A new video and audio teaching series produced by The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary aims at equipping the wives of ministers.

The series, entitled “Christian Essentials: For Ministry Wives,” is based on the curriculum used in Southern’s Seminary Wives Institute (SWI). SWI offers classes for the wives of students in areas ranging from theology and church history to public speaking and hospitality.

The video series is packaged in three volumes and covers topics such as the responsibilities of a minister’s wife, essentials for marriage and family and the basics of Baptist doctrine. Available along with the audio and video set are study guides for each volume.

“It is our sincere hope that this series will serve to educate and equip wives who are already on the field but did not have an opportunity to receive training targeted to them,” said Mary Mohler, wife of Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and director of SWI.

“This is the next best thing to being on our campus to take Seminary Wives Institute classes in person. We hope that as a result of these courses, women will be excited about the unique calling they have been given and will look at it in a refreshed and energized way.”

Instructors include seminary faculty and former seminary faculty along with faculty wives. Among them: R. Albert Mohler, Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources.

“The men who teach in this series are seasoned theologians who have the ability to teach doctrine in a winsome way on an undergraduate level,” Mohler said. “The faculty wives truly teach from their hearts through their wealth of real life experiences. Each one has a different style and personality, of course, but there is a common thread of passion for the Lord and for the training of women called to be ministry wives. This is truly a Titus 2 ministry.”

The teaching is aimed specifically at ministry wives, but all women would find it helpful, Mohler said, adding that women may want to facilitate courses in local churches using the video series.

Two major donors that drove the production of the Christian Essentials course and provided leadership during production were Mr. and Mrs. Harry Nurse. Harry Nurse is a Louisville businessman, Southern alumnus and a member of Southern Seminary’s Foundation Board.

“Their generous gifts of funding and time cannot be overestimated,” Mohler said.

Mohler emphasized the importance of ministry wives sharing their husbands’ callings and receiving appropriate training.

“We believe that God calls ministry couples as a team. Just as the husband often invests years in training and education, it is important for the wife to receive training that is specific to the role she is called to fill,” she said.

“This series seeks to encourage women while at the same time admonish them to be the best they can be for the sake of the Kingdom.”

To order “Christian Essentials” materials, visit www.ChristianEssentials.com or call 1-888-992-8277.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary celebrated its historic past and looked to the future during the school’s annual Heritage Week celebration Oct. 9-13.

To mark the annual event, Southern held three chapel services that featured sermons by President R. Albert Mohler Jr., Theology School Dean and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration Russell D. Moore and Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn.

The seminary also awarded the Bruce W. Benton Distinguished Service Award to Harry Nurse, a Louisville businessman who serves on the seminary’s foundation board.

In his sermon on Oct. 10, Mohler continued a series he began earlier this fall on the Ten Commandments, unpacking the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother.”

Mohler focused on three areas this command addresses: the proper role of parents, proper response of children and proper reality of the church as God’s new covenant people.

Parents who view this command as being addressed to children alone make a mistake, because parents are responsible for teaching their children about this and other commandments, he said.

“The proper role of parents speaks to the first relationship the child learns, the relationship between child and parents,” he said. “Fathers are key and mothers are crucial in the transfer of doctrine, the development of a worldview and the instilling of dependence upon Scripture. Parents are schoolmasters of the home.”

For children this command includes obedience, but also encompasses respect and admiration for parents even after their death, Mohler said.

“The proper response of children is to obey, first parents, which leads to obedience to government and then ultimately to God,” he said. “In addition to obedience, we are to bring honor to the name of our father and to the name of mother and to all that has been given us in this patrimony. Those who would dishonor their parents would also dishonor God. We should consider it a great honor to be considered the child of our mother and father and we should pass on this heritage to our own children.”

Finally, Mohler said this command reveals the church as God’s new covenant people.

“In the church, we have not only the responsibility to honor our father and mother, but we are to act as a family toward each other in the church,” he said. “Young men are to honor the older men and older women are to counsel the younger women. It is the responsibility of God’s new covenant people to embrace this reality.”

During his address to students on Oct. 11, Moore said Christians should lead lives characterized by mercy because Jesus made mercy possible with his violent death on the cross.

“What the Bible calls us to is something countercultural,” he said. “... It is saying to us that when there is a personal injustice—not just a misunderstanding, but a real personal injustice—we refuse to fight back. We refuse to seek that justice addressed personally right then and right there. That is against the flow of all American culture.”

Believers can be merciful because they trust in the justice of God’s Kingdom, Moore said. The world wrongly believes the strongest will survive, but Christians should forgive and know that only those who trust God will survive eternally, he said.

“When you and I are showing mercy, when you and I are refusing to seek justice, we are understanding that in the cross of Jesus Christ, sin is judged,” Moore said. “And we understand that at that great day of judgment every idle word will be called into account. There will be justice.”

