Posts by Andrew J.W. Smith

Unity drives genuine gospel citizenship, says Ben Stuart at Southern Seminary chapel March 17, 2015

Ben Stuart, executive director of Breakaway Ministries in College Station, Texas, delivers a March 12 chapel message at Southern Seminary.
Ben Stuart, executive director of Breakaway Ministries in College Station, Texas, delivers a March 12 chapel message at Southern Seminary.

Living out the Christian life is only possible through church unity, said Ben Stuart, executive director of Breakaway Ministries in College Station, Texas, during a March 12 chapel message at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“Spirituality is always worked out in the context of community,” he said. “Christ’s likeness cannot be achieved individually.”

Preaching on Philippians 1:27-30, Stuart argued that fighting sin is impossible on one’s own. Both the Philippian church and the modern church were meant to be mutually encouraging and unified, traits which make up effective gospel communities, he said. Without unity, little of value is accomplished for the kingdom.

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Suffering part of God’s plan, Whitten says at Southern Seminary March 13, 2015

Ken Whitten, pastor at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Florida, preaches a chapel message at Southern Seminary, March 10.
Ken Whitten, pastor at Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida, preaches a chapel message at Southern Seminary, March 10.

Christian suffering is part of God’s power, plan, and purpose for the universe, Florida pastor Ken Whitten said in a March 10 chapel message at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“The sovereignty of God and the sympathy of God do not conflict,” said Whitten, who has served as pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida, for 25 years.

Preaching from Job 38-41, Whitten observed how suffering serves the purpose of God, even when the pain seems pointless or unbearable. Such suffering is a part of the Christian life and identity, according to Whitten. Job complained against God when he experienced suffering, but Whitten said this was the wrong response.

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9Marks at Southern discusses nature of the gospel March 10, 2015

Hip-hop artist Trip Lee preaches a message on Romans 1:16 at the 9Marks at Southern conference, Feb. 27.
Hip-hop artist Trip Lee preaches a message on Romans 1:16 at the 9Marks at Southern conference, Feb. 27.

Leading evangelicals discussed the nature and consequences of the gospel at the 9Marks at Southern conference, Feb. 27-28. The conference featured Mark Dever, founder of 9Marks and pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“The integrity of our claim to love God is intended to be confirmed by our membership in the local church,” said Dever in a session on the local church’s role in proclaiming the gospel. “Lose the church, lose the gospel.”

The gospel is not simply a message the church proclaims, it will affect the way Christians live, Dever said.

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Churches that pattern diversity reflect the gospel, says Louisville pastor

Brian Crofts, senior pastor at Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, delivers a Feb. 24 chapel message at Southern Seminary.
Brian Crofts, senior pastor at Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, delivers a Feb. 24 chapel message at Southern Seminary.

Churches need generational and ethnic diversity to display the gospel, pastor Brian Croft said in a Feb. 24 chapel message at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Croft, senior pastor at Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and senior fellow for the seminary’s Mathena Center for Church Revitalization, addressed whether future pastors should plant or revitalize churches. Croft suggested sinful reasoning can affect either decision.

Church planting usually seeks to reach young people, while revitalization generally involves pastoring older Christians who have attended a dying church for many years. Croft said he fears that men decide which to pursue based on which group they would rather serve. A young man might choose to plant a church because he is not patient with older people or to revitalize an established church because he wants a stable income.

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Southern Seminary offers D.Min. and D.Ed.Min. in Applied Apologetics February 25, 2015

Ted Cabal, professor of philosophy and apologetics at Southern Seminary
Ted Cabal, professor of philosophy and apologetics at Southern Seminary

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will now offer both D.Min. and D.Ed.Min. degrees in Applied Apologetics to ministry leaders for equipping their churches to confront current issues and reach people with the gospel, school officials recently announced.

“Apologetics remains indispensable for biblical ministry, therefore, the study of apologetics should be regarded as fundamental in ministry preparation,” said Ted Cabal, professor of philosophy and apologetics. “No one obeys our Lord’s Great Commission to evangelize without apologetics.”

The D.Min. degree is a 32-hour program and the D.Ed.Min. a 46-hour program, both designed to be completed in 36 months. The doctoral programs include modular courses offered in the winter and summer terms.

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Evangelism urgent in a hostile culture, seminary presidents say February 19, 2015

Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Southeastern Seminary President Danny Akin discuss "The Urgency of Evangelism" in a panel held during Southern's Great Commission Focus.
Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Southeastern Seminary President Danny Akin discuss "The Urgency of Evangelism" in a panel held during Southern's Great Commission Focus.

