SPECIAL ISSUE THE TIE VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 SOUTHERN …d3pi8hptl0qhh4.cloudfront.net/media/publications/magazine/2005Special.pdf · The Apostle Peter, under the inspi-ration of the

S P E C I A L I S S U E T H E T I E V O L U M E 7 3 , N U M B E R 4

SOUTHERNSEMINARY

The Apostle Peter, under the inspi-

ration of the Holy Spirit, instructs

believers to always be “ready to

make a defense to everyone who

asks you to give an account for the

hope that is in you.” For a variety of reasons, the concept of defending one’s faith

has become stranger than it used to be. While Paul could readily respond to the Athenians who wanted to know the “new teach-ings” and “strange things” that they were hearing, it is quite a different story to try to offer the hope of the Gospel to a genera-tion whose greatest philosophical musing is “Cool. So what?” This apathy has been encouraged by a vast moral downslide that has been heightened by a politically correct, multicultural, pluralism. This sinful trinity has had its effect on the minds of mil-lions. No longer are persons able to practice good discernment. They have been forbidden from making value judgments or en-gaging in critical thinking for fear of “hate speech” lawsuits.

Even within the church there has been a devaluing of the life of the mind. While believers are told to love Jesus with their hearts, their wristwatches and their pocketbooks, it seems that many churches have neglected to remind their congregations that the Greatest Commandment is not a mul-tiple choice test. Yet the testimony of the Scripture is that we are to guard our minds, prepare our minds, set our minds on things above and have our minds renewed. One must won-der if a Christian can be faithful and fruitful while neglecting the biblical command to love God with our minds.

While the Christian mind is only one component of a robust and well-round-ed believer, the attack on the mind calls believers to a special vigilance.

In response to this need, Southern Seminary has created the “Give Me An Answer” Collegiate Conference series. Designed to reach the current generation of college students with intelli-gent Christian answers for life’s most difficult questions, this con-ference series speaks to the concerns of our times.

The conference series is built around a different apologetic theme each year. Featuring Dr. Albert Mohler as the keynote

speaker, the conference also offers a wide variety of elective seminars focusing on is-sues related to that year’s theme. Themes in past years include:

• Postmodernism: Defending Truth in an Age of Anti-Truth

• Naked and Not Ashamed: A Biblical Perspective on Marriage, Sex, Gender, and the Family

• Why One Way?• Has God Really Spoken?• Who Do You Say That I Am?

Nearly 1,000 individuals from all over the southern, east-ern, northern and midwestern regions of the United States at-tend every year. From campus ministries and church-based college ministries to the Christian Medical and Dental Soci-ety, Christian Legal Society and deacon bodies, many people have profited from the teaching and training that Southern offers during the course of these two-day events.

Past participants have commented that the conference has been a time of personal revival as they considered, some for the very first time, what it means to love God with one’s mind. Some admit that they have thought more seriously about their walk with God and involvement in ministry while at the con-ference than they have their entire life. Others have contem-plated God’s call to ministry and chosen Southern Seminary as the place where He would have them prepare.

Each semester, more new students indicate that their first point of contact with the seminary was “The Give Me An An-swer” Conference. Their responses also indicate that there is much conceptual confusion regarding seminary — some referring to it as simply a graduate school for religious pro-fessionals while others view it as some kind of monastic es-capism from everyday life. Yet when they see serious minded professors and students dealing with real world issues from a biblical perspective, many of them begin to understand the significance that a seminary education holds for preparing people for ministry in the real world.

Scott DavisDirector of AdmissionsSouthern Seminary

Are you ready to make a defense

CONTENTSF E A T U R E

Is the Bible really inerrant?Stephen J. Wellum

Can we reclaim human sexuality for Christ?R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

What about celibacy?R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

What about the man on the island?Russell D. Moore

Is WWJD the right question?Mark T. Coppenger

Can God be put in a box?Bruce A. Ware

D E P A R T M E N T S

Student focus: Toby JenningsFinding ‘grace and truth’ at Southern Seminary

Faculty focus: Russell D. MooreQ&A with Russell D. Moore

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Under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the mission of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is to be totally committed to the Bible as the Word of God, to the Great Commission as our mandate, and to be a servant of

the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention by training, educating, and preparing ministers of the gospel for more faithful service.

The Southern Seminary Magazine (The TIE) (ISSN 00407232) is published four times a year by The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2825 Lexing-ton Road, Louisville, KY 40280, 1-800-626-5525.

Executive Editor: Lawrence A. Smith Editor: Peter Beck Associate Editor: Jeff RobinsonDesign Editor: Jared HallalAssociate Design Editor: John RogersPhotography: David MerrifieldProofreaders: David Roach, Garnetta Smith,

Jamie Theobald

Special Issue 2006. Vol. 73, No. 4. Copyright © 2006 The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Peri-odical postage paid at Louisville, KY. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Public Relations, 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40280, or e-mail us at [email protected].

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page 2 www.GiveMeAnAnswer.net | Southern Seminary Magazine

Southern Seminary Magazine | www.GiveMeAnAnswer.net page 3

T he question before us is not only of

crucial importance but difficult to

address fully in a brief article. There

are so many facets to it that have to be reflected

upon carefully in order to give an adequate an-

swer. So the approach I will take is first to address

four preliminary questions before I turn briefly to

the issue at hand.

Why should we affirm biblical inerrancy?

Simply stated, we affirm biblical inerrancy because of Scrip-

ture’s own self-testimony. As one evaluates any particular world-

view, it is important first to begin with the specific claims of that

worldview. Christianity is a worldview and if we are to evaluate

and understand its claims, particularly the claim of Scripture,

we must begin with its own self-testimony. When we do so,

we discover that Scripture makes the astounding claim that it

is nothing less than God’s Word written. For example, one can

think of 2 Timothy 3:16, where the Old Testament Scriptures

are described as “God breathed” and thus authoritative in every

area of our life. In the expression, “God breathed” Paul picks

up the imagery of creation where God spoke and the universe

came into existence (Gen 1:1-2). So, in relation to His Word,

the sovereign, personal God of the universe has spoken again

and given us His Word through the agency of human authors

(2 Pet 1:20-21). And it is precisely because He stands behind

His Word as the Creator and Lord — the God who knows and

plans all things (Eph 1:11), who cannot lie (Num 23:19), and

who cannot change His mind (1 Sam 15:29; Heb 6:18) – that

we have a text, Scripture, that is completely reliable and true.


This claim is borne out, not just in one or two texts, but per-

vasively throughout the entire canon of Scripture. From the

opening pages of the Old Testament, we are presented with

the God who speaks with all authority. And as redemptive his-

tory unfolds and comes to fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ,

He comes with staggering claims that He is God the Son whose

word is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and thus noth-

ing less than the standard by which we are to live and evaluate

everything (e.g. Matt 5:17-19; 7:21-29; John 14:6). In this claim,

our Lord puts His own stamp of approval on the Old Testament

and, furthermore, prepares us for an authoritative New Testa-

ment through His apostles by the agency of the Holy Spirit (see

John 16:5-15; Eph 2:20; cf. Heb 1:1-3).

So why do we affirm biblical inerrancy? Because this is pre-

cisely what the Bible claims for itself: the true and living God

of the universe has not remained silent but He has dis-

closed Himself to us, over the ages, culminating in His

Son, through a Word-revelation. Now in light of this,

it should not surprise us that the Bible treats itself as

inerrant. Think of how, for example, the New Testa-

ment treats the Old Testament in regard to historical

details. Even the seemingly most insignificant details

are considered true. Whether it is David eating the

consecrated bread (Matt 12:3-4), Jonah and the great fish

(Matt 12:40), the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon (Matt 12:42)

or Elijah being sent to the widow of Zarephath (Luke 2:25-26),

all are treated as reliable. Or think through how the New Testa-

ment appeals to the Old Testament based upon a single word

(Matt 22:43-45; Gal 3:16) or the tense of a verb (Matt 22:32). In

every case, the Bible not only claims to be God’s Word that is

utterly reliable and true, it also treats it that way in practice.

