Posts by Andrew J.W. Smith

Robert Jones to join SBTS faculty as biblical counseling professor December 14, 2015

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has appointed Robert D. Jones as associate professor of biblical counseling. Jones joins the SBTS faculty after serving as a biblical counseling professor for 11 years at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Robert D. Jones will be the associate professor of biblical counseling at Southern Seminary, effective June 1, 2015.
Robert D. Jones will be the associate professor of biblical counseling at Southern Seminary, effective June 1, 2016. Photo credit: Maria Estes, Southeastern Seminary

“Dr. Robert Jones is one of the leading figures in the biblical counseling movement,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary. “He combines scholarship and biblical fidelity with clear theological vision and a tremendous ability to translate biblical principles into the lives of others. The appointment of Professor Jones greatly strengthens our biblical counseling faculty and we are extremely pleased he is coming to join us.”

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God calls ministers to preach despite tribulation, says Mohler at Southern Seminary winter commencement December 11, 2015

God sends ministers into a troubled world with the confidence of the gospel, said President R. Albert Mohler Jr. in his Dec. 11 winter commencement address to 230 master’s and doctoral graduates of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Graduates of the seminary will face many trials, but God calls them to evangelize all people in hope as servants of Jesus Christ, Mohler said.

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Justification still matters, writes Schreiner in new book December 8, 2015

It’s been nearly 500 years since the start of the Protestant Reformation and the doctrine of justification is just as important as ever, writes Thomas R. Schreiner in Faith Alone, which released Sept. 15. Treasured doctrines of the Reformers like justification and imputation are still worth defending, despite criticism from Catholics and evangelicals alike.

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Family of Boyce College student shares his ‘miraculous’ recovery after skateboarding accident November 24, 2015

Every parent’s nightmare became a reality for Brett and Lora Fathauer Sept. 18 when they received a call on their way to Bloomington, Indiana, telling them their son Cameron, a 17-year-old dual enrollment student at Boyce College, was hit by a car while skateboarding in his neighborhood. The Fathauers were in a remote part of Indiana and could not keep cell phone reception long enough to hear the news about their son. They each dropped two calls before reception finally held.

“The third time I am getting a call from our neighbor who is a part of the sheriff’s department, and Lora is getting a call from the Columbus Police Department,” Brett Fathauer said. “We are both hearing this at the same time, we do not know all of the details, but ‘Cameron has been in an accident and you need to get back to Columbus.’”

Cameron Fathauer
Cameron Fathauer with his fiancée, Chelsea Franklin.

Cameron suffered severe head trauma and was flown to IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. After performing a brain scan, the neurosurgeon decided to remove part of Cameron’s skull to allow the brain to swell. He spent two and a half weeks in a coma. During those two weeks, the doctors treated him for internal bleeding and infection, and they repaired a tendon in Cameron’s hand.

After waking up from his coma Oct. 5, Cameron slowly began to talk and regain his strength. Once he started physical therapy in Indianapolis, he recovered at a miraculous rate that stunned his doctors. Although doctors initially told the family their son would remain in their care for several months, Cameron was released Oct. 23 after just five weeks in the hospital.

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Faithfulness not fame should motivate ministry, says Louisville pastor October 29, 2015

Christian pastors and leaders should build their ministries soley upon the foundation of the unmerited grace of the gospel, said West Louisville pastor T.C. Taylor in an Oct. 22 chapel message at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

T.C. Taylor, lead pastor of New Breed Church in Louisville, Kentucky, challenges prospective pastors and ministers to preach the Word humbly and faithfully.
T.C. Taylor, lead pastor of New Breed Church in Louisville, Kentucky, challenges prospective pastors and ministers to preach the Word humbly and faithfully.

Taylor, who is lead pastor of New Breed Church in Louisville, Kentucky, said the Christian minister should be well-grounded in the gospel to avoid pride, self-sufficiency, and worldly ambition that often accompanies pastoral ministry.

“If you’re going to do ministry effectively, you have to serve out of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” said Taylor. “You have to serve out of the reality that, ‘I’m serving, not to be saved but because I’m saved, and the fact that God saved me has motivated me to want to see many, many, many more people saved and forgiven from their sins. That’s got to be your motivation, because if your motivation is anything else, it’s not going to stick.”

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Counseling homosexuals involves ‘speaking truth in love,’ leaders say October 13, 2015

Heath Lambert, executive director of ACBC and associate professor of biblical counseling, speaks at homosexuality conference, sponsored by ACBC.
Heath Lambert, executive director of ACBC and associate professor of biblical counseling, delivers an Oct. 5 plenary address on homosexuality.

