(Editor's note: The following post originally appeared on CBMW's Gender Blog)

At the 61^st annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society last month in New Orleans, Russell D. Moore presented a paper analyzing John Frame's recent book Doctrine of the Christian Life, the third in Frame's incredible "A Theology of Lordship" trilogy. Within that paper, Moore applauded Frame's link between gender roles and biblical environmental stewardship. Along the way, Dr. Moore also furthered the argument by demonstrating compelling links between gender roles and environmental views. That section of Moore's paper is reprinted below. It is an engaging biblical application of complementarianism. Moore serves as dean of the School of Theology and as senior vice president for academic administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

"It seems to me that radical feminist theologians and ethicists who suggest that one's view of gender affects one's view of environment are correct.  Seeing God as head over his creation is fundamentally different from seeing the earth as "God's body," and it is true also that human self-consciousness is affected by these notions. Ironically, though, only a differentiation of humanity from the universe can lead humanity to exercise the stewardship only humanity can exercise to save the natural order from the ravages of human acquisitiveness. Feminists are correct to see an abusive form of "dominion" in harsh forms of patriarchy in human history, and they are correct to see an analogy with human abuse of the earth itself. It is no accident, I think, that a metaphor for human mistreatment of the earth is often "rape." Sadly, every human culture knows what it is to see the strength of the male directed toward evil, cruel, and self-serving ends.

"Frame's assertion that human servanthood to the universe does not obliterate hierarchy is precisely correct, both in terms of Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition. I would argue that this is the reason a complementarian vision of gender is not irrelevant to the discussion of an evangelical environmental ethic. Humanity does not escape from nature, as though the male/female hierarchy can be transcended. But neither does humanity equate male headship with the kind of anti-Christ patriarchy in which male "power" equals superiority or privilege. The headship of the man over the woman isn't about privilege but about self-sacrificial servanthood-an iconic representation of Christ's sacrifice of himself for his church. In the same way, humanity's headship over the cosmos isn't about self-gratification but about a loving servanthood, characterized by wise decision-making in the best interest of the earth itself.

"Ironically, those evangelicals most concerned, at the moment, about environmental protection seem to sometimes be those evangelicals least likely to see a complementarian symphony of hierarchy and mutual dependence in the male/female polarity. This is a mistake, I believe, not only because it kicks against the goads of the biblical revelation and the Christian tradition, but also because it deadens the very impulses needed to see an "economy" in the created order in which difference does not entail ontological superiority, and these impulses are necessary for ecological stewardship. As Wendell Berry puts it: "Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version is now on the one hand an intimate ‘relationship' involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and divided. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided."  But Berry notes that a household is an economy-not just a "relationship"-an economy based on differing but complementary husbandry and housewifery.  The same technological Gnosticism that has seen the earth as an infinitely malleable "resource" has likewise seen the natural family as an infinitely malleable "relationship." In both cases, nature is seen as an impediment to some other value-quite often to monetary success.

"If headship and servanthood are mutually exclusive (or if either is redefined to remove either hierarchy or dependence), then it is difficult to imagine an evangelical ethic in which humanity is charged, specifically, with "tending" and "keeping" the earth, not just for the purposes of self-interest, but because it is in and of itself "good" in the sight of the Lord."

Stephen J. Nichols is research professor of Christianity and Culture at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School in Lancaster, Pa. He is the author of many books, including For Us and for Our Salvation: The Doctrine of Christ in the Early Church (Crossway) and Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ (IVP Academic). His forthcoming book is Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation (Brazos). Steve lives with his wife, Heidi, and their children, Ben, Ian, and Grace, in Churchtown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Question: Do you see more history being written well and written with an eye toward a lay audience? How important is that?