Why is it important to affirm biblical inerrancy?

The reason is quite simple, yet profound: without biblical iner-

rancy we would have no basis to affirm that the God of the Bible

has truly spoken definitively and objectively. Without an inerrant

Word-revelation we might be able to make fine hypotheses about

God and the world, but none of them would rise to the level

of being properly grounded. Why? Because with-

out inerrancy we would have no foundation

upon which to justify our beliefs since any

statement of Scripture may be false. It is

important to note that I am not saying that

if Scripture errs at any point then all statements of Scripture are

necessarily false; that does not follow. Rather, what I am asserting

is that if the Bible is errant at any point, it allows for the possibility

that any statement may be false and if so, then one would need

an independent criterion to justify which statements of Scrip-

ture are in fact true and false. But this raises a further problem.

Not only would Scripture not be able to be used as a sufficient

ground of justification in itself, but what would these independent

criterions be? Human reason? Religious experience? Scholarship?

The problem with all of these “popular” solutions to grounding

our beliefs in something other than an inerrant Scripture is that

they require their own independent justification. So, in the end,

without an inerrant Scripture as the foundation for grounding

our theological beliefs, we have lost the ability to do theology and

know truth in a universal, objective way.

This is no small point. Today, the crisis we face

on every hand is an authority crisis. Whether it is in

issues of morality, philosophy or religion, we are

surrounded by a pluralistic and postmodern age

that has no grounds for saying, “This is right” ver-

sus “That is wrong” or “This is true” versus “That is

false” or “Jesus Christ is the only Savior versus other

competitors.” We live in a day that has seen a massive

loss of truth from the academy to the street and even in the

pew. Indeed, we have lost any sense that God has spoken and

that He has revealed Himself to us in a definitive way. Instead,

we have argued that all we have are finite perspectives that do

not yield universal, objective truth. That is why people today

have affirmed that morality is in the eye of the beholder or

that one’s religious viewpoint, no matter how diverse, must be

accepted as equal. But, if God has spoken to us, which is pre-

cisely what the Bible claims for itself, and if we have access to

His spoken Word in a Word-revelation, then it is possible

to affirm universal, objective grounds for morality,

human thought and theology. That is why it

is important to affirm that Scripture is

nothing less than God’s infal-

lible and inerrant Word.



What do we mean by the term “biblical inerrancy”?

This is an important ques-

tion because people, unfortu-

nately, mean different things

by the term “inerrancy.” Before

we can give any evidence for it,

we must first become clear as to

what it means. The working defini-

tion that has become fairly standard

in evangelical circles is the one given

by the late Paul Feinberg: “When all the

facts are known, the Bible in its original

autographs and properly interpreted will be

shown to be wholly true and never false in

all that it affirms, whether that has to do with

our doctrine, ethics, the physical, social, or life

sciences.”1 This definition makes it clear that iner-

rancy does not merely pertain to matters of salvation, as

some have sought to reduce it to; rather, it pertains to all

areas that Scripture touches, whether that is history, science

or theology. Even though Scripture is not a science or his-

tory textbook, since it is God’s Word, when it intersects with

those areas it is completely reliable and true.

At this point I must register a couple of caveats for the sake

of clarity. When we claim that the Scriptures are inerrant, we

must be careful that we do not impose false criteria on Scrip-

ture. For example, some will point to statements in Scripture

which say that the “sun rises or sets” and then wrongly charge

Scripture with being outdated, geocentric and thus errant.

But this is not correct. Scripture does not purport to be an

astronomical textbook; it speaks to us in ordinary, phenome-

nological language that describes reality in a truthful way, yet

not always in the precise language of science or other disci-

plines. Ironically, even living in the 21st century, we still read in

the weather section of our newspapers – “sunrise” and “sun-

set” – without charging the paper with error. Here is another

example: Scriptural language can be true without being

precise in terms of our current cultural standards.

Precision must be defined in accord with Scripture’s

time period, context and the author’s intention.

Just think of how the New Testament quotes the

Old Testament. In our day when we quote another

person we have to do it word-for-word,

otherwise we are charged with plagia-

rism. However, in the New Testament

era quotations were not done with

quotation marks or in the word-

for-word fashion that we have

today for a variety of reasons.

So when the New Testa-

ment paraphrases the

Old Testament, or

the Gospel writ-

ers paraphrase

the words of

Christ, this

in no way

counts as errors.

We must, in the

end, define inerrancy

according to the Bible’s own standards tied

to the author’s intention and the literary form of the book

(whether it is narrative, poetry, apocalyptic literature, etc.).

When all of this is considered, our working definition of iner-

rancy is a fine place to begin.

What is the relationship between evidences and worldviews?

Our last preliminary question is an important one since it

reminds us that the question of evidence for biblical inerrancy

is often in the eyes of the beholder. That is, evidence is inti-

mately tied to one’s worldview commitments. We must not

think that evidence is brute or self-interpreting and clear to all

people. People approach the data with worldview beliefs that

often affect how they interpret the evidence. For example, if

I give a naturalist the compelling historical evidence for the

bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, even though that evidence

is solid, apart from me also undercutting his naturalistic view-

point that denies the very possibility of miracles, he will find a

way either to deny the evidence or re-interpret it in such a way

that contradicts Scripture.

Obviously more needs to be said on such an important sub-

ject, but for our purposes it should serve as a reminder that,

as we now turn to some evidences for biblical inerrancy, we

need to be cognizant of the fact that we are also defending an

entire biblical worldview along with that evidence. It is not as



if one can defend the Christian worldview merely by appealing

to evidence apart from the entire worldview package. World-

views come to us as wholes. When we give evidence for bib-

lical inerrancy, much of the evidence is also predicated upon

a Christian view of the world. So, a defense of the evidence is

also a defense of the entire worldview. But, given the fact that

the Bible’s claim is that the true and living God has created this

world, rules over it and has acted in history to bring about our

salvation in Christ, we should then expect that the Bible can be

shown to be true where it intersects with history. Let us now

sketch out some of the evidence for this expectation.

What are the Historical Evidences for Biblical Inerrancy?

Needless to say, this is a

huge area to discuss, but let

me briefly demonstrate that

the Bible makes good on its

claims in the area of histori-

cal reliability. Four tests are

usually applied to documents

to test whether they are his-

torically reliable. In each of

these tests the Bible passes

with flying colors.

The first test is known

as the bibliographic test.

This test seeks to deter-

mine whether the ancient

document in question has

been accurately transmit-

ted to us. How close are

our present documents

to the original writings so

that we can be assured

that legendary material has

not crept in and we really

know what Jesus, Isaiah or

Moses said? Has this docu-

ment been reliably copied

and transmitted? When it

comes to Scripture, we can

be assured that the books we have now accurately reflect

that which was originally given. In terms of the New Testa-

ment we have literally thousands of Greek manuscripts and

writings of the Church Fathers that allow us to determine

whether accurate transmission has taken place. And even

though the Old Testament is much older, given the Dead Sea

Scrolls discovery in 1947, we have been able to confirm the

accurate transmission of the Old Testament as well, so much

so that it is beyond question that our texts today accurately

reflect what was originally given.2

The second test of historical reliability is the internal test.

When we read an ancient document does it internally claim to

be actual history written by eyewitnesses, and

if so, what grounds does it give for us to

believe its claim? Once again, let us

think of the New Testament in this

regard. Not only does the New

Testament claim to be written by

eyewitnesses of our Lord Jesus

(see Luke 1:1-4; 1 Cor 15:1-11;

2 Pet 1:16), but there is also no

reason to doubt this claim. For

example, the New Testament

writers were certainly able and

willing to tell the truth; in fact,

they had little to gain if they

were lying. Furthermore, it is

hard to conceive of how the

church could have spread so

rapidly unless the testimony

about Jesus actually reflected

the historical details. Even

within the documents we see

details that reflect the time

period of Jesus and not a later

time period, which gives us

confidence that these docu-

A replica of the Mesha Stela, made for Mesha, king of Moab, recording his successful revolt against Omri, king of Israel, is located in the Joseph A. Callaway Archaeological Museum on the Southern Seminary Campus.


ments were not written later or that material was added that

did not take place. In all of these “marks of historicity,” we have

solid grounds, internally, to think that the Scripture is histori-

cally reliable.3

The dating of the documents is the third test for histori-

cal reliability. In the case of the New Testament, a lot has been

written as to the date of the books. Most of the books should

be dated prior to A.D. 70 and many of them were

probably written in the late 50s and early 60s. This

means that there was very little time for non-histor-

ical material to creep into the books due to the fact

that there were still people alive who could verify

the accuracy of the accounts. Interestingly, when

the New Testament is compared to other ancient

writings such as Plato or Aristotle, the time gap

between the actual events of the New Testament

and the writings themselves is incredibly small.4

The last test of historicity is the external test.

