncheons this fall, Mohler provided an overview of economics and the importance of understanding it from a biblical worldview. The Commonweal Project on Faith, Work, and Human Flourishing, funded by the Kern family, is an academic initiative at the seminary to foster a theology of work and economics.

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Youssef implores Southern Seminary students to proclaim Christ to Muslims in first Jenkins Lecture September 4, 2014

Michael A. Youssef, founding pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia, delivers the inaugural Jenkins Lecture, Sept. 2.
Michael A. Youssef, founding pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia, delivers the inaugural Jenkins Lecture, Sept. 2.

Christians must never compromise the exclusivity of Christ when engaging Islam, said Michael A. Youssef in The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s inaugural Jenkins Lecture, Sept. 2.

“The challenge for us Bible-believing, orthodox Christians is to be able to articulate the Christian faith lovingly, thoughtfully, most certainly truthfully and fearlessly,” said Youssef, founding pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia.

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