The merciful trust in the mercy of God’s Kingdom and refuse to keep records of wrong, he said, adding that keeping records of wrong is often easy to do in ministry. A Christian is not to retaliate when he is wronged because Jesus did not lash out at his persecutors on the cross, Moore said.

“Jesus is not standing here in tie-dye saying, ‘Give peace a chance,’” he said. “Jesus is standing here saying, ‘I am able to be less violent than Allah, I am able to be less violent than the Darwinist power structure of this age, I am able to refuse to seek my own personal judgment precisely because I believe in the violence of God—a violence that touches down at Golgotha.’

“When I seek to lash back, I am only doing so because I don’t believe in judgment at Golgotha.”

Gaines spoke in chapel on Oct. 12, during the final service of Heritage Week. He reminded students that God is sovereign in His appointment of ministers to the places in which they will serve. Gaines was elected pastor of historic Bellevue Baptist Church last spring following the retirement of the late Adrian Rogers.

“As I look back over my life, I have not had to open a door for myself,” Gaines said. “You don’t have to promote yourself in the ministry. In fact, you shouldn’t promote yourself in the ministry. God knows where you are. You don’t have to try to push and try to network. The Holy Spirit knows where you are and God can put you wherever He wants you to be. He knows where you need to be at exactly the right time.”

Ministers should not confuse effectiveness with success because God anoints the performance of His heralds, Gaines said. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah was greatly effective, Gaines pointed out, but he might not be seen as being successful by the world’s standards. A pastor who faithfully preaches the Word of God week in and week out in the place where God calls him is truly successful, he said.

Gaines also pointed out that God allows the persecution of his Gospel preachers both for their good and His glory.

“When God is moving and people are being saved and God is blessing the church, don’t let it shock you that God allows the persecution of His preachers,” Gaines said. “God is not doing something to you but for you...because then we share in the fellowship of His sufferings as we are called to do.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The School of Leadership and Church Ministry at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will take a new approach to equipping students for local church ministry, but it will be centered around creation’s oldest institution—the family, new dean Randy Stinson told seminary trustees Tuesday during the board’s annual fall meeting.

In recent years churches have fragmented families by segregating them according to gender, age or other categories, Stinson said. Southern Seminary hopes to change that by teaching future leaders how to integrate local church ministries in a way that builds healthier families and churches, Stinson said.

“Most local church ministries tend to act independently of one another,” Stinson said. “You have a women’s ministry doing its thing over here, and you have a men’s ministry doing its thing, and you have youth ministry and children’s ministry, and they tend to act independently of one another.

“Consequently, they tend to lack a unified vision. [When] everything is segregated by age or gender or in some other way, it inadvertently ends up fragmenting the way that the family should operate.

“We are going to seek to reinforce spiritual growth as it occurs as a family. This will be done by integration of various church ministries...in a way that they reinforce each other and keep a unified vision of how they are supposed to operate and what they are supposed to be doing.”

Stinson was appointed dean of Southern’s School of Leadership and Church Ministry in August. Stinson succeeded Brad Waggoner, who served as dean for five years before becoming the director of research at LifeWay Christian Resources. Stinson also serves as executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Stinson said the new vision of local church ministry will equip students to:

• Integrate women’s ministries in local churches with children and youth ministries so that older women are teaching and mentoring younger women in a Titus 2 mold.

• Coordinate men’s ministries that work directly with ministries to women, children and youth to provide male leadership for families, widows and orphans in a James 1:27 vein.

• Promote a philosophical unity between the various ministries of the local church to include unified views of marriage and parenting as well as a unified vision of gender roles in the home and church.

• Equip and encourage husbands and fathers to serve as spiritual leaders in their homes.

• Aim all local church ministries toward evangelism. “I see this operating in a way that there is a specific evangelistic component in all of this so that when a father recognizes that there is a young boy in the church that doesn’t have a father, “said Stinson, “he reaches out to that young man, so when he takes his boys to a ball game or a fishing trip, he is bringing this young man with him and in turn will eventually meet the boy’s father and will eventually have the opportunity to share the Gospel with that father. The same thing would be true for women’s ministry in the Titus 2 format.”

Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said the family-centered vision of church ministry is unique among Christian institutions of higher learning.

“I don’t think we realize how revolutionary this kind of vision is,” Mohler said. “No other school on the planet is trying to do quite what we have just described here. There is something very unique that God has given us the opportunity to do here and Randy Stinson is the man to do it.

“I believe that God created him for this purpose because when we were looking to the future of this school, to set its future in terms of direction, it was just really clear that the issue of family ministry was at the very heart of what we wanted to see take place in our local churches through this school.”

In other reports to the board:

• Chuck Lawless, dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism, Missions and Church Growth, said the school is building on the unchanging vision of reaching Louisville, the state of Kentucky, North America and the world for Christ.

“As we look at the future of the Billy Graham School, I do think our job is to keep missions, evangelism and healthy, biblical church growth at the forefront of everything that we do in this institution. That is a great challenge and privilege for us...This is not a new vision for us, but building on a vision we already have...Our vision is to be a Great Commission school with an Acts 1:8 impact.”