This test seeks to ask whether there is material

“outside of ” the documents which can confirm the

statements of the documents (e.g. archaeology,

writings of other authors, etc.). The literature on

this point is legion. What we have discovered over

the years, especially in the field of archaeology, is

how accurate Scripture is, often reversing previ-

ous views of those who questioned the reliability

of Scripture. Even though there is still more work

to be done and we do not tie our belief in the iner-

rancy of Scripture to the latest in archaeological

research, there is an abundant amount of evidence

which confirms our conviction that Scripture is

completely reliable.

Here are a few examples:

The existence of the Patriarchs has long been

questioned. Even though we do not have direct external evi-

dence proving their existence, it has been shown that Genesis

12–50 fits within the time period described in such details as:

the price paid for Joseph (Gen 27:28), specific forms of treaties

(Gen 15), places such as Haran, Ur and Hebron and the Egyp-

tological background to the Joseph narratives.

So-called “missing persons, peoples and places” have now

been found, such as: Belshazzar (Dan 5), Sargon (Isa 20), Jehoi-

achin (2 Kgs 25:27–30), the Hittites (Gen 10:15) and Horites

(Gen 36:20) and the city of Ophir (1 Kgs 9:28).

The work of William Ramsey (1851-1939), who first ques-

tioned the reliability of Luke came to affirm the first-rate histor-

ical work of Luke in such details as the political arrangements

of the provinces of Asia (Acts 13:7; 16:38; 17:6; 19:31; 28:7) and

the Roman census (Luke 2:1-4).

The historical accuracy is seen in John’s gospel in such

details as buildings and landscapes (John 4:4, 11, 19, 46, 49, 51;

5:2; 10:22-23) and people (John 1:28, 35-42; 3:23, 25).

Stephen J. Wellum is associate professor Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

FOOTNOTES1 See Paul Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman Geisler

(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), 267-304.2 For more details on this important point see Walter Kaiser, Jr. The OT Documents:

Are They Reliable and Relevant? (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001) and Paul Barnett, Is the New Testament Reliable? (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

3 For a further development of the “internal” test see the books already cited plus Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove: InterVar-sity Press, 1987).

4 On the dating of the NT books see D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament. 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).

Obviously, much more could and needs

to be said. But we have begun to see,

albeit in a brief way, that there is plenty

of evidence for biblical inerrancy. Ultimately, it

must be stressed, that we affirm inerrancy because

of the scriptural claim. But it is also the scriptural

claim which gives us the conviction that when

Scripture touches any area, including history,

when all the facts are in, the Bible will be seen

to be wholly true and never false. It is not wish-

ful thinking to believe that we have solid grounds

for our confidence in God’s authoritative and

inerrant Scripture. May we thank our great God

for His Word, both in affirming its truth and living

according to its instruction in every area of our

life, to God’s glory, and for the sake of our great

Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ.



One of the questions being asked of

us is whether Christianity has any-

thing distinctive to say about hu-

man sexuality. All around America and indeed

throughout the world, there is an ongoing con-

versation about sex. It is 24 hours a day, seven

days a week, and it is incessant, non-stop and

unhealthy. We are living in a truly pornographic

society by any estimation, with sexual imagery

driving not only so much of the entertainment

world, but advertising as well. We live in some

kind of post-Christian culture in which the em-

barrassment and awkwardness of talking about

sex is seen as an antique artifact. And we live

in a culture where the autonomous self is the

source of all meaning and the determiner of

all value. That self seeks pleasure, gratification

and self-actualization, and sex is understood as

a means by which the self actualizes itself.


With the increased sophistication that has come to us in

this postmodern age, the culture holds that all sexual morality

is simply a matter of social construction. There is no objective

right and wrong. Furthermore, it is understood in the culture

that sexual morality as it once was constructed was inherently

oppressive. The sole concern of a culture built on individualism

is the expression of the self, and if that self is told that what it

seeks to do is wrong, against nature or sinful, those are oppres-

sive terms that have no place in the culture that has now come

of age. Understanding this is necessary to take into account the

full paradigm shift that is before us.

This is where we as Christians had better think carefully about

how we will give an answer to questions about human sexuality.

There are some things that we need to acknowledge up front.

First, Christians are not necessarily good at talking about

sex. The world assumes that. The world assumes that we can-

not talk about it because we are embarrassed to talk about it

or we have nothing to say. Christians had better learn how to

discuss sex in a godly way, in a theological context and within a

biblical framework because this is a missiological challenge for

us as much as a moral challenge.

Secondly, the world assumes not only that we are embar-

rassed to talk about sex; it assumes that what we have to say

can be summarized in a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” – mostly

“don’ts.” So, there must be a rationale given, a biblical whole-

ness demonstrated, that shows a pattern of Christian moral rea-

soning that makes sense.

And the third issue about which the world holds the church

in suspicion is that in reality we do not live up to our standards

anyway. Their suspicion is that Christianity is a form of institu-

tionalized hypocrisy. We need to be willing to stand before the

world and admit that it is hypocrisy when Christians wink at

sexual sin and compromise sexual sin when it is convenient for

us. But hypocrisy is not seen when Christians commit sexual

sin and it is acknowledged as sexual sin. It is a grievous injury

to the church and to Christian witness, but it is only hypocrisy

if we lie about it and fail to take it with seriousness.

We must speak about these things. We need to speak know-

ing that there is, in Scripture, a long list of “don’ts” and a very

short list of “do’s.” But there is a comprehensive plan and pat-

tern for human sexuality behind these “do’s” and “don’ts” that

has been given to us by the one true and living God. And we

have to speak to the world as sinners saved by grace, not as

those who have not sinned. Every single sexual struggle out

there in the world is a sexual struggle found somewhere in the

church. The difference is that the people in the church are a

people under command. We are the purchased people of the

Lord Jesus Christ, living under His reign, saved by grace and

dependent upon that grace every single moment of our lives,

lest we likewise fall into sin. With these issues before us, let’s

think about how Christians might talk about sex.

Gender MattersFirst of all, we cannot begin where the world wants to begin.

The world rather urgently wants to say, “Let’s begin talking

about sex. Now how do you do it and with whom do you do

it and what all can you do?” We cannot begin there; we have to

begin with a big picture. We begin in the book of Genesis with

a classic verse that is very important to us: “God created man

in His own image, in the image of God He created them. Male

and female He created them” (Gen 1:27). The larger world says

that gender – what it means to be man and woman, male and

female – is nothing more than a social construction. There is

really nothing essentially different about men and women. The

entire profile we associate with masculinity and femininity, all

the roles and responsibilities, the world says is nothing more

God glorifies Himself in our gender


than an embedded reality, an artifact of cultural development.

As Christians we must turn to Scripture for our response.

That is the authority by which we know anything. We need to

look to God’s Word and seek to hear the voice of the Lord and

come to understand the answers to these deepest of questions.

Here, in Genesis 1:27, God tells us that men and women are

both made in His image. Theologians have debated what that

is for centuries, but let’s just summarize it this way: It is that

God-given capacity that makes us distinctively human — the

capacity to know our Creator. That is at least in part and in sum

the image of God. It is not the case that one gender bears the

image of God and not the other. The distinctions were a part of

His sovereign design.