Stephen Nichols: I think it is not only tied into historians realizing their service of the church, but I think it is also tied into evangelicals recognizing their need for history. So, it is a sort of supply and demand issue. I find in terms of our students and in terms of our churches, that there is a greater demand for the voices of the past and some perspective. I think that might come from the ones who people are listening to who are current voices who are constantly pointing back to the voices of the past-the John Pipers, the Mark Devers, the Albert Mohlers, who are drawing upon the voices of the past, all the hearers of these folks are wanting to go back to the sources. I think that it is a supply and demand issue and that to me is encouraging: that people in the church are much more open to and much more eager to hear church history, particularly in the American church, than it has in so many decades.

Q: We are Protestants and do not see history as authoritative. So how important is it for the average Christian to know some things about church history?

SN: I think the idea is it's not ultimately necessary. But I go back to Spurgeon. In his book on the use of commentaries by ministers, he makes a comment that the Holy Spirit is not a unique gift to you. And he makes this argument so that pastors will avail themselves of commentaries. The Holy Spirit is a gift to the church and he even comments to the effect that, "I find it odd that people who think so highly of what the Spirit teaches them think so little of what the Holy Spirit teaches others." If you apply that broadly, you could say that the Spirit is not a gift unique to the 21^st century. The Spirit has been the gift to the church and so what we are essentially saying it is prideful to look askance and say, ‘What the Holy Spirit teaches us in the 21^st century is what we need" and sort of downplay the Spirit has been a historical, global gift to the church. We are essentially cutting ourselves off of 2,000 years of resources for living the Christian life...Luther makes an interesting point that I think Protestants need to hone in his work On the Councils of the Church. One of the criticisms of him and his movement was that he was discounting history. So Luther writes On the Councils of the Church to say church history is instructive not to be dispensed with. He just doesn't find it authoritative on the level of Scripture. So, somewhere between the Roman Catholic view of history as authoritative and the American evangelical tendency to dispense with it, I would say history is instructive for us.

Q: You've written several books covering a diversity of subjects from Christology and the Reformation to blues music. What has been your favorite and why?

SN: I don't want this to sound self-serving, but I always like the book I am working on at the moment, but of the history books I wrote, I think I enjoyed the Machen (J. Gresham Machen) book the most because I really enjoyed the archival research for that. Of the other books, I'd have to say the blues book because I learned a lot through that book. With every book you write, you learn. You think you know a subject until you write on it and you find out what you didn't know. I think with the blues book, I learned so much about such a different culture that I still find myself as a theologian even in reading the Bible because of the that book. This was 1920s-30s early blues in the Mississippi Delta acoustic music and very much a close-link to the old world of slavery, a close link to the old spirituals which are richly theological in what they have to offer.

Attendees of the 61st annual national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society Nov. 17-20 in New Orleans did not have to look far to see substantial traces of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's scholarly work.

At the year's largest gathering of evangelical scholars, theologians and ministers, Southern Seminary faculty members and students presented 27 papers in the daily sessions, including the presidential address by Bruce A. Ware, ETS president for 2009. Ware, who serves as professor of theology at Southern, is the seminary's first-ever faculty member to serve in ETS's highest office.

During a reception for Ware following his presidential address, Southern President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said the seminary's impact upon ETS continues to increase each year.

"To pick up that ETS program and see the net weight of contributors to ETS that goes beyond professors to student and alumni is deeply encouraging," Mohler said. "Then, there is the fact that Bruce Ware, one of our own, was elected president of ETS and concluded his term with a brilliant and faithful, not only mind-stretching, but soul-enriching presidential address."

Nineteen papers were presented by faculty members, including Mohler, Theology School Dean Russell D. Moore and numerous other professors, many of whom chaired individual ETS sessions or panels. Southern's involvement was broad and included a number of diverse topics including systematic and biblical theology, history, ethics, culture and biblical studies. Eight students presented papers and the ETS presentation roster was also dotted with SBTS alumni.

"As a faculty member at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and president of ETS, it was deeply gratifying to observe the many papers read at this year's 61st annual meeting by Southern faculty colleagues and doctoral students," Ware said

"Excellent scholarship and theological leadership are both crucial to the ETS, and it encourages my heart to see Southern Seminary's influence in the ongoing growth and development of this important Society."