Lawless mentioned numerous initiatives the Graham School is implementing to carry out the task of taking the Gospel to both the local area and the nations. The school will be matching up students with area pastors for practical training and mentoring, he said.

The Graham School is also sending its first mission team to the state of Kentucky in several years and next year will sponsor nine student mission trips across both North American and the globe, said. Lawless noted that the Seminary is also establishing a scholarship fund to assist with student expenses for annual mission trips.

• Mohler, in his state of the seminary address, spoke from Titus 2, pointing out that Southern Seminary exists only because the grace of God has appeared.

And because the grace of God has appeared, Southern must continue to be an evangelistic, gracious, sensible and godly seminary, he said, pointing out that the seminary does not exist to serve itself but the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“The purpose of the seminary is not accomplished at 2825 Lexington Road,” he said. “It is in the churches, churches made up of regenerate believers who have covenanted together under the authority of Jesus Christ and the authority of God’s Word in order to be God’s people in that place accomplishing all that the church is called to accomplish.

“We are a servant to those churches and we had better reflect the character that is called for in God’s people. The grace of God has appeared and we had better demonstrate that grace.”

For three years David Moerschel anticipated a citywide crusade in Taylorsville, Ky.

But he anticipated neither how widespread nor how deep the impact from the crusade would be.

As a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Moerschel began attending Elk Creek Baptist Church in Taylorsville in August of 2003. From the start of his involvement at the church, Moerschel had the idea of holding an area-wide evangelistic crusade involving churches from several denominations. He began working on the crusade, but the plans didn’t materialize initially.

Then in 2005 Moerschel was trained in crusade evangelism by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and felt God telling him it was time to try again with a Taylorsville crusade. This time the result was very different.

More than 37 churches partnered to organize an evangelistic effort that culminated Sept. 29-Oct. 1 with hundreds gathering for the Impact Crusade at Spencer County High School. It was the largest religious gathering in Taylorsville history, Moerschel said.

“From the time I started attending that church I just could see a crusade in that area,” Moerschel, who preached at the crusade, said. “There is a lot of growth going on in Taylorsville and a lot of change.”

Moerschel graduated from Southern in May 2006 and is now pursuing vocational evangelism through his own association, The David Moerschel Evangelistic Association, which formed in late 2005 and is based out of Atlanta. His association took the lead in crusade organization and planning. Several other former and current Southern students worked with Moerschel on the event.

Patterning the crusade after Billy Graham crusades, Moerschel garnered support from Taylorsville pastors, assembled a crusade executive committee made up of local leaders, organized teams to carry out different ministries related to the crusade and opened a local crusade office. A kickoff rally in March attended by more than 100 people “marked the beginning of the preparation process for the crusade,” Moerschel said.

During the months following the kickoff rally, local churches conducted Christian life and witness training and launched an initiative known as Operation Andrew, in which Christians pray for and develop relationships with non-Christians, eventually inviting them to the crusade.

Operation Andrew produced results in some churches long before the crusade arrived, Moerschel said.

“We had one local church pastor who just saw tremendous results from Operation Andrew,” he said. “He said the week after they implemented Operation Andrew they started seeing people get saved or come back to church or reconcile to the church. He just saw tremendous results from using this. It’s really nothing about the program. It’s all about Christians praying for and caring about other people.”

When the crusade arrived, the number of people responding to the Gospel was not as large as Moerschel hoped, but some said the event caused them to recommit themselves to sharing the Gospel with lost friends and neighbors.

One woman told Moerschel the crusade “caused her to get out her old evangelism books, to write letters to her friends and write emails and to reach out to them again for evangelism purposes,” he said. “It reignited her evangelistic zeal. If we can do that, we’ve done a lot. If we can raise up hundreds of evangelists in an area, it’s going to have a continual effect.”

One pastor said he had been praying for an event like the Impact Crusade for 15 years, Moerschel said.

On the last night of the crusade Moerschel challenged attendees to continue sharing the message of Jesus with others after the official activities ended.

“I really charged the people after the last service and said, ‘The crusade services are over, but the crusade doesn’t have to be over if you’ll continue to care for those around you, continue to pray for them, continue to invite them and bring them to your churches and if you’ll continue to work in a spirit of cooperation,’” he said.

“I really encouraged them to carry on and let this be the start of something rather than the end of something.”

Currently Moerschel is exploring crusades in several other areas, including sites in Kentucky, Illinois, Georgia and Bolivia.

“We basically have more doors opening up than we have time, money or personnel to explore,” he said.

Charles Juma knows Kenya.

He is familiar with the country’s culture, social mores and quirks, and identifies with what Kenyan people experience daily. A native of this African nation, Juma converted to Christianity as a teenager and understands the barriers, pitfalls and excuses that prevent Kenyans from believing in Christ.