When Southern Baptists revised our statement of faith, the

Baptist Faith and Message, in the year 2000, one of

the things that we added was the statement

under the doctrine of man, that gender

is a part of the goodness of God’s cre-

ation. In other words, God glori-

fies Himself in our gender. This

means that a man’s maleness and

a woman’s femaleness glorifies

God, and to deny this is to rob God

of His glory.

The central text of our concern here is

Genesis 2:18 and following. Here we have

extended theological commentary on the reality

that God declared in Genesis 1:27. “Then the Lord God said,

‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper

suitable for him’” (Gen 2:18). This is not Adam’s self-expres-

sion; this is the Lord God saying that it is not good for man to

be alone. This is God saying, I will make for him a complement

– the best translation of helper — a fulfillment of him. That is

not a demotion. It is a reminder to every single man that he

is incomplete but for the existence of woman. It is a reminder

that man and masculinity and maleness mean absolutely noth-

ing of consequence without reference to woman. It is also true

that you cannot speak of woman without speaking of man.

Let us continue to verse 19. Here is the account of God

bringing every creature to Adam and Adam giving them names.

When I speak to people about the story of Genesis 2 they seem

to skip this account. In verse 18, you have the Lord God saying

it is not good for the man to be alone; I am going to make him

a helper,” and then instead of immediately following with the

creation of woman you have this account of Adam naming the

animals. This was an object lesson for Adam, one of the earli-

est object lessons in human history. Picture Adam as the Lord

presents every animal. Adam looked at a bunny and said that is

a rabbit. There were two of them, a “he” rabbit and a “she” rab-

bit. Then along came a pig, and there were two of them, a “he”

pig and a “she” pig. Then a giraffe, a “he” giraffe and a “she”

giraffe. Adam sees the entire animal kingdom, and notices that

all of the animals come in pairs but he finds no helper suitable

for him. The Lord God had declared that Adam was in need

of a partner, but He wanted Adam to come clearly to the con-

sciousness of this need.

Then, in verse 21, we have the creation of woman: “So

the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and

he slept and then He took one of his ribs and closed up the

flesh at that place.” They were not of a different

substance. We are not different species,

but the same species. The Lord God

had a purpose in all of this, and

a purpose in telling us this in His

revealed Word. In verse 23, you

have Adam calling the new cre-

ation “woman,” as he recognizes

that she was created from him and

is his suitable helper.

Suddenly, the issue becomes bigger

than just Adam and Eve. The paradigmatic pat-

tern for all human beings follows: “For this reason a man shall

leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and

they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). We should notice

that this text comes so early in the Bible, and is so fundamental

to our understanding of what it means to be human. It sets in

such clear relief that the pattern for human beings is hetero-

sexual marriage, period. Here we have the paradigm with the

theological explanation that it is not good for the man to be

alone. He shall be joined to his wife and they shall become one

flesh. The one flesh relationship does speak, I believe, of a con-

jugal act, of the act of sexual intercourse. But it also speaks of

something far more fundamental than that, something far more

theological and rich. It speaks of us becoming one flesh in the

covenant of marriage before God.

Verse 25 goes on to tell us something that is nothing less

than remarkable. The man and his wife, notice that there is

now a relationship – it is not just man and woman, it is man

and wife, reflecting the covenant of marriage. And verse 25 tells

us that they are both naked and not ashamed.


Naked and Not Ashamed“Naked and not ashamed.” The world can’t understand that

series of words put together. How can one be naked and not

ashamed? The only way the world can deal with that is to say

that there is no shame in any human nakedness. Sex is noth-

ing more than bodies in motion. There is no moral value to it,

and because there is no moral value there is also no shame. It

is at this point that we as Christians must stand up and say the

only way that the man and the woman can be naked and not

ashamed is when the relationship is pure and holy before God.

Immediately following the account in Scripture of God creating

Eve comes the fall. Here, sin entered the human race as Adam and

Eve rebelled against God, seeking to rob God of His glory. As soon

as Adam and Eve sinned they realized that they were naked, which

brought shame. They stitched together fig leaves for aprons and

covered those parts of their bodies that gave them shame. Sinful-

ness has warped human sexuality ever since.

Thus, as human beings, even as Christians, we can’t talk

about sex without talking about sin. There

is sin even in the sexual relatedness of a

man and a woman who are Christians in

marriage. But the closest human beings

can get to being naked and not ashamed

is standing in the perfection of God’s gift

of marriage and in the purity of that cov-

enant. That testifies to God’s glory and

that is what Christians must stand up

and proclaim. Only in marriage can

people be naked and not ashamed.

Why is nakedness dangerous? Why

did Adam and Eve cover themselves

and why was there shame? Human

sexuality gets at the core of our being.

Even the world understands that. It

is not our sole identity, but it is an

essential part of what it means to

be human, and because of sin

it is very dangerous. After Gen-

esis 3, after sin, nakedness can

never be separated from lust, from

sexual excitement, attraction and

manipulation.

In the book of Genesis, the Bible talks

about the act of sex. In the King James

Version, it says that Adam “knew” Eve.

That word “know” is far richer than we might otherwise think.

We need to be reminded that in the biblical worldview sex is a

knowledge. In the act of sex there is an exchange of knowledge

that is incommunicable in any other way, by any other means.

There is a physical, emotional and spiritual knowledge that is

exchanged in sex. That explains why it is so precious and so

deadly and dangerous. We need to understand sex as knowl-

edge in order to get this down very clearly.

The covenant of marriage means that a man is to be restricted

to one woman in terms of his sexual knowledge. He is to know

this one woman physically, emotionally and spiritually, and he is

to know no other woman in this way. And the same is true of a

woman. That helps us to understand why the defilement of mar-

riage by adultery is so devastating. It is not just the movement of

bodies; it is an exchange of knowledge. Premarital sex is so danger-

ous. There is an exchange of knowledge where there is no right to

know, and it is a sin against God as it robs God of His glory. There

is a knowledge in sex. It is a precious knowledge in the context

of marriage. It is a devastating knowledge elsewhere. The insti-

tution of marriage is the only context in

which we can be naked and not ashamed.

ConclusionLet me summarize by reducing what I

have said to two basic principles that frame

everything under the glory of God.

First, in Scripture there is a celebra-

tion of marital love and marital sex.

Notice that I did not say toleration,

accommodation or reluctant conces-

sion, but a celebration of marital love

and marital sex.

Secondly, there is a condemnation of

every form and expression of sex outside

the marital covenant. God is glorified in His

human creatures when we are rightly related

to Him and when we use the gifts He has

given us in the way He intended for them

to be used. Any effort to use those gifts in

a way that God did not intend robs Him of

His glory and is a form of sin.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Joseph Emerson Brown professor of theology.


In verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, “Concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man

not to touch a woman.” Paul speaks in this chapter about the gift of celibacy. The classic section for this

teaching is found in verses 32-35. Paul says the one who is unmarried should only be concerned about

pleasing the Lord, whereas the one who is married also seeks to please his spouse. This is a profound thought,

since the Lord God said it was not good for man to be alone and created woman.

One thing we need to acknowledge is that celibates are not

a third sex. A man given the gift of celibacy is still a man, and a

woman given the gift of celibacy is still a woman. Their completion

in celibacy is marked by the fact that they do not burn with lust.

Notice that this is the gift of celibacy, not singleness. The Bible has

no concept of singleness. The assumption in the Old Testament was

that if you were an adult you were married. As soon as Isaac had

reached a point of sexual maturity, Abraham sent one of his ser-

vants to find a wife for his son. The default understanding in the Old

Testament is that adult equals married. The same is true in the New

Testament. But the gift of celibacy is an important exception, one

that current evangelicals have lost.

In verse 32 and following, Paul says that there are some who

can have undivided attention. It is not that they have not gotten

around to being married or have not committed to get married or

hate the other sex. It is that they have come to terms in their own

self-understanding as informed by Scripture under the lordship of

Jesus Christ, and affirmed by Christian friends and the communion

of saints, that God has set them apart to be celibate. This is a pre-

cious gift, given to some to maximize their service so that they may

give undivided attention to the things of the Lord.