Ware delivered his presidential address on "The Man Christ Jesus," which included an unforgettable illustration on the sinlessness and impeccability of Jesus.  Though He was both God as well as man, Jesus' inability to sin, His impeccability, had nothing to do with the fact that He is also God, Ware said. Instead, Christ resisted sin by the power of the Holy Spirit.

"Jesus lived His life in reliance on the Spirit so that His resistance to temptation and His obedience to the will of the Father took place through, and not apart from, the empowerment provided Him as the second Adam, the seed of Abraham, the son of David," Ware said in the address.

"Recall again Peter's claim that God anointed Jesus ‘with the Holy Spirit and with power,' and that he went about doing good (the moral life and obedience of Christ) as well as healing all who are oppressed by the devil (the miracles he performed), ‘for God was with Him' (Acts 10:38).

"Although He was God, and although He was impeccable as the God-man, nevertheless He did not resist temptation and obey the Father by His divine nature but by the power of the Spirit who indwelt Him. ... He knew that to rely on ... His own divine nature, would be to forfeit the mission on which He was sent.  Hence, He had to fight temptation as a man, in dependence on His Father and by the power of the Spirit, and so He did, amazingly, completely without ever once yielding to any temptation."

Ware's address was an excerpt from an upcoming book, "The Man Christ Jesus: Reflections on the Significance of the Humanity of Christ," due out from Crossway in 2010.

Is there a link between homosexuality and atheism? Has Darwinian Evolution debunked Intelligent Design? Did Blaise Pascal have a valid point when he defined the Christian life as a "worthy gamble?"

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary answered these and a host of other questions from students at the University of Louisville during a recent appearance there to discuss his 2008 book, "Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheism" (Crossway).

Mohler spoke on Nov. 15 at The Campus Church, a new campus of Highview Baptist Church that meets in the Red Barn facility at the U of L. The Campus Church is pastored by Dan DeWitt, vice president of communications at Southern Seminary.

Mohler began the event with an overview of his book and unpacked the basic arguments of the "Four Horsemen" of the new atheism: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. All four have written major works touting atheism over against deism and all are major evangelists for their cause of Darwinian naturalism, Mohler pointed out.

The new atheists see disbelief in deity as superior to belief and aggressively seek to spread their views and "liberate" the masses from what they see as an oppressive and superstitious deism, Mohler said.

"I think (the new atheists) would explicitly tell us that they find their atheism to be fully satisfying," Mohler said. "Obviously, if they didn't think that was superior to theistic belief, they wouldn't be atheists. They deeply believe that their worldview is not only right, but more satisfying.

"They are frustrated that it's clear that the majority of human beings do not share their judgment of which worldview is more satisfying. So one of the projects of Western intelligentsia has been an education project in their own terms...The new atheists want to reframe the debate so that religious belief is on the defensive rather than atheism and of course, in many sectors, this is precisely what has happened."

During an extended question and answer session, Mohler fielded a variety of questions related to atheism and Christianity including one on the relation between a rejection of the existence of God and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual lifestyles. Ironically, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student group affiliated with the U of L is headquartered in the Red Barn.

Mohler said a practical rejection of God and His Word is necessary for one to embrace any view of sexuality that Scripture forbids.

"If there is no God, then there is no judge at the end and there is no lawgiver at the beginning, so everything moral is by definition constantly socially negotiable," he said. "There is the great divergence. If there is no God, not everything is permitted-no sane society or group permits everything-but it is a process of constant, necessary social negotiation.

"If there is a God and He does exist and He has spoken in the Word, we've got very little room for negotiation. It's a very tight understanding of human sexuality to God's own glory, by His own creative purpose and, as He has the authority to tell us, for our good, our thriving, our happiness as well."

Another student sought Mohler's opinion on Pascal's famous wager in which the 17^th century French scientist argued that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because one living the Christian life has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

Mohler said he agrees with the new atheists' assessment of Pascal's gambit: it is not a moral argument and it utterly avoids the question of God's existence.