For the past seven years, Juma has used this knowledge to share the Gospel in Kenya and help pastors there to disciple new believers. Juma said the joy of ministering to his own people, country and continent defies words.

“Like Paul, I weep and long for the salvation of my people, and like Nehemiah, I cannot help but go back and rebuild the walls ... in this case, the broken lives of people without Christ,” he said.

This summer, Juma spent six weeks in Kenya and another four weeks in Tanzania speaking at public schools, leading crusades and conducting leadership training in local churches.

In Kenya, Juma worked in public schools, noting that ministry to children is both important and strategically valuable.

“Reaching people while they are young is a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “In general, students are more open to the Gospel than adults. It is an open field like no other, and I am grateful to God for allowing me to do this.”

Juma estimated that he spoke to 87,000 primary school, high school and college-age students during the summer, with scores making professions of faith in Christ.

“I would go to the schools and everything would stop,” he said. “Students and teachers would come out and give me an hour and a half to speak. I would typically address specific issues, like drugs or AIDS, for the first 30 minutes and then I would spend the rest of the time sharing the Gospel.”

In addition to speaking in schools, Juma helped host sports evangelism days and other evangelistic events. Two such events, which Juma holds annually, were the Juma Juma Cup and Juma Juma Talent Show.

The Juma Juma Cup included basketball, soccer, karate and other sports, while the talent show featured acrobatic performances, singing and dancing. Both events culminated with a Gospel presentation, and Juma said these activities particularly reached out to unchurched students and resulted in many decisions for Christ.

Discipling and training

With many trusting in Christ for their salvation the past few years, Juma said discipleship and leadership training are the two greatest areas of need in churches in Kenya, and throughout East Africa.

“The church leaders in East Africa don’t have a basic education in the Bible to be able to train their members, and that is an area of concern for me,” he said.

“Many people are coming to the Lord, but discipleship is key to the success of the church in the Africa. With Islam and animism in the picture, people must be grounded in the Word of God to bear fruit.”

To address these needs, Juma held a youth pastors conference that brought representatives from churches all over Kenya, and he also helped with pastoral training.

Juma said following his conversion as a teenager, his Kenyan pastor and a missionary from Colorado discipled him intensely for a year, teaching him and grounding him in the Bible and laying the foundation for everything that he does today.

“I believe that everyone who comes to faith in Jesus Christ needs discipleship,” he said. “There are so many forces attacking Christians that they must be grounded in their faith to be able to stand firm.”

Crusades in Tanzania

In Tanzania, Juma preached in four crusades in four different cities in July. Juma partnered with Barry Kornegay, a graduate of Southern Seminary, in his work in Tanzania, as well as with several members of Little Flock Baptist Church in Louisville. Groups of five to 10 members served for a week at a time with Juma, passing out tracts on the streets of Tanzania. Juma said Kornegay handled most of the administrative duties with the groups.

“Barry would handle logistics, which freed me up to spend time in prayer and the study of God’s Word so that I could focus on preaching,” Juma said. “When a new team of missionaries came from America he would provide the leadership those groups needed. He worked with the teams passing out tracts and in some cases doing door-to-door evangelism.”

Juma said the ministry of the members from Little Flock, his home church, as well as the financial and prayer support of that congregation and several others were instrumental in enabling the spread of the Gospel in Africa.

At the crusades, Juma also partnered with the Council of Churches in Tanzania, the largest religious body of evangelical churches in that country. Pastors from these churches counseled and prayed during the crusades.

“We wanted to work with the nationals, because they are the ones following up with the people, they can give us advice for how to best reach the people and it is fun to work with them spreading the Gospel,” Juma said.

Juma described this year’s crusades as “the most successful ministry in Tanzania” he had ever experienced.

“The hunger for the Gospel in Tanzania was amazing,” he said. “People would come to these crusades as early as 12 p.m. and would not leave even when I was done preaching at 7 p.m. They could not get enough of the Gospel.”

While many evangelists in Tanzania preach a prosperity gospel, promising people health and wealth if they believe in Jesus, Juma said he presents the biblical Gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

“There was one incident where an evangelist promised people heaven on earth, and he had thousands come to his crusade,” he said. “He did not open the Bible once. His ministry was healing and giving prosperity to people. Those are the types of situations where God allowed me to bring in the true Gospel of the need to repent of sin and believe in Jesus Christ and give that to the people.”

Juma is on track to graduate from Southern with his master of divinity in December, and is contemplating doing doctoral work. Regardless of when he completes his schooling, Juma plans to return to Africa.

“By God’s grace, and as long as I have breath, I will not rest until the last person has heard about my Savior on the dark continent, Africa,” he said. “In the end, what matters to me the most is that I faithfully preach the Gospel of Christ to the nations of East Africa. The results belong to God.”