An increasingly secularized American culture sees evangelism based on the exclusivity of the gospel as a threat, said two Southern Baptist seminary presidents in a Feb. 10 panel discussion at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The school hosted the panel with President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, as part of Southern’s Great Commission Focus.

“In the eyes of many, a belief in the particularity of the gospel is a threat to world peace,” said Mohler.

Mohler specifically referenced the recent National Prayer Breakfast, where President Obama said religions that claim to be the only way to God are dangerous. Mohler mentioned that William Saletan, agreeing with Obama, wrote on Slate.com that Islamic terrorists and exclusivist evangelicals were in the same category.

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Southern Seminary launches Global Campus ‘to reach the nations’ February 13, 2015

Southern Seminary launched its new Global Campus Feb. 12.
Southern Seminary launched its new Global Campus Feb. 12.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary launched its new Global Campus allowing students who serve in ministry around the world to complete a master’s of divinity degree through distance learning options including online, seminary leaders announced Feb. 12.

“We do not merely want to have a program that allows people to access Southern Seminary online,” said President R. Albert Mohler Jr. when he announced the campus in chapel during the seminary’s Great Commission Focus. “Our ambition is bolder than that — it is to reach the nations.”

Through the Global Campus, students can earn the M.Div. entirely through Southern Seminary Online or one of the institution’s nine extension centers. Other distance learning options include hybrid modular, conference, mission trip or J-term courses, and the Ministry Apprenticeship Program.

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Boyce College Northland Campus to open Aug. 1 in northern Wisconsin February 9, 2015

Boyce College Dean Dan DeWitt and Daniel Patz, current president of Northland International University, speak Feb. 2 in Louisville to a special dorm meeting to discuss plans for Boyce College Northland Campus.
Boyce College Dean Dan DeWitt and Daniel Patz, current president of Northland International University, speak Feb. 2 in Louisville to a special dorm meeting to discuss plans for Boyce College Northland Campus.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is establishing the first extension campus of its Boyce College in northern Wisconsin effective Aug. 1, school officials announced recently.

“The central distinctive of Boyce College is its emphasis upon a comprehensive Christian worldview education,” said Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. “That’s the sole purpose for Boyce College: to prepare a new generation of young people to face a world that’s increasingly pluralistic and increasingly secular, to be able to apply what Scripture teaches and to think critically about all things through a Christian worldview.”

Mohler added, “We believe Boyce College Northland Campus can be an outpost for training young people who desire to live on mission. If you had told the founders of Southern Seminary that one day we would have a campus for Boyce College in the northland, they might have thought Indiana or Ohio. I think that is entirely due to God’s purpose, God’s plan, and it’s to the glory of God — and I’m excited about it.”

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Mohler offers ‘Christmas mandate’ to fall 2014 graduates at Southern Seminary December 12, 2014

Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. delivers his fall 2014 commencement address, “To Give Knowledge of Salvation to His People: A Christmas Mandate for Christian Ministry.”
Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. delivers his fall 2014 commencement address, “To Give Knowledge of Salvation to His People: A Christmas Mandate for Christian Ministry.”

The mission of seminary graduates is to announce the birth of Christ and the clear truth of salvation, president R. Albert Mohler Jr. told the fall 2014 graduates of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Southern Seminary conferred degrees upon 207 master’s and doctoral students during the 214th commencement exercises in Alumni Memorial Chapel, Dec. 12.

In an address from Luke 1:67-80 titled “To Give Knowledge of Salvation to His People: A Christmas Mandate for Christian Ministry,” Mohler stressed the significance of the approaching Christmas holiday as an opportunity for graduates to refute a “terminal theological confusion” in churches today.

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Russell Moore: Extending John Leland’s religious liberty legacy for Southern Baptists — and everyone else December 11, 2014

Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following profile first appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of Southern Seminary Magazine, "Religious Liberty Imperiled." Included in the issue are essays by R. Albert Mohler Jr., "Erotic liberty v. religious liberty: How the sexual revolution is eclipsing the First Freedom"; Gregory A. Wills, "The colonial 'spirit of Massachusetts' stirring anew in America"; David Platt, "Religious liberty and persecution: A global perspective"; J. Scott Bridger, "Islam and religious liberty"; and Greg Cochran, "From bombings to bobblehead income: The diversity of persecution in New Testament perspective."

WASHINGTON — Separated by more than 200 years of history but in lockstep with the same convictions and commitments, Russell Moore is extending the legacy of American colonial Baptist preacher John Leland as he vigorously defends and seeks to advance religious freedom.

“Without religious liberty there is no other freedom,” said Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “That’s because religious liberty is not simply a political issue or simply a cultural issue. But at its foundation, it is a gospel issue.

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