"Frankly, if there is no God, then I'm with (Karl) Marx in terms of understanding human social interactivity-not necessarily with the Marxists in terms of the 20^th century-but if there is no God, then Marx is the prophet who understood that humans are left socially engaged without God," Mohler said.

"I would simply say, from the inside Pascal's wager looks like it's kind of clever, but I just have to tell you as a Christian theologian, I don't want anyone to come to faith in God or profess to have faith I God because he thinks it's a better deal. That is not a moral argument, which is to say it is an immoral argument."

Another attendee asked Mohler if evolution has overturned arguments in favor of the intelligent design of the universe. Mohler said most people are not convinced by the arguments for evolution and and reject the case for atheism The vast majority of people find the case for a creator and supreme deity far more plausible.

"It comes back to that (reality) that human beings tend to be driven toward intellectual satisfaction-if they think," he said. "In other words, we have to create some little happy place where we believe we can live intellectually or otherwise we are with (German atheist Friedrich) Nietzsche or we are in constant therapy.

"So that comfort zone is where we create a place where we think everything makes more sense and the fact is, evolution as a narrative has not been proven to be intellectually satisfying to the majority of people who have heard it."

To view the video of the entire Atheism Remix presentation and Q&A, please go to   http://vimeo.com/7701979. Audio is available at http://bit.ly/ue3hp.

Marvin Olasky is provost of The King’s College in New York City, and editor-in-chief of World magazine. An accomplished writer, Olasky has released 20 books and has had articles appear in World, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

Olasky delivered Southern Seminary's most recent Norton Lectures in September.

1. How significant is the Gospel to develop an explicitly Christian view of political and cultural engagement for the church?

It's huge for lots of reasons. The Gospel is a great protection against dictatorship because the good news is that, while we are broken actors on a broken stage, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us and therefore we can be saved from our sins. But we are still fallen sinners - that goes for followers, leaders, all of us: all have fallen short of God's glory - so when you understand that, when people in a country understand that, they are not likely to look upon a particular person as the savior. When you don't have that (perspective), there tends to be a growth in dictatorship.

We have a system of checks and balances in America, essentially a decentralized system set up by the founders of the nation and a separation of powers because the understanding is that no one, not even someone who looks to be wonderful, can be trusted with centralized power because of the sinfulness of man.

2. What do you see as the future of print media?

I would like the future to be bright. I grew up in newspapers and still like seeing things in the paper, but I don't read newspapesr much anymore. I get my news on the Internet. I actually find it very useful to see one story and jump to another and so forth and sometimes get different perspectives on the same thing. So, it's really an advantage to have the Internet available and as other people see that too, I don't see much future for newspapers in paper form. Twenty years ago, I was able to write in my book "Prodigal Press," that the future of newspapers was dim and now we are seeing it. I think some magazines with particular emphases will continue. But I think the future is largely on the Internet as far as writing is concerned.

3. How would you define Christian journalism? Is writing about the things Christians do different than writing news out of a Christian worldview?

The second (option) is the way to go, I think. There is room to cover church activities and informational things, but in a way that is more public relations than journalism, but I think Christian journalism should be biblically-objective journalism. That is, our goal in the realization that we are fallen sinners, is to read the Bible and see the way God's writers perceive things and then try to go and do likewise. So, when we send reporters out to do news, the idea is to try to think through how one of God's inspired writers might cover it. None of us is inspired and we have limitations, nevertheless we're not just trying to present a Republican view, a Democratic view, a liberal view or a conservative view, we are trying, as best we can, to present God's ideal and I hope we approach that with humility or else we're in trouble. But nevertheless, that's our goal: biblical objectivity and that is the only objectivity there is.

This is part 2 of a Q & A with Justin Taylor, editorial director at Crossway Publishers. Here is part 1.

Q: One of the great resources that you have been in charge of at Crossway is the "ESV Study Bible." How has that been received?