Christians have a biblical mandate to devote the Lord’s Day to gathering with other believers in worship, said R. Albert Mohler Jr. on Sept. 21, in a chapel address on the fourth commandment at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“We are to make it a priority of our lives that on this day we will be with God’s people, we will be with the redeemed, we will be with the saints,” Mohler said, “and we will gather together to prepare for eternity, to be confronted with the Word of God, to edify one another and to yearn for that eternal rest which is promised unto us by the grace and mercy of God.”

The seminary president began a 10-part series on the Ten Commandments at the outset of the fall semester, a series he will complete during spring semester. In the latest installment, he outlined three positions Christians commonly hold regarding the application of the fourth commandment.

Some argue that Christians should continue to observe the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week as in the Old Testament, he said. This position is logical at many points but fails to accurately consider New Testament teaching on the Sabbath, Mohler said.

Others argue that the Old Testament commandments regarding a seventh day transfer to the first day of the week in the New Testament, he said. This position has a long history in the Protestant tradition but is incorrect, he said. Mohler argued that the New Testament gives neither explicit nor implicit evidence that the Sabbath commandments are simply transferred to the Lord’s Day, Mohler noted.

The best approach for believers to take regarding the fourth commandment is known as Lord’s Day observance, Mohler said. This position emphasizes that the central issue for the church is to gather and worship on the Lord’s Day, he explained, adding that this position focuses on the positive content of Lord’s Day observance rather than prohibited activities.

“There is a fourth option, which is no option, and this is Lord’s Day non-observance,” Mohler cautioned. “That is simply not an option for the people of God. And yet writ large across the evangelicalism of our day is this fourth option, creeping its way into our practice.”

Many Christians simply ignore the Lord’s Day or act as if coming to church is an activity to get out of the way so they can move on to other things, he said. Mohler called such attitudes unbiblical.

“I am convicted as I am confronted about the fourth commandment not about Sabbath keeping but about Lord’s Day breaking,” he said. “I am convicted that as I read the fourth commandment, Israel’s responsibility to keep the Sabbath was, if anything, less important than the church’s responsibility to keep the Lord’s Day.”

On Sept. 14, Mohler unpacked the third commandment that prohibits taking the Lord’s name in vain. Christians often limit this command to swearing and a of “forbidden” words, Mohler said. However, Christians take the Lord’s name in vain far more often than they realize, he argued.

He detailed four ways in which Christians commonly, though unwittingly, misuse the Lord’s name.

God’s name is taken in vain when theologians downgrade His character and attributes.

“God’s name is taken in vain among the theologians routinely,” he said. “As a matter of fact, there are entire libraries of vanity, of God’s name taken in vain. The revelation of the name of God is a revelation of His character, it is a revelation of His perfections, it is a revelation of His sovereignty, it is a revelation of His power, it is a revelation of His holiness, it is a revelation of His love, and all of these things are maligned and distorted and often denied in the reductionistic theologies that are rampant in our day.

“God has the sole right to define and to name Himself. It is an act of creaturely arrogance and defiance to seek to name Him.”

Christians misuse God’s name when they speak of God in breezy and irreverent ways that besmirch the dignity of His holy name, Mohler said.

“Listen to our talk about God,” he said. “Or for that matter, substitute the talk for the bumper stickers [that say] ‘God is our co-pilot, our dream weaver, our life artist, our friend, our coach [or] our therapist.’

“[But] Jehovah renders no therapy. He offers no coaching. He weaves no dreams. He reveals Himself and saves His people from their sin. The triviality and the triteness of our triumphalistic piety, the backslapping easy familiarity with the things of God, not to mention His own name, is a scandal among us.”

Christians demean God’s name by worshiping Him in a superficial manner. God takes His name seriously as Scripture makes clear, Mohler said, in stories such as that of Nadab and Abihu, who, according to Numbers 10, died when they brought strange fire to the altar of God.

“In John 4, the Lord spoke to the woman at the well of the fact that the Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth,” Mohler said.

“[It is] never the one (spirit) without the other (truth), the one [being] impossible without the other. This (truth) is the truth that is found in Word-centered worship, in biblically regulated worship, in scripturally established worship, in Christ-focused worship, in Trinitarian worship. And yet among evangelicals, worship has been turned into a laboratory of frivolities and a circus of creativities.”

Christians also break the third commandment by “manipulative God talk” in which politicians, athletes and other public figures co-opt the name of God to promote their own agendas. Mohler said evangelical leaders are often guilty of misusing God’s name in the same way by “divining” God’s specific purposes for disasters and suffering.

“The Lord’s name is taken in vain when we say, `We know why God did that. I can tell you why you have cancer. I can explain to the nation why Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans,’” Mohler said. “...God has not given us license to explain His ways where He has not declared His way.”

In Kurt Wise’s office at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary you can find fossils that secular scientists claim are billions of years old and represent one stage in the long process of man’s evolution.

But this Harvard-trained paleontology expert is out to show a better explanation for fossils and that neither science nor the Bible allow for evolution. That’s why Wise, director of the Center for Theology and Science and professor of theology and science at Southern, has also agreed to serve as a consultant for the Creation Museum in Florence, Ky., near Cincinnati, Ohio.