A part of marriage is having divided attention. A man who is

married can’t be as fully deployed in the service of the Lord as

one who is unmarried, because he has covenantal responsibili-

ties before God to his wife. Those who have been given the gift of

celibacy, including the apostle Paul, have nourished the Christian

church throughout its history. We need to honor those who are

given that gift.


By R. Albert Mohler, Jr.


What about the Man on the Island


What about a man on an island?”

Fifteen year-old Timothy interject-

ed this question in the middle of

a youth Bible study on the topic of missions.

“What about a man who has been stranded

on a deserted island from the day he was

born and he’s never seen another person,”

he continued, to the sounds of nervous

coughs and aluminum folding chairs shift-

ing on the tile floor. “He’s never seen a Bible

and never heard of Jesus. What will happen

to him when he dies?”What indeed will happen to him when he dies? A ques-

tion about an imaginary sojourner on a hypothetical

island represents far more than the speculative question

of a curious teenager. Instead, the destiny of the man on

the island points to one of the most perilous theological

fault-lines in contemporary evangelicalism. While post-Vat-

ican II Catholicism and mainline Protestantism long ago

moved past such questions toward an embrace of various

forms of religious pluralism, conservative evangelicals

remained, until recently, resolute in their contention that

salvation comes only through explicit faith in Christ. A

new stream of reformist evangelicals, however, has offered

hope for the man on the island either in some form of

religious inclusivism or in a postmortem opportunity for

evangelization.1 Some of this movement’s scholars have

dismissed a recent evangelical document on the nature of

the Gospel precisely because the statement affirms that

explicit faith in Christ is necessary for salvation.2

Perhaps more crucial to the debate than the arguments

of the theologians is the shift in attitude of many conser-

vative evangelical churchgoers. Increasingly, pop evan-

gelicalism is inclined to consign the man on the island

to a place in the new heavens and the new earth without

giving it a second thought. After all, what else could be

fair? This shift brings with it commanding implications.

A church’s viewpoint on the eternal destination of those

who never hear the Gospel throws a searchlight on their

understanding of the nature of sin, the content of the

Gospel and the task of global missions. The next genera-

tion of American evangelicals must grapple with this ques-

“

illustration by Mark Cable


tion or see conservative Protestantism severed from the Great

Commission mandate of the historic church.

What Does He Know? The Unevangelized and the Revelation of God

The theological queasiness of many evangelicals on the

question of the destiny of the unevangelized stems, at least

in part, from a blurring of the doctrine of revelation. Is the

man on the island really ignorant of the Creator and the

demands of His law? This is a good question and arises from

a biblical impulse. God does not arbitrarily assign guilt to

those ignorant of His demands. Where there is no revelation

of the law, the Spirit says, there is no sin (Rom 5:13). But is

this the case with the man on the island? It seems that this

issue of the guilt of the “ignorant” is precisely the question

the apostle Paul addresses in the opening chapters of his

letter to the churches at Rome.

The apostle John asserts that the divine Logos “enlightens

every man” (John 1:9) with the ability to receive revelation

and to grasp cognitively the truths set forth by his Creator.3

Far from an apology for inclusivism, however, the Scripture

portrays this revelation-mediating Logos as the very same

light-bearing Messiah who elicits universal revulsion from unre-

generate humans (John 3:19). The apostle Paul contends that

God has not hidden Himself from anyone, but inundates every-

one, including the unevangelized, with a constant and unwav-

ering revelation in the created order (Rom. 1:18-20) and in the

human conscience (Rom. 2:14-16). Nonetheless, this revelation

is universally suppressed as every human heart, left on its own,

clamors for idols of mind or matter (Rom. 1:22-23). This, the

apostle writes, leaves him “without excuse” (Rom 1:20). The

man on the island, he contends, is like a father in denial about

the obvious drug addiction of his teenage son, or an elderly

smoker ignoring the ominous signs of that persistent cough.

He wants to believe the unreal so much that he convinces

himself that all is well. The man on the island, just like all sin-

ners, does not want there to be a God to whom he will be held

accountable. And so he “suppresses the

truth in unrighteousness” (Rom

1:18), convincing himself

all along that “there is no

God” (Ps 53:1).

As much as con-

temporary evan-

gelicals would

be comforted

to embrace the

Enlightenment idea of the “noble savage” who is oblivious to

the existence of God and His just commandments, Scripture

confronts us with a very different picture. The man on the

island is not entirely ignorant.

Instead, he is so haunted day

and night by the Creator who

shows Himself in the star-filled

expanse, the intricately-ordered

sand beach and his own persistently

accusing conscience that he is “without ex-

cuse” for his refusal to glorify and worship his God

(Rom 1:21).

What Has He Done? The Unevangelized and the Guilt of Sin

Contemporary attempts to muddy the

waters on the question of the destiny of

the unevangelized uncover a disturbing

downgrade in the church’s understand-

ing of the nature of sin. The idea that God may sentence the

man on the island to everlasting punishment seems unjust

to many evangelical moderns because they no longer rec-

ognize the biblical teachings on the holiness of God and

the depravity of fallen humanity. The persistent “fairness”

question is in one sense appropriate since God has revealed

Himself to be just and impartial. And yet the “fairness” plea

from our pews unconsciously reveals just what we think

about the seriousness of human sin and the holiness of our

covenant God.

The impact of some aspects of contemporary evangelical

methodology plays a role in this debate. For a generation or

more, evangelical churchgoers have heard from their pulpits

that unbelievers face not the wrath of God, but “separation”

from Him. Those in the pews hear that sinners are not sent to

hell on the basis of their violation of God’s law, but that sinners

send themselves to hell on the basis of their rejection of the

Gospel. This understating is at least partly right. Those who

reject the Christ are said in Scripture to have “trampled under

foot the Son of God” (Heb 10:29). Nonetheless, the unregener-

ate sinner stands before God guilty, not only due to one iso-

lated act of decision, but because of an entire life of rebellion

against God. The sinner will be judged at the holy tribunal of

God, not based merely on the absence of faith, but based on

the “deeds done in the body” (2 Cor 5:10), namely his own

refusal to abide by the law etched inextricably on his heart.

The Scripture does not speak of the man on the island as an

innocent bystander to the tragic human story. At the dawn of



creation, he, along with the rest of humanity, was represented

by Adam and is in covenant union with his first father (Rom

5:12-21).4 The man on the island identifies himself as a willful

co-conspirator with Adam by constant mutiny against

God (Ps 51:5). The biblical witness

is unmistakably clear that no

one is exempt from sin (Rom

3:9-18) and no sin is ignored by

the justice of God (Mark 4:22).

Indeed, every funeral service seems to

echo Yahweh’s words in the primeval garden: “In the

day you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 3:17).

The man on the island may be physically sepa-

rated from the rest of humanity, but he is still

a participant in the worldwide, centuries-

long revolt against God. His sole hope

is to be united in faith to the Messiah

whose sin-bearing sacrifice was found

acceptable in the sight of God.

The insistence of some in evangelical churches that this

is “unfair” of God betrays a dangerously faulty understanding

of grace.5 God does not owe that man on the island (or the

author of this article) a means of salvation. Indeed, He has pro-

vided no redemption for fallen angels (Heb 2:16). The man on

the island (and the author of this article) owes to the Creator

perfect and unwavering obedience

and wholehearted love. Since

rebellious human hearts rather

delight in sin, every human

being — including the

man on the island (and

the author of this

article) — deserves

everlasting, con-

scious punishment

for treason against an

infinitely holy God. It

is sheer graciousness

that God has indeed

provided salvation for the

man on the island — through

the atonement of the Messiah

Himself, an offer that is entrusted to

the missionary mandate of His pilgrim church.

What Does He Matter? The Unevangelized and the Great Commission Mandate

The equivocation with which many approach this issue

reflects a withering of evangelical teaching on the biblical plan

of salvation. Those who believe that conversion is simply the

cavalier desire to avoid hell are understandably confused about

why a man on an island who has never heard of Jesus would

find himself facing the wrath of God at the instant of death.

