SBTS Student Maintains Contact with Family in Ukraine March 11, 2022

For Vladyslav “Vlad” Hruntkovskyi, a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary student from Ukraine, the country’s current crisis is having a huge impact both on his family and his own personal ministry journey.

Hruntkovskyi grew up in Ukraine with his two brothers while his parents served in full-time ministry in the country. Hruntkovskyi has been in constant contact with his family receiving updates about the crisis in his homeland.
 

Pictured: Vladyslav Hruntkovskyi (far right) with his family on his last visit to Ukraine.

“The reality of this conflict is very severe and very real,” Hruntkovskyi said. “What is being portrayed in the American media is true; it’s not an exaggeration. It is as bad as they say it is."

For the last several years, Hruntkovskyi’s father has served as one of the pastors of an evangelical church called Irpin Bible Church, a few miles away from Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv. The church is connected in partnership with a sister church – Carmel Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.

Hruntkovskyi described Kyiv as central to a lot of the violence taking place in the country, and this forced his parents into making a difficult decision about whether to evacuate to the western part of the country, or stay and try to assist people near the church.

With bags prepared and preparations made to leave, Hruntkovskyi said one last visit to the church building caused his father to change his mind.

“By the second day of the conflict, there were a bunch of people who needed help, leadership and shepherding,” Hruntkovskyi said. “Through literal tears, my Dad and my Mom both decided to stay and help the flock.”

Relief efforts from the Irpin Bible included assisting in the evacuation process for those fleeing as well as providing church members and civilians with food and shelter in the church basement.

The church was even able to hold a small worship service the first Sunday after the conflict began.

During the first days of the conflict, several of Irpin’s pastors were out of the country attending an event at their sister church in North Carolina.

While the pastors worked on finding a way back to Ukraine, Hruntkovskyi said his father took the lead on leading the service, which included a time of worship, a short sermon and the baptism of two believers who delayed their evacuation from the city for this specific purpose.

After several days staying and ministering in the city, Hruntkovskyi’s parents, along with a majority of the church congregation fled to the Western part of Ukraine.

“They did everything they could, but they had to leave for the sake of their own lives and the lives of their close ones as Eastern Ukraine is literally on fire,” Hruntkovskyi said.

He continued to say that the current crisis is a pivotal time for the Church in Ukraine, as well as the surrounding countries in Eastern Europe.

“For Christians (in Eastern Europe), this is the greatest of our commitment to the Gospel of Christ we have ever seen, but right now the church is being strengthened,” Hruntkovskyi said.

“I know for a fact that the light of the Gospel shines in the darkest of dark. Right now I think the Church is planting the seed of Gospel in Ukraine and in all of Eastern Europe.”

Hruntkovskyi was planning to finish his Master of Divinity degree at Southern and return to Eastern Europe to do ministry. He said the current conflict has caused him to consider working for a Christian humanitarian organization where he can use his seminary knowledge to minister physically and spiritually.

Although he says he has not completely processed all that has happened yet, he is thankful for the grace of his professors and the prayers and support from people all over the world.

“Being here and powerless, I’ve realized that ultimately God is my refuge and He is my stronghold,” Hruntkovskyi said. “Ultimately in those dark moments, we can count on Him and we can ask and petition for others.

“This (prayers and support from fellow Christians) is a testament to the unification that we have in Christ. The fact that we are truly brothers and sisters and we are united by His blood. When one member of the family hurts, all members of the family hurt and are grieving with him. I know the Church is strong and God is powerful and He is acting even in the midst of this.”

Current updates from Hruntkovskyi and ways to pray for the crisis can be found on his Instagram page.

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Editors' note: This article was originally published at Baptist Press.

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Muslim Conversion Stories are Powerful Tools in Evangelism, says Islam Scholar in Jenkins Center Lecture February 23, 2022

Alienation from family and friends is a real threat to those who leave Islam, scholar David Bertaina said at the Jenkins Center’s academic lectures held February 11–12.

Bertaina equipped the Southern Seminary community to reach their Muslim neighbors by surveying and drawing application from historic examples of Muslim converts to Christianity. Bertaina is professor of history at the University of Illinois Springfield.

“Anyone who converts to Christianity is going to be giving up a number of resources in their life,” Bertaina said. “They're going to be feeling that they need somebody to be there for them.”