The museum, scheduled to open in April 2007, will feature 50,000 square feet and more than 250 exhibits countering the errors of evolutionary science and demonstrating the reliability of the first 11 chapters in Genesis.

Laid out in a walk-through format, the museum shows how science supports the Bible’s accounts of creation, the origin of man and the worldwide flood. The Creation Museum is a project of Answers in Genesis, an apologetics organization focused on answering questions about the book of Genesis.

“It’s a good balance of philosophy, theology and science with the priority being on Scripture as a starting point,” said Wise, who came to Southern in 2006. “We understand science because we start with the Bible. We understand philosophy because we start with the Bible. [The museum] is an attempt to weave those together.”

One goal of the museum is to combine the expertise and resources of two groups in the creationist movement that too often work separately—scientists and popular conveyers of creationist concepts, Wise said. He noted that scientists often have nuanced data that they have difficulty communicating with the public while popular creation speakers often give imprecise scientific data in an effort to present a simple message.

The Creation Museum teams precise science with understandable presentations of data, Wise said, adding that he has consulted with other experts in the fields of biology, geology and astronomy.

“It’s not just my personal expertise I‘m bringing in, but that of everybody I know,” he said.

The material presented in the museum is important for Christians to understand because it shows that biblical inerrantists who take Genesis literally have scientific support, Wise said. He noted that believing the earth was created by God 6,000-7,000 years ago is the most consistent position to take in light of Scripture.

“If you don’t believe in a young earth, you really cannot—and be consistent—believe in the truth of much of Genesis 1-11,” he said. “You have to reject a Babel origin for modern languages. You have to reject a global flood—it has to be a local flood. You have to reject the longevity of the patriarchs—they couldn’t possibly have lived for 900 years.

“You have to reject that the first city was built by Cain or anything associated with Cain. You have to reject that Adam was the first human. You have to reject the origin of agriculture spoken of in Genesis 4. You have to reject the description of Eden—it becomes absurd with rivers on three different continents coming out in one place. You have to reject Genesis chapter 1—the order of creation is wrong, not just the days or the length of the days.”

Wise acknowledged that the majority of Christians and even the majority of conservative evangelicals believe the world is older than 7,000 years, but he argued many of the foundational doctrines of the Bible—such as marriage, the literal fall of man, the necessity of a savior and the end times—depend on belief in a young earth.

“The most important thing is that you ought to be able to trust your God and the claims the Bible makes. I know most people don’t understand what in the world the scientists are saying. That’s okay. Just pay attention to what God says. If you trust what God has given us, it becomes an appropriate foundation for every aspect of our lives.”

As believers examine science, the most important thing they can remember is to always pay attention to Scripture above any scientist, Wise said.

“The most important thing is, regardless of what all the scientists are saying, the Bible is true and you can accept it by faith,” he said. “God is only pleased with faith, as a matter of fact. To trust the scientists is not faith. It is, in fact, trusting in man’s reason rather than God.”

One stark memory John Divito has of his recent trip to Belize was of the buses that frequently rumbled past the home where he was staying.

The buses were not ferrying loads of eager tourists across the vacation paradise that is Belize, but were transporting Jehovah’s Witnesses to worship in their assembly hall. Belize is home to one of the largest Jehovah’s Witness outreach centers in Central America.

“Those buses were a daily reminder of the problem of cults in Belize, and it saddened me to see how many people were being deceived by the Watchtower Society,” Divito said.

Belize — a small, English-speaking nation on the east coast of Central America on the Caribbean Sea — is fertile ground for cult activity with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons exerting a notable influence.

Divito, a master of divinity student in the applied apologetics track of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism, Missions and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, knows one of the major cults as something of an insider. The Springfield, Mo., native was converted to Christianity out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) while in college.

Today, Divito’s animating passion is teaching other Christians how to engage sects such as the Watchtower Society and Mormons with the Gospel of Christ. Divito spent Aug. 1-9 helping Christians in Belize to understand more clearly the teachings and methods of the cults that pervade their culture.

“The tremendous ignorance among Christians in Belize — especially pastors — about biblical discernment and cults saddened my heart,” he said. “Again and again I heard questions like, ‘You mean that Mormons aren’t Christian?’

“All too often, their churches do not have the leaders that the apostle Paul insists upon in Titus 1:9: ‘He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.’ The pastors seemed so hungry to learn more about God’s truth. As I spoke in churches, they would take rapid notes on what I was saying, and they often asked for more resources to help them combat these errors.”

While in Belize, Divito sought to accomplish three tasks: to present his testimony as a former Mormon and teach on cults and biblical discernment, to assess the possibility of developing a regional apologetics center for Central America and to meet with pastors and missionaries to determine how to overcome barriers in effective counter-cult ministry in a Third World setting.