JT: We have been very humbled by the encouragement that we have gotten from people -- whether it's missionaries or students overseas who can't really afford any other resources and somebody gave them an "ESV Study Bible." We got a letter from a prisoner a couple of weeks ago, who said it's really the only resource that he has or parents using it for themselves to learn biblical theology so that they can then pass it on to their kids. We're just genuinely thrilled and humbled with what the Lord seems to be doing with it.

It was one year ago that it was published and I think there are 400,000 copies in print now. We pray that the Lord would use it not as a substitute for reading the Bible, but as a tool, a pathway, to help people understand the Bible in greater depth. I have said numerous times that, of all the numerous features in the study Bible -- and that is so many different things -- the most important feature is that little grey horizontal line in the middle of the page that helps people to recognize that what is above the line is inspired and what's below the line is the best efforts of teachers to expound God's Word.

We don't want anything to distract from the Word, but as long as people are going deeper with God's Word, then we just couldn't be happier.

Q: What's in the pipeline at Crossway that might interest our readers?

JT: This winter we'll release two books by John Piper on the book of Ruth -- one an exposition "A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God" and the other an illustrated set of poems "Ruth: Under the Wings of God."

Mark Driscoll and Gaerry Breshears will team up again in their 500+ page systematic theology: "Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe." Tim Chester has an excellent book coming out with us in the U.S., "You Can Change: God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions."
Then in the spring we'll publish Paul Tripp's long-awaited "What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage," which I'm personally benefiting from already. Tullian Tchividjian's "Surprised by Grace" will look at the Gospel in the story of Jonah, and Dave Harvey's "Rescuing Ambition" will seek to recover a much-neglected virtue, especially when we wrestle with how to be both humble and ambitious. I'm personally very excited about a beautiful new volume, the "Crossway ESV Bible Atlas."9Marks Ministries has a number of new books with us: Jonathan Leeman's "The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love" (on church membership and discipline), Greg Gilbert's wonderful "What Is the Gospel?" (Gilbert is a master of divinity graduate from Southern Seminary). There is also Mark Dever's "quick overview of the whole Bible," "What Does God Want of Us Anyway?"Michael Lawrence's "Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church," and Mike McKinley's hilarious and helpful, "Church Planting Is for Wimps." And I can't forget to mention Southern professor Tom Schreiner's concise treatment on perservance: "Run to Win the Prize."

Justin Taylor has served as editorial director at Crossway Publishers in Wheaton, Ill., since 2006 and previously worked for Desiring God Ministries in Minneapolis, Minn. Earlier this year, he became an elder at Grace Community Bible Church in Roselle, Ill. He began the ultra-popular blog Between Two Worlds in 2004, a daily blog that points evangelicals to a myriad of biblically-sound resources. Taylor and his wife live in Chicagoland and have three children.

Question: My first stop of the day on the web is usually your blog. Did you anticipate it taking off in popularity like it did?

Justin Taylor: When I started it, I remember thinking, ‘Everyone already has a blog, I am getting in it too late.' But the Lord seems to be using it in whatever ways He sees fit and if it equips people and encourages people, then I am happy. You always simply hope you have more than your brother and your mom reading your blog, so I didn't anticipate more than just a handful of friends reading it. You hope that it will have some degree of influence and if it does that's great.

Q: How many daily readers do you have?

JT: I don't check it very often and I just moved over to the Gospel Coalition, but I'd say I have about 8,000 readers per day or something on that scale.

Q: What does a typical day look like in assembling the blog?

JT: Sometimes if I have some free time and I get inspired, I might have a whole slew of posts and I might just schedule them over a week. Even as we are talking right now, there may be something going up on my blog that I found three or four days ago and just scheduled it because I am traveling right now. But I don't ever get up in the morning and try to plan the blog. I don't ever have this feeling that I've got to get something up there. A lot of times it just overlaps with the stuff I am already reading or I am already doing. I just do it when stuff comes to me and it's not usually planned out in advance.