Learning from past Muslim conversion stories can help Christians relate better to converts out of Islam. The apostle Paul’s Damascus Road experience provided one of the perfect templates for conversion. But conversions, especially from Islam, are often more complicated, said Bertaina.

“For someone who converts, that doesn't mean, ‘well, I'm a Christian, that's the end of it.’ No, they have to live with implications with their family,” Bertaina said. “They have to live with implications with their friends and with their community.”

A prominent convert Bertaina noted was Abd al-Masih—a ninth-century Muslim convert who participated in raids against Christianity before he became a monk and eventually faced martyrdom.

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Allen Challenges Southern Baptists to Make Five Healthy Choices for a Stable Future in McCall Leadership Lecture February 17, 2022

Southern Baptists are facing numerous challenges that must be met by faithful leadership and an unyielding commitment to confessional and biblical fidelity, Jason Allen told Southern Seminary students Thursday morning in the Duke K. McCall Leadership Lecture at Alumni Memorial Chapel.

At the moment, there are critics on every side of the Southern Baptist Convention and challenges galore, he said, but this is not the first time the denomination has faced serious battles without and within. Allen, a two-time graduate of Southern Seminary, is president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City.

“I believe that Southern Baptists are a great people,” Allen said. “I believe they are congregated in great churches and formed together in a great convention. Yes, God will discipline us from his Word and by his Spirit and even through instruments and means beyond our control like the secular media as they press in on our hypocrisies and on our failures.

“But at our heart, as a convention of churches, as a denomination, I believe Southern Baptists are a great people and to serve them is a glorious opportunity and a sweet stewardship. I say that I am an optimist about the Southern Baptist Convention, and I say that not half-heartedly. To be an optimist in these days might make one a contrarian but I believe that is a position we can take and should take.”

Allen said Southern Baptists must make five healthy choices if they will remain faithful. The denomination must:
 

  1. Choose biblical conviction over cultural accommodation

The SBC, her leaders, and churches, must not be ambiguous on major ethical issues of the day, even if it may seem the denomination is overreacting or comes off as alarmist to the watching world.

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Union with Christ is the Christian Doctrine of Salvation, Noted Theologian Says in Annual Norton Lectures February 14, 2022

Union with Christ is central to the doctrine of salvation, theologian Fred Sanders told the Southern Seminary community at this year’s Norton Lectures Series, held February 9-10 in Heritage Hall.

Sanders gave three lectures on “Union with Christ, Systematically Considered.” Sanders is professor of theology at Biola University and the author of numerous books, including The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything and The Triune God.

In the first lecture, Sanders argued that union with Christ is a unifying theme of soteriology, even though it is sometimes underplayed in contemporary theology.

“While it makes sense to speak about the Christian doctrine of God or the Christian doctrine of the incarnation,” Sanders said, “it seems somehow less believable in the contemporary world to assert that there is such a thing as one single Christian doctrine of salvation.

"It is the powerful, scriptural, and spiritual drive toward union with Christ that gave rise to the creeds."

Being prominently present in the early church councils and in the writings of reformer John Calvin, union with Christ is fundamental to any unified Christian teaching on salvation, he argued.

In the other lectures, Sanders examined the doctrine biblically and theologically.

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The Ultimate Goal of Theological Education is Holiness, Mohler says at Spring Convocation February 1, 2022

Studying theology at the deepest level is not an end to itself but is ultimately a means to the learner’s holiness, Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler told students and faculty Tuesday at the school’s annual Spring Convocation.

Drawing on 1 Peter 1:13-25, Mohler said studying the Word of God is such a high privilege, angels long to obtain such knowledge. The president’s address was titled, “Preparing Your Minds for Action: The Means and Ends of Christian Learning.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to think that there are angels that are envious of you,” Mohler said to students and faculty, (envious) of those who are going to be able to dive deeply into the truth of God’s Word, to look deeply into the truths revealed in Scripture, to know the doctrine and teaching of the church deeply, to understand the gospel more comprehensively.

“Angels long to look into these things. Angels—beings created for the glory of God—have a knowledge certainly, but the knowledge given to us in Scripture is superior to their knowledge.”

In 1 Peter and many other places in Scripture, such as Leviticus 11:44, God commands his people to be holy because he is holy. Mohler said this is the ultimate goal for all study of God’s Word. He noted that theological education is merely the means to the end of holiness, and the two must never be confused.

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SCOTUS Ruling on Vaccine Mandate a Vindication for Religious Liberty, Mohler says January 13, 2022

Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to block the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses was a major victory for religious liberty and the rule of law, Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler said.