The biblical message of salvation, however, is not a message

of sincere, but generic spirituality. In the New Testament, the

Gospel requires a conscious acknowledgement of — and trust

in — the crucified and risen Jesus. Jesus enraged His hear-

ers not because they were troubled by a call to sincerity, but

because He tied entrance into the Kingdom of God to belief

in Him as Lord and Christ (John 6:40). Virtually all evangeli-

cals acknowledge that Jesus is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”

and that “no man comes to the Father” except through Him

(John 14:6). But some speculate that the man on the island

may come through the way of faith without consciously real-

izing that Jesus has provided it. Nothing could be more alien

to the preaching of Jesus and the apostles. Jesus compared the

salvation He provides to Moses’ lifting up of a bronze serpent

in the wilderness. Even as the Israelites who were to be healed

from the serpent bites were required to look consciously to the

emblem, so those who are to be rescued from the clutches of

the Serpent of Eden must look in faith to this particular One

who was sacrificed outside the gates of Jerusalem.

After the ascension of Christ, it would have been quite uncom-

plicated for apostolic preaching to call for Jews to hope in the

future messianic empire, consistent with Old Testament

prophecy. The apostles could even have warned their con-

temporaries that their good works could not save them

and they must trust in the righteousness of

this unnamed Messiah to rescue them. Would

not many more converts have come to faith?

Instead, the apostles refused to

call for generic sincerity or even

faith in a generic Christ. They

insistently proclaimed that the only

way of escape for their hearers was

belief in “this Jesus whom you

crucified” (Acts 2:36).

Those who point to Old

Testament believers as evi-

dence that conscious

faith in Jesus is not nec-

essary for salvation are



mistaken both about the nature of Old Testament belief and

about the progressive nature of redemptive history. The New

Testament contends that old covenant believers trusted in the

coming messianic redemption on the basis of the revelation

given to them by God (Heb 11:26). Even more significantly,

the New Testament asserts that a cosmic shift has occurred in

the flow of history with the coming of Christ. The “end of the

ages” has come upon us.6 With the advent of the One who has

“exegeted” the very nature of God (John 1:18), God now com-

mands all people everywhere (pagan Athenian philosophers

as well as the man on the island) to repent and believe — not

just in some generic conception of God, but in the name of the

One whom He has raised from the dead and through whom

He will judge the cosmos (Acts 17:30-31). This is precisely

because of the Christocentric nature of redemption itself. Jesus

is not simply a means to some greater end. Instead, the entire

purposes of God are so that Jesus may be exalted as “the first-

born among many brothers” (Rom 8:29, ESV). The mystery of

God hidden for ages past, which has now come to light in the

Gospel, is that the Father purposes to “sum up all things in

Christ” (Eph 1:10 NASB). Thus, the confession of Jesus as Lord

is not simply a means of the Gospel — it is the eschatologi-

cal goal of the Gospel (Phil 2:9-11). Therefore, the early Chris-

tians did not hesitate to disturb their Jewish

neighbors from their synagogue worship

and to confront God-fearing Gentiles with

the scandalous particularity of the accom-

plished work of Christ Jesus.

But what if, one may ask, the man

on the island acknowledges the Cre-

ator God revealed in general revela-

tion, and is convicted of

sin by the Holy Spirit –

a sin uncovered by the

law written on his heart.

What then if this man throws

himself on the mercy of

God for forgiveness?

Some otherwise very

conservative evangelical

theologians have left open this

as a possibility, though they caution

that we do not know how often, if ever,

this happens.7 This question, however,

is misleading. It is something akin to asking if an

individual never sins and perfectly obeys God, would

he still need salvation through Christ. Such a situation sim-

ply does not exist. The heart must believe, Paul writes to the

Romans, in the historical fact of the resur-

rection while the mouth must confess the

sovereignty of this particular individual,

Jesus of Nazareth (Rom 10:9-10). The

apostle anticipates the question of

the man on the island and answers

it decisively: “How will they call on

Him in whom they have not believed?

How will they believe in Him whom

they have not heard? And how will

they hear without a preacher?”

(Rom 10:14). God calls sinners

to Himself by His Spirit through

the preaching of the Gospel of

Christ. This passage ends with

the boldest of mission thrusts. Since faith “comes from hear-

ing” (Rom 10:17) and since there are those have not heard,

God graciously sends messengers of His glorious Gospel.

As Ronald Nash notes, evangelical objections to the exclu-

sivity of the Gospel often serves as a “romantic” comfort for

those who “could sleep better if there were less urgency

or no urgency in getting the Gospel to

the unevangelized.” 8 Sentimentalism,

however, replaces true affections with

a fleeting wave of synthetic

emotions. Sentimental com-

passion for a hypotheti-

cal man on an island is an

amazingly easy endeavor

for evangelicals in car-

peted, air-conditioned

Bible study classrooms.

A Spirit-inflamed bur-

den for real men and

real women on real

islands might be more

costly, perhaps requiring

even the tossing aside

of DVDs and SUVs to

cross the globe with the


the Gospel requires a conscious acknowledgement of — and trust in — the

crucified and risen Jesus.


Gospel for those who will never otherwise hear it. Could it

be that if more young Timothys were to lose sleep over

the destiny of this man on the island that God might

raise up a missionary force unparalleled in the his-

tory of the Christian church to call millions to faith

in Christ?

ConclusionThe question of eternal destination of the man

on the island is settled ultimately not by a consensus

gained in a youth Bible study or in a breakout ses-

sion of the Evangelical Theological Society, but in the

words God has revealed to us in the Bible. The issue is

no trivial matter since it encapsulates both the content

of the Gospel and the task of the Great Commission.

This question was not a matter of mere speculation to the apostles

of the Lord Jesus Christ, since they too had to wrestle with the des-

tiny of the man on the island who had never heard the name of Jesus.

And for the sake of those who were “separate from Christ, excluded

from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of

promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12

NASB), they refused to reassure themselves with a manufactured sense

of hope for the unevangelized. Instead they endured horrifying per-

secution to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. In short, a North Ameri-

can Christian who ponders whether God is “unfair” to the man on the

island should go to the nearest mirror. There he will find a graciously

redeemed “man on the island” staring back at him.

Russell D. Moore is senior vice president for academic administration, dean of the School of Theology and associate professor of Christian theol-ogy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

FOOTNOTES1 John Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992); Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992). 2 Roger E. Olson, “Theology for the Post-Graham Era,” and Gabriel Fackre, “Ecumenical Admoni-tions,” Christian Century, 25 August-1 September 1999, 816-19. Also, see the letter to the editor on this topic submitted by a group of self-professed evangelicals including Nicholas Wolterstorff, Nancy Murphy and Cornelius Plantinga, “An Evangelical Consensus?” Christianity Today, 4 Octo-ber 1999, 15. 3 For a discussion of Logos Christology in relation to the doctrine of revelation, see Gordon Clark, The Johannine Logos (Jefferson, Md.: Trinity Foundation, 1989) and Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revela-tion and Authority (Wheaton: Crossway, 1999): 164-247.4 For a discussion of the Adamic roots of original sin, see John Murray, “The Fall of Man,” in John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977), 67-76. 6 For a treatment of the “fairness” of God at this point, see Carl F. H. Henry, “Is It Fair?” Through No Fault of Their Own?: The Fate of Those Who Have Never Heard, eds. William V. Crockett and James G. Sigountos (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991): 245-56. 6 For a full-orbed treatment of the implications of an “already/not yet” understanding of the “last days” in which new covenant believers live, see George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974).7 See, for instance, Millard J. Erickson, How Shall They Be Saved? The Destiny of Those Who Do Not Hear of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 143-58. 8 Ronald H. Nash, Is Jesus the Only Savior? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994): 163.


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So yes, wear the bracelet, but be aware of the confusions that might accrue. A better question

would be, “What would Jesus have me do?” But, WWJHMD doesn’t quite have the same ring.