The biggest advantage about what I do is that I'm not a content producer, but am a content pointer. I think that was one of the happy little discoveries I made a few years ago is the Lord is not calling me primarily to be a pastor, he is not primarily calling me to be a professor producing fresh content for people all the time, but the Lord has gifted me to recognize good content in things done by others. So it seems like He has giving me the gift of pointing to resources like CBMW, lecture series or developments at a place like Southern Seminary, such as Tom Schreiner having a new book that has come out or Bruce Ware having a new MP3 that is online. I am just happy to point other people to good truth that is on the web.

My goal is to get truth in front of people's eyes every day. It's like slides: I know that people are going to be on the web every day and if we can just get Gospel truth in front of their eyes over and over every day ... I think that is just a small part of where God has me in the kingdom.

Q: As you travel around the country and speak, are you encouraged by what you see in terms of younger people tracking with sound doctrine? Where might be some blind spots in what has been called the "young, restless and Reformed" movement?

JT: I think it is a tremendously encouraging time in evangelicalism. Any time you have a season of encouragement, there are also warning signs of danger ahead that we can see God at work and start to take credit for it and good doctrine can itself become idolatrous. We can approach others who don't understand God's truth, not with a humble and broken spirit, but with a condemning, judgmental spirit. So, I think that is always the danger.

Yet, we don't want to be such pessimists that we minimize the legitimate work that God is doing and we need to be praising Him for that. I think the thing that most encourages me these days is the renewed emphasis upon the centrality of the Gospel - that the Gospel, to use Tim Keller's phrase, is not just the ABCs of the Christian life, but is the A to Z of the Christian life. That the Gospel is not just the entry point of how you become a Christian or just the exit point to where we are going someday, but in the here and now, the Gospel should be affecting the way I relate to my wife, the way I relate to my kids, the way think about my job, the way I think about my culture and the way I think about my church.

People like Keller, C.J. Mahaney, Paul Tripp, David Powlison and Albert Mohler are helping us to see how the Gospel should impact every single facet of our lives. There is a new flavor upon the lips of younger evangelicals and it is not just about affirming the five points of Calvinism, but it is about ultimately glorying in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't think there could be anything more encouraging than that.

Q: What are you reading right now to yourself and your family?

JT: I am reading through Tripp's book that will come out next year on marriage called "What Did You Expect?" and I am letting the chapters of that book convict me and instruct me. Working for a publisher, a lot of my reading is books that currently don't exist, but will down the road.

Another one is Greg Gilbert's "What is the Gospel?" which will be in a 9Marks series. It will be a small book that will be helpful for pastors, but is written on such an understandable, accessible level that it will be helpful for many Christians. That is the sort of book that I need to be re-reading. You can't read too much on the topic of what is the Gospel? I have let Greg, who is a friend, instruct my soul through the pages of that.

Anything by Paul Tripp; I am in a season right now in particular where Paul's writings are helping me, and things by Piper.

I am reading "The Jesus Storybook Bible" by Sally Lloyd-Jones to my children. We try to get into that as much as we can. I remember when that book came out, Keller recommended that book, not just for parents, not just for kids, but also for pastors, because it shows you the way in which, as the subtitle suggests, the stories of the Bible all whisper the name of Jesus. To see the joyful effect that book has had on our kids has been great.

And we are reading stuff that is not biblically-centered per se, but is just good literature. Our kids are six, four and one, so they are at that young stage where they are enjoying the imaginative world of good literature.

How should the parables of Jesus be interpreted? Are they allegories in which each of the details represent a deeper spiritual reality? Are they folksy tales that Jesus used to communicate truth in a simple fashion? Or should they be interpreted literally as a story in which our Lord communicates one main point?

Several evangelical scholars, including three from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, answer questions such as these about the parables of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew in the Fall 2009 edition of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

Journal editor Stephen J. Wellum argues in his editorial that the parables of Christ serve dual functions: they enlighten some to the truths about Christ, but harden others to them.

Wellum serves as professor of Christian theology at Southern Seminary.

The new edition of the journal serves as a companion to the winter Bible study published by LifeWay Christian Resources.