His trip was sponsored by the Centers for Apologetics Research (CFAR), a ministry based in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., that seeks to equip Christians in the developing world for discernment, the defense of the faith and cult evangelism. Divito’s local church, Parkwood Southern Baptist Church in Clarksville, Ind., also commissioned him for service. Additional friends and churches helped to offset the cost of the trip, Divito said.

“I preached and taught in several churches, sharing the need for biblical discernment, explaining the differences between Mormonism and historic Christianity and warning them of the dangers of cults,” he said. “I also spoke at a pastor’s prayer meeting on Mormonism and historic Christianity, including what they should expect their members to face as Mormon missionaries come knocking on their door.”

God also opened doors for Divito to proclaim the Gospel through the media during his nine days in Belize: he was interviewed by a Christian radio station, and he appeared on a cable television show in Belize City.

“I really enjoyed the opportunities the Lord provided for me in the media,” he said. “In Punta Gorda, my radio discussion covered my background in Mormonism as well as the differences between Mormonism and the historic Christian faith. On the television show I was also interviewed about these things and was able to interact with callers regarding these important issues.”

A bus trip back to Belize City from one of his engagements afforded Divito an unexpected opportunity to share the Gospel one-on-one.

“While I was tired and listening to my MP3 player, someone sat down next to me and started talking to me,” he said. “Little did I know what God had in store!

“He asked me why I was in Belize, and this allowed me to begin talking about spiritual matters. I was able to share the Gospel with him on the bus, emphasizing that it is by grace alone that we are saved. For about an hour, we talked about Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on the cross. I love the opportunity that God gave me on this bus ride, and still regularly pray for the man I met.”

Divito plans to continue serving as a counter-cult minister full-time upon graduation from Southern; his family is in the process of becoming full-time missionaries with CFAR.

“My passion in life is to glorify God through proclaiming His Gospel,” he said. “And members of cults and other religions need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ as much as anybody!

“Therefore, I desire to bring the Gospel to them in a way that they will understand. I also want to educate fellow Christians to understand what we believe as well as what we don’t believe. But more than this, I yearn for mature believers who will reach out to cult members themselves with the message of salvation. My mission trip was one small attempt to fulfill these goals. If the Lord wills, then I may be able to continue doing it after I graduate.”

The Ten Commandments are still relevant for Christians today, but many evangelicals who fervently argue that they should be posted in public places do not know them, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Aug. 31 in a chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In the first sermon of a 10-part series on the Law of God as given to Moses, Mohler said the Ten Commandments are often despised by contemporary culture because the modern age is one that rejects binding authority.

“Who, after all, can tell us what we must and must not do?” Mohler said. “Who can tell us how we are to live? Who can tell us whom we are to serve? And then, you turn on the television or look at the newspaper or listen to the Supreme Court and hear controversies over the Ten Commandments. Should they or should they not be posted in public places?

“I will defend the constitutionality of posting the Ten Commandments in a public place. But I find it rather perplexing that many of those who seem most ardently committed to the posting of the Ten Commandments can neither recite them nor faithfully say that they have taught them to their own children. In our day, they seem to serve something of a symbolic role. We know how many there are, we’re just not sure what they are.”

Preaching from Exodus 20, Mohler unpacked the first commandment, “You will have no other Gods before me.” The Law of God is unambiguous in its insistence that the God of Scripture demands absolute and undivided allegiance, Mohler said.

While it is easy to spot false gods within the culture, Mohler argued that “other gods” such as “the god of the American dream,” are present in places where Christian theology is supposedly taught and believed. But the one true God has made clear in Scripture His character and attributes, as well as His demand for exclusive worship, Mohler said.

“[There is] the well-intended deity of American popular culture—the lighter-than-air dehydrated just-add-water god,” he said. “And, as one author says, there is the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ deity.

“Over against the infinite perfection of the God who reveals Himself in the Bible, we have the finite god of modern theology, finite in so many ways. He’s not omnipotent, he’s just more powerful than we are. He’s not omniscient, he just knows everything that presently can be known. The infinite God of the Bible is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, self-existent, self-revealing, self-defining, sovereign and holy, and the list truly is itself infinite.”

While many see the Ten Commandments merely as a list of “dos and don’ts,” there is grace in the God’s Law, Mohler pointed out. The fact that God has revealed His commandments to people is grace, he said.

The Law also restrains evil because it is written on the heart of every person and this is grace, Mohler said. The commandments also drive sinners to Christ where saving grace is found, he said.

“The law kills us, indicts us,” he said. “As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 7, ‘I would not have known that I was coveting if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. But now I know.’ And knowing this, I must be saved, and who can do this but Jesus Christ? The law hurts, but the law points to Christ.

“There is grace in the law, even in the keeping of it. As the Lord God told His people in Deuteronomy 30, “This is not far off from you, it is brought near,” and as is written into the warp and the woof of the Old Testament, keeping this law leads to prosperity, to longevity, and to happiness.”