Christian counselors should be able to speak lovingly and winsomely to people struggling with homosexual attraction, said evangelical leaders at the Oct. 5-7 homosexuality conference at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The conference, titled “Homosexuality: Compassion, Care, and Counseling for Struggling People,” was sponsored by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).

“The integrity of our message is at stake in this, brothers and sisters. If we believe that the Bible teaches homosexuality to be a sin, and if we believe that Jesus Christ changes people, but we don’t know how to help them, then ... we will make a mockery of the Word of God,” said Heath Lambert, executive director of ACBC and associate professor of biblical counseling at Southern Seminary and Boyce College. “If we don’t know how to lay hold of the grace of Jesus, we will slander the Word of God and the grace of Jesus.”

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Butterfield, former lesbian and LGBT activist, gives her testimony at ACBC conference

While many speakers during the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) conference were evangelical counselors or longtime pastors, Rosaria Butterfield offered a unique perspective on homosexuality. The conference, titled “Homosexuality: Compassion, Care, and Counseling for Struggling People” and held at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, featured the popular author and speaker’s testimony during one of its plenary sessions, Oct. 6.

Butterfield — once a liberal, feminist, lesbian college professor at Syracuse University and now a pastor’s wife — offered the perspective of someone formerly a member of the gay lifestyle, but radically and supernaturally saved out of it through the ministry of a local pastor.

Rosaria Butterfield, former lesbian and LGBT activist, talks at ACBC conference.
Rosaria Butterfield, former lesbian and LGBT activist, gives her testimony during an Oct. 6 plenary session at the ACBC conference.

In 1997, after Butterfield wrote a scathing article about a nearby Promise Keepers conference, a Presbyterian pastor in town sent her a letter challenging her presuppositions and inviting her to dinner at his home. After initially throwing it away, she dug it back out and agreed to visit him. Their interaction eventually grew into a friendly, and eventually redemptive, relationship.

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First evangelical conference on transgenderism responds to unprecedented challenge October 6, 2015

The transgender movement presents an unprecedented theological and cultural crisis for the church, said Southern Baptist scholars at the Oct. 5 ACBC preconference, “Transgender: Transgender confusion and transformational Christianity” at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The preconference preceded the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) annual conference, which is being held at the seminary Oct. 5-7. The preconference, co-sponsored by ACBC and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), is the first time evangelicals have held such an event to discuss the transgender movement.

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Speak for the Unborn leader pleads for life as babies are on the brink of death September 29, 2015

Speak for the Unborn director Andrew King, a Southern Seminary Ph.D. student, speaks to a woman entering the clinic.
Speak for the Unborn director Andrew King, a Southern Seminary Ph.D. student, speaks to a woman entering the clinic.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (SBTS) — On this July Saturday, an unusual number of people gather outside 138 West Market Street in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The reason for the large turnout is unclear — it could be coincidence, it could be the especially warm morning, or it could be the effect of a series of undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress that has drawn national attention. The videos purport to show Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit women’s healthcare provider, profiting from selling aborted baby parts and organs, though the organization has steadfastly denied such conclusions.

Most of the crowd are pro-life protesters, and they congregate more than an hour before the EMW Women’s Surgical Center (which is unaffiliated with Planned Parenthood) opens. Some are pro-life Catholics, some are from various pro-life Protestant groups, and some — a very small group huddling for prayer, dressed in yellow parking vests — are with Speak for the Unborn, an evangelical ministry that bills itself as a ministry of the local church. It intends to “make abortion impossible, both through godly and legal means,” according to its website.

In the center, quietly uttering a prayer asking for the women who visit that morning to “find their hope in the gospel,” is Andrew King, a Ph.D. student at Southern Seminary and director of Speak for the Unborn. For the better part of a decade, King and other volunteers have stood outside EMW, pleading with women to reconsider their decision. “We are quite literally the last line of defense,” King says.

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Reformation distinctives remain important, say evangelical scholars at SBTS Theology Conference September 28, 2015

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — While Pope Francis visited the United States for the first time, leading evangelical scholars defended the “Five Solas,” central themes of the Reformation, at the 2015 Theology Conference at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Sept. 24-25.

With the approaching 500th anniversary in 2017 of Martin Luther’s nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, the signature moment of the Protestant Reformation, speakers at the conference emphasized the distinctiveness of the Reformed tradition from the Roman Catholic tradition.

“[A] Reformation understanding of grace sees God’s presence to people as mediated through the Word of God — especially the Word of God preached,” said Carl Trueman, professor of historical theology and church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pennsylvania. “It’s the Word of God — not the sacraments, as in Medieval Catholicism — which was the primary means of God dealing graciously with his people.”

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