The Mormons have come up with a counterpart, CTR or “Choose the Right.” And detractors have enjoyed supplying different translations, such as “Win With Jack Daniels” and “What Would Jagger Do?” You might say they’ve honored WWJD by mocking it. If it weren’t a threat to the standing of their values, then they’d likely leave it alone.

It’s obvious that thoughts of Jesus are spiritually healthful, and there is much about this question which is admirable. Still, I think there are a few hitches.

Let me suggest 10 qualities of the question – the first five of which are positive, while the second five of which are prob-lematic.

Consecrational It shifts the focus from unholy things

to Jesus. In a world consumed with greed, bitterness, pride, ambition, envy, lust and such, what a refreshment to join in considering our Lord’s desires.

Evangelistical

By wearing the letters, you may prompt a Gospel conversation. With false faiths trumpeting their doctrines and institutions with increasing volume, it is important that Jesus’ people honor His name at every turn. These bracelets help build and maintain a Jesus-consciousness in the culture.

Fraternal It can be lonely out there for the explicitly committed Christian, and

the sight of another WWJD bracelet or T-shirt can be a real encouragement to believers. The logo helps Christians to iden-tify one another and fellowship can flow from that recognition.

Motivational With our culture’s empha-sis on feeling, it’s good to

give attention to doing. Nike gave us “Just do it!” Now, Chris-tians add, “… as Jesus would do it!” It’s also a good antidote to the notion that the responsible Christian life is basically a matter

of more and deeper Bible studies. Bible study is wonderful and necessary, but you need to put feet to what you’ve

learned.

Educational The question could make you

do your homework. You’re driven to study what Jesus did and does and who Jesus was and is.

On the other hand, there are some problems with the question:

Identificational Exactly which Jesus do you have in mind? Of

course, there is one real Jesus, but there are many human ver-sions. Filmmakers serve up “King of Kings” (DeMille), “Jesus Christ Superstar” (Rice & Lloyd Webber) and “The Last Tempta-tion of Christ” (Scorcese). Writers give us “A Small Town Man” (Austin), “They Call Me Carpenter” (Sinclair) and “The Man Nobody Knows” (Barton). And within our congregations, there are strongly variant readings. Some see a “meek and mild” Jesus; others see the triumphal Jesus of Revelation.

Epistemological Even when you get the right Jesus, how

exactly do you know what he would do? Of course, you know he would not steal or commit adultery, but which book would he buy, in which neighborhood would he settle? Would he own a DVD? Would he go to baseball games? How do you know? Some say Jesus wants their kids in Christian elementary school where the Word is honored. Others say that Jesus wants their kids in public school, learning to be salt and light. Settling this is no simple matter.

Vocational Let’s say you’re considering mar-riage. What would Jesus do?

Remain single, of course. And how about a run for Congress? What would Jesus do? Well, He wouldn’t do this. So you don’t marry and you don’t run for Congress? Not so fast. Jesus had His calling and His mission, and you have yours.

Jurisdictional Jesus cursed a fig tree which did not bear fruit, and it

withered. He told a young man to sell all he had and follow Him. Are these cues for our own behavior? No, for we lack His authority.

Post-Millennial In His Steps was written in the “social gospel” tradi-

tion, one more attuned to the “here and now” than the hereafter. Its cultural optimism was consonant with a reading of Revela-tion 20 which saw Jesus’ return to earth as the capstone to an era of great Christian influence and peace. It has a high view of natural man and the progress he can make, but the Bible does not encourage this assessment of man. WWJD does not commit one to the social gospel, but one should be alert to these roots. Of course, good Christians are keen on the earthly health, edu-cation, safety and freedom of all peoples, but their traditional focus is upon the Gospel which can secure these same peoples’ heavenly home for an infinitely greater span of time.

Mark T. Coppenger is distinguished professor of Christian apologetics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.




The most important area of our Christian lives, of what it

means to be a disciple of Christ and a follower of God, is form-

ing, nurturing and cultivating correct conceptions of God

which then fuel correct affections for God. You can’t have more

vibrant, pulsating affections for the true and living God if you

don’t know Him correctly. Knowledge of God and love for Him

go hand-in-hand.

In light of this fact, I want to focus on two dangerous mis-

conceptions of God that are prominent within the church

today.

Does God need us?The first of these is process theology. Process theology

became the most prominent theological movement of the 20th

century in North America. In this view, reality is understood as

one of processes rather than static substances. That is, there is

no substantive identity that we possess. Rather, everything is

made up of quickly-coming-into-being and going-out-of-being

occasions or experiences.

Process theologians argue that God is not an exception to

this metaphysical principle of processive becoming. Rather,

God is the chief exemplification of the nature of reality. God is

defined as that one reality that is in process more maximally —

more fully — than anything else in the universe. He is changing

to the maximum degree possible.

The way change happens in God

is that He receives from the world

everything the world offers to

Him, moment by moment,

such that the world actu-

ally contributes to the

very nature of God.

God, in turn, con-

tributes to the

world in the form

of good ideas, sug-

gestions and persua-

sive kinds of ideas. But

whatever the world does

become is taken into the

very nature of God. God is

in everything and everything is in

God. This view is called panentheism.

Process theologians argue that the main reason we

are here is not because God created us to be here. Rather,

we contribute value to God that He would otherwise lack. So,

the process model of God posits, “God benefits from what I do.

God is made better by my choices, my actions. It’s a good thing

I’m here because I can make God better moment by moment.”

In reality, this is an inversion of the biblical picture of God.

He is eternal. God makes us in His image. Process theism, on

the other hand, teaches that God is made in our image, quite

literally, as we contribute value to God.

Lest you think that this process notion is far removed from

any of our beliefs in church, there is something comparable in

popular evangelical view. This evangelical version attempts to

answer the questions, “Why are we here? Why did God create

a world this way?” The answer according to process theology?

Before God created anything, He was all by Himself and He

was lonely. He didn’t have anyone to talk to and had no one

to have fellowship with. God thought to Himself, “Wouldn’t it

be wonderful if there were other people, people with minds

and emotions, people who could relate to Me and I have could

have fellowship with.” So, God decided to create us in order to

fill this emptiness and this void in His own life.

Well, what is the Bible’s view? The Bible speaks of God’s infi-

nite self-existence and self-sufficiency. The Bible presents God

not as some needy, empty, hollow being that we come and fill

up. Such a view is dishonoring to God.

Consider Isaiah 40:12-15. God asks through the prophet in

verse 12, “Who do you know who has measured the waters in the

hollow of his hand, marked off the heavens by the span, calculated

the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed

the mountains in a balance and the hills in

a pair of scales?” Do you know any-

body out there big enough to

scoop up the Pacific Ocean,

the Atlantic Ocean or

the Mediterranean Sea,

and hold them in the

hollow of his hand?

What kind of pic-

ture does this give

us of God? He is

immense. He is a

huge, powerful God.

Obviously, the point

of these rhetorical ques-

tions is that God is incompara-

bly great, awesome, immeasurable and



infinite in His power.

The passage then shifts in verses 13-15 from the power of

God to His wisdom. “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord

or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He con-

sult? Who gave Him understanding? Who taught Him the path

of justice and knowledge? Who informed Him of the way of

understanding? Behold, the nations are a drop in the bucket.

They are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales.” God wants

the nations to come to Him to experience strength when they

are tired and renewal when they are weak because He is strong.

He has everything to give to them, everything to provide for

their needs. They must come in humility, understanding that

He is God. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is all-wise.

He is God. What a privilege it is for people to trust in Him.

Finally, consider Acts 17. Paul exclaims, “The God who made

the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and

earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He

served by human hands as though He needed anything.” It

should be a very humbling thing to realize we are not here to

fill God up. We are not here to give to Him fellowship that He

lacked. He is the eternal, triune, social being, Father, Son and

Spirit in an eternal relationship of love and harmony together.

He doesn’t need another. He doesn’t need a world. We are not

here to fill the void in God’s life.

So, why are we here? We are here because He desired that

we would be the recipients, that He would fill us up with

Himself. In light of that, receive what He has to give in your

weakness, in your folly, in your limitation and your sinfulness.