On Sept. 7, Mohler addressed the second commandment which forbids the making and worshiping of idols. Mohler said that while the first commandment tells us whom we should worship, the second commandment tells us how to worship.

“The first commandment speaks clearly to the identity of God and the exclusivity of His identity as God,” he said. “The second commandment tells us how to worship God. In our worship we must give a right testimony to God by worshipping in the right way. If we worship in the wrong way we present a false picture of God. The wrong worship implies the wrong God.”

Mohler identified seven characteristics idols imply that detract from worship of the true God of the Bible.

First, he said idols imply finitude and limitedness, while God is infinite and unlimited.

“Idols are a creation and all creation is finite, while God is infinite,” he said. “An idol is a thing, present in one place and not another. God is omnipresent. God has given no likeness of Himself, but He has spoken and His words point to the infinitude of His perfection. He is not only just, He is infinitely just, He is not only merciful, He is infinitely merciful, He is not only knowing, He is all knowing.”

Mohler’s second and third points were that idols imply fabrication and human control. While human hands make idols, God is self-existent and uncreated, Mohler noted. God made humans in His image and told them not to make an image of Him, and when men make idols they are violating the command, he said. Such idol creation implies human control because people can make, move and control idols, while they cannot control God, Mohler said.

“The god we can control, conjure, create and construct is no god at all,” he said. “The one who fabricates is in control, and we are not the fabricator. We are the fabricated. We are not the Creator, Maker or Controller. We are the created and the made, and our worship must reflect this reality.”

Fourth, idols imply need, demanding service and care. In contrast, Mohler said God needs nothing, but does demand worship from His people, worship that brings Him the glory He deserves.

Finally, Mohler said idols imply procreation, physicality and a visual element. Idols are seen and not heard, while God is heard and not seen, he said.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen,” he said. “God commands that we heed His voice. Over and over, Scripture prioritizes the verbal over the visual. This ties into the authority of Scripture and the centrality of preaching. We have heard God and continue to hear Him; we do not see God.”

All idolatry boils down to a worship of self, Mohler said, which God will ultimately judge.

“All worship comes down to worship of God or worship of self,” he said. “In the end, every idol comes down to a love of self. We fashion it, we create it and we control it. We admire it, for in the end it is us. God’s judgment will fall on those who practice idolatry. Theology has consequences.”

Many Southern Baptists have lost the ability to discern God’s truth, and a failure to recover the doctrine of discernment will have disastrous consequences for the Kingdom of God, said Mac Brunson, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Jacksonville, Fla., during the Sept. 12 chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“We have lost this ability to discern, and it is destroying the church,” said Brunson, who pastored First Baptist Church Dallas, Texas, since 1999 before succeeding Jerry Vines in Jacksonville earlier this year.

“I worry about our denomination. I feel like if there is not a radical turn, we are going to be like Sherman standing on banks of the Chautauqua looking at the smoke from South Carolina when we look at our denomination in the years ahead—if we don’t begin to use some godly discernment.”

Preaching from 1 Thessalonians 5, Brunson gave three reasons why many believers have lost the ability to discern.

First, he argued that Christians have depreciated doctrine in exchange for shallow emotionalism. It is often difficult to distinguish between Christians and non-Christians today because their beliefs and lifestyles are virtually identical, Brunson said,

“We’ve got all kinds of mess that’s going on in the church today,” he said. “The gap is so small between the believer and the unbeliever that you can hardly distinguish between the two.”

Many Christians have even bought into the popular but deadly notion that truth is relative, Brunson said.

“By claiming the authority to determine right from wrong, we crown ourselves the kings and queens of reality, yet we have no authority,” he said. “We constantly pay the price for the arrogance of believing and acting like we are in control of our destiny and experience. What an affront it is to God for us to claim His name and protection but to resist His moral truths on the basis of human feelings.”

Second, Christians have abandoned the absolutes of God’s Word and seek to gain approval from the world, he said. Scripture pictures the Christian holding the Word of God with one hand and holding back the world with the other hand, Brunson said.

“[The world has] No discernment whatsoever,” he said. “We have abandoned absolute truth. We don’t adhere to ancient texts. We do what we feel led to do.”

Third, Brunson said many Christians have become infatuated with influence and are preoccupied with prestige. This trend should be of particular concern to the Southern Baptist Convention because many in the denomination are excessively concerned with growing big churches and gaining notoriety, Brunson said. Such attitudes differ greatly from Jesus’ teachings in Scripture, he said.

“We want a crowd, but you go and find me in the Gospels where Jesus’ bottom line was a crowd,” Brunson said.

Every believer must be on guard against a lack of discernment because even those who routinely hear sound preaching can drift into disobedience, he warned, drawing on the example of Jonathan Edwards, the 18th century American theologian and preacher who was fired by an undiscerning congregation after 23 years of biblical preaching.

“Don’t think that because we sit under the great teaching of great, godly leaders, if we don’t have discernment, we won’t drift,” Brunson said. “We desperately need discernment.”