"Parables are used to accomplish what God's Word does every time it is preached and taught: to give light and life to those who receive Christ and to harden and judge those who reject him," Wellum writes.

"In this way, the parables spoken to the crowds do not simply convey information, nor mask it, but they challenge the hearers (and us!) with the claims of Christ himself as he comes as Lord, inaugurating his Kingdom, and calling all people to follow him in repentance, faith, and obedience."

Robert L. Plummer examines the history of interpretation of the parables and provides guidelines as to how they should be interpreted. Plummer, who serves as associate professor of New Testament interpretation at Southern, argues that the proper starting point with the parables is to determine the main point or points. It is equally important not to press the details, he writes.

"There is some debate among evangelical scholars as to whether each parable teaches only one main point (e.g., Robert Stein) or whether a parable may have several main points (e.g. Craig Blomberg)," Plummer writes. "In reality, these two perspectives are not as varied as they may appear ... It is important to realize also that not all details in a parable have significance."

Jonathan Pennington, assistant professor of New Testament interpretation at Southern, examines Matthew 13 - the Parable of the Sower - in close detail. The parable includes three parts and is not given merely to show Jesus as a gifted and compelling teacher, he concludes. The parable is inspired, like the rest of Scripture, to change fallen human hearts, Pennington argues.

"I think the message to us comes off the page quite straightforwardly," he writes. "First, regarding the Sower and the sowing: This word of the kingdom, the ‘gospel of the kingdom' as Jesus calls it, is still going forth through us today as Jesus' disciples. To be a disciple of Jesus means to do the same things he did, to live a life of self-sacrifice, serving others, to minister grace to broken lives, to turn the other cheek when wrongly accused, to be poor in spirit, to forgive others, and crucially, to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom."

The journal also includes essays by Dan Doriani, A.B. Caneday and a sermon on the Parable of the Sower by Kirk Wellum. Doriani serves as pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Mo, Caneday is professor of New Testament studies and biblical theology at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minn. Wellum serves as principal and professor of biblical studies, pastoral and systematic theology at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

To subscribe to the journal or for more information, email journaloffice@sbts.edu.

A Forum on the Life & Legacy of Lottie Moon will be held from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 21 in Heritage Hall, as a part of Missions Emphasis Week. R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Chuck Lawless will speak, followed by a Chick-Fil-A lunch and a question and answer panel discussion.

Panel members include Mohler, Lawless, Russell D. Moore, Greg Wills and Jaye Martin.  A limited number of complimentary tickets are available in advance from the Office of Event Productions (502) 714-6500.

This is the seventh part of a seven-part series, featuring Southern Seminary professors addressing the topic: your first pastorate. Hershael York serves as associate dean of ministry and proclamation and Victor and Louise Lester Professor of Christian Preaching at Southern Seminary.
Hershael York, associate dean of ministry and proclamation; senior pastor, Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Ky.

First position/length: First Baptist Church of Marion, Ark., was my first pastorate. I was there under two years, but the love, patience, and encouragement of that church shaped my ministry for the rest of my life.

Early mistakes/lessons: I fear this will seem arrogant, but I had such great mentors in my life on whom I relied for wisdom and advice that I avoided many typical freshman mistakes. My (spiritual) father, Adrian Rogers, and Tommy Hinson (a local pastor whom I loved) were like a well of wisdom for me to draw from daily. I didn't displace people, but allowed change to take place naturally. I made evangelism the focus. I taught the Word. I worked hard to get the natural leaders and decision makers on my side. I had a good sense of when to give in and when to stand my ground. Looking back, I don't have major regrets because I assumed my own ignorance at the time and relied on others for God-given wisdom. My first pastorate was an incredible experience for which I have nothing but gratitude and fond memories.

Words of wisdom: First, have limited goals. Don't think you are going to change
everything about the church to make it conform to your idea of the perfect congregation. Make your priorities loving the people, preaching the Word and being a good shepherd to them more than teaching your pet doctrine, changing the way they do business or
planting a tulip garden.