The nation’s highest court ruled that the Biden administration does not have the authority through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to force all employers with more than 100 employees to require vaccination or weekly testing of all employees.

“We are very thankful for this ruling by the United States Supreme Court,” Mohler said. “This is a vindication of our cause from the very beginning. The issue here is not the vaccine, but the attempt by the Biden administration to turn employers, including religious employers, into extensions of the administrative state. It was vital that the Supreme Court preclude a federal agency such as OSHA from coercing religious employers into violating their conscience and that of employees who may be divided over the question of vaccines on convictional grounds.

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Pastor-Historian Eric Smith joins Church History Faculty at Southern Seminary January 6, 2022

President Albert Mohler has appointed Tennessee pastor and two-time Southern Seminary alumni Eric Smith to the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Smith, who received both his M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southern, will serve as Associate Professor of Church History. He has been the Senior Pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in Savannah, Tennessee, since 2013, a role he will continue while serving on faculty at Southern.

“Eric Smith is a premier historian who has already produced a wealth of important research on the Baptist tradition and church history,” Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler said.

“He is a model scholar with the heart of a pastor. His research is stellar, and his heart for the church is evident. I am incredibly proud that he has joined the Southern Seminary faculty, and generations of students will bear his professorial imprint.”

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“We Have to Live Out Our Faith”: SBTS Alum Leads Church Amid the Rubble of Deadly Storm’s Wake December 20, 2021

Thirty to sixty seconds.

That’s how long it took for the storm to explode Wes Fowler’s carefully regimented weekly schedule and, of profoundly more importance, to change his life and the lives of Mayfield, Kentucky’s citizens forever.

Fowler, a PhD student at Southern Seminary and 2015 DMin graduate, spent the daytime hours that Friday as most busy pastors do—finishing his sermon and preparing his heart to preach to God’s people on the fast-approaching Lord’s Day.

But by the next day, Fowler was being interviewed by CNN, the Washington Post, and other local and national media outlets about what had unfolded in his hometown during that tragic half-minute late Friday night.

Fowler, with his wife and three kids, survived the deadly tornado that obliterated Mayfield, Kentucky, and the surrounding area on December 10, killing at least 84, including one member of the church he pastors, First Baptist Church of Mayfield. Several FBC members lost homes and property. Mercifully, the storm spared Fowler’s house.

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You Are Called to Shepherd the Flock of God, Mohler Tells Graduates at Southern’s Fall Commencement December 10, 2021

Seminary graduates are called to be ministers, but fundamental to that calling is the task of shepherding the flock of God, Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler said Friday morning at the school’s fall commencement.

SBTS graduated 233 students at its 228th commencement with 159 graduates walking across the stage to accept their degrees. Southern’s commencement was a beautiful picture of God’s global gospel work with graduates from many countries, including China, Portugal, Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, India, England, and others.

Examining Micah 5:1-5, Mohler said the pattern of leadership throughout Scripture from king David to Jesus includes shepherding, which sits at the heart of what the graduates are called to do on mission fields, classrooms, counseling sessions, and local churches.

“What is happening in this room today? What is the cause of our celebration?” Mohler asked graduates. “We are seeing minister-shepherds sent out into the world. . . . When David became a king, was he no longer a shepherd? Hardly. Israel was to have a shepherd-king, a king who would shepherd his flock.

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In Presidential Address, Mohler Outlines Four Temptations Facing the Evangelical Theological Society November 19, 2021

Four temptations frame the past, present, and future of the Evangelical Theological, Albert Mohler said Wednesday night in his presidential address at the 73rd annual meeting of ETS in Fort Worth, Texas.

Mohler, this year’s ETS president, cited fundamentalism, atheism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant liberalism as temptations that have framed the organization’s challenge and forged its identity since its humble beginnings in 1949, when founders first met at a YMCA in downtown Cincinnati. All four temptations have existed since that initial organizational meeting, he said, but they have only grown more significant over the years.

Southern Seminary’s president cited fundamentalism as the first temptation.

While ETS is fundamentalist in the sense that evangelicals hold to fundamental Christian doctrines such as the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, the person and work of Christ, and the Trinity, the organization rejected fundamentalism’s tendencies to withdraw from culture. Mohler said that ETS must also steer clear of the theological eccentricities that have sometimes characterized fundamentalists over the past few decades.

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