Receive from God what He alone can give. As you receive from

Him, as you experience His bounty and His abundance, share

with others out of the fullness that you have received. Ministry

is the outflow of what God has poured into us. It’s His work in

and through us.

Does God know everything?

The second misconception of God is manifest in a movement

today that is much closer to conservative, evangelical churches

than process theism. This view is called open theism.

What is open theism? It is the belief that God does

not know the future free choices and actions

of His moral creatures.

God does not have the

kind of exhaustive fore-

knowledge that has

been held in the history of the church. In other words, He

lacks knowledge of all things that will happen, including all

of the decisions and choices and actions of human beings at

some point in the future.

What are some of the key bases for denying divine exhaus-

tive foreknowledge? One of the arguments is that exhaustive

foreknowledge precludes or would eliminate true human free-

dom. They argue that in order to maintain true human free-

dom, then we must deny that God knows the future.

Secondly, they argue that we find in Scripture some ele-

ment of divine ignorance of the future. Not only is it that God

doesn’t know, but He’s also ignorant of a number of things that

are going to happen in the future. This relates to human free-

dom as well.

What responses can be given? Are divine foreknowledge

and human freedom compatible? Two responses might be pro-

posed – the logical and the biblical arguments.

First, the logical argument: A number of people in biblical

studies and philosophy have given a very compelling reason

for thinking that true human freedom and exhaustive divine

foreknowledge are in fact compatible. It is not the case, they

argued that if God knows what you are going to have for lunch

tomorrow, as you sit at that restaurant and choose which item

you’re going to pick off the menu, that you are not free to

choose what you wish.

Here’s the gist of their argument: The openness argument

confuses necessity and certainty of knowledge. While it is true

that God knows with certainty what you will choose for lunch

tomorrow, that does not mean that what you choose for lunch

tomorrow is necessary. In other words, you do not have to

choose that for lunch tomorrow. It’s not necessary, but it is cer-

tain that you will.

God’s relationship to the future is like our relationship

to the past. God knows with certainty what we freely will do

at that future time. If, in fact, we would have chosen differ-

ently, He would have known

that instead. What we

do in the future is not

caused by God’s



knowledge. Rather, God’s knowledge of what we will do in the

future is the result of our future free choices. This argument

fails to present a compelling argument to give up exhaustive,

divine foreknowledge.

Second, the biblical argument: God knows all of reality. The

Bible supports this thesis. Let’s consider just a few passages.

Many advocates of open theism point to Genesis 22 as proof

that God “learns” new things based upon human action. In

Genesis 22, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

Abraham builds the altar, puts Isaac upon it, lifts the knife to

slay him and then God says, “Stop, Abraham, for now I know

that you fear Me.” Can it be, as open theists claim, that God

learns at that moment what we are told in verse 12? It says, “For

now I know that you fear God.” Can that be?

Consider Romans 4. Abraham is commended as a man of

faith for believing God and it was credited to him as righteous-

ness. When did this take place in Abraham’s life? Paul’s clear

reference is to Genesis 15:6. There, Moses notes, “Abraham

believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.” What

was it that Abraham believed? God had told him that through

him there would be a descendant who would come and take

the blessing given to Abraham to all the nations of the world

(Gen 12). Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righ-

teousness.

In Romans 4, Paul says that Abraham was a man of faith,

believing the promise of God and that he was justified because

of that faith. So you see, in Genesis 22, God did not just come

to “know” of Abraham’s faith. As we see in Genesis 15, God

already knew of Abraham’s faith.

Or, take Hebrews 11, for example. Hebrews 11 commends

Abraham for his faith. This chapter highlights, among other

things, the fact that as Abraham ascended to Mount Moriah,

where he bound his son to sacrifice him, that “he believed that

God could raise people from the dead, so he took his son to

sacrifice him.” Remember in Genesis 22:5, Abraham told the

servants and other people who were with him, “I and the son

will go up to the mountain and we will return to you.” Taking

the two passages together, it means that going up that moun-

tain Abraham believed two things. He believed God meant it

when He said, “Kill your son.” He also believed God’s prom-

ise that through this son, “all the nations of the world will be

blessed.” So as he planned to kill his son, he fully expected God

to raise Isaac from the dead. Why? Because God had promised

through this son the blessing would come. God does not break

His word!

Could God have possibly learned at that moment, when

Abraham raised the knife to kill Isaac, “For now I know that

you fear Me”? Of course not. So, what does it mean? Well, it

does mean that God is involved with us in a relationship as well

as knowing everything that’s going to happen in the future.

So, God interacts intimately, relationally with us. When He

says, “Now I know that you fear Me,” He means that Abraham

has proven, by this action, that he was a God-fearing person.

What it certainly cannot mean is what the open theist claims

it means, that “God is ignorant of whether Abraham is God-

fearing or not.” The Bible simply won’t permit that.

The biblical position – that God knows all of reality – is


the biblical position – that god knows all of reality – is affirmed throughout scripture


Be careful not to be presumptuous in your pray-

ing and think that you’re giving God some insight,

some bit of information that He doesn’t possess

and you know best how things ought to be. Come before the

Lord the way Jesus commanded us – where we say, “Thy will

be done on earth as is it in heaven,” knowing God’s will is best.

The purpose of our praying is not to instruct the Almighty, but to align

ourselves with Him so that we long for what He knows is best to accom-

plish. That’s effective praying.

affirmed throughout Scripture. We can rest safely in the fact

that our God is God because He can say, “I know and declare

the future” (Isa 46:10, paraphrased). While that future declara-

tion involves multitudes of future free actions of human beings,

the certainty of that future is based on God’s exhaustive and

perfect divine foreknowledge.

Does it really matter?The stakes in this debate are high. At its heart is this ques-

tion: Can I really trust God and His Word? If God doesn’t know

the future, are you going to put your life into His hands? If

He doesn’t really have a clue what is best for you

in the long run, and if He fails in giving you

advice in the short run, can you trust Him?

The implications are staggering. The stakes

are high. Commit yourself to knowing the

God of the Bible, trusting and hoping in

Him and commending this God, the true

God, to other people.

Bruce A. Ware is senior associate dean of the School of Theology and Professor of Christian The-ology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.



By David Roach

One visit. That’s all it took

for Toby Jennings to con-

firm that Southern Seminary was

the place for him.Jennings, a Michigan native, worked

as a General Motors engineer for 13 years. But by the fall of 2003, he knew God was calling him into ministry. So he attended Southern’s preview confer-ence. Jennings suspected Southern was his best option for theological education before the visit. Seeing the campus con-firmed that suspicion.

“I went away from that weekend with two words in my heart and mind: grace and truth,” he said. “And that’s not just a cliché or colloquialism. This campus is a place that is filled with a palpable sense of God’s grace.”

Before his visit, Jennings knew that several Southern faculty members had written books considered important in the field of theology. Because of their fame, he expected faculty members to be distant and unapproachable. But he soon discovered otherwise.

STUDENT FOCUS


By David Roach








By David Roach









“I’d read some of the stuff these guys had written,” Jennings said. “And these are the guys who are writing theology for the world today. So I thought, ‘They certainly wouldn’t have time for little old me.’ But when I got here, the complete opposite was the case. These guys are incredibly personable. They are filled with grace. They love the Lord and they want to communicate that to the student body. I tasted that at the preview conference.”

During the conference Jennings sat in on a course on providence taught by Bruce Ware, professor of Christian the-ology and senior associate dean for the school of theology, because of his inter-est in systematic theology. The course caught Jennings’ attention because he had used materials written by Ware to teach a class on providence at his church in Michigan.

“[Ware] was one of the first profes-sors that I had a chance to interact with,” Jennings said. “And he was probably the embodiment of that grace and truth that I talked about. Just to sit there in one of his classes and hear him talk about the sovereign God and the responsibility of man and how the two tied together … this was infinitely more than academia to Dr. Ware.”

As the preview weekend progressed, Jennings saw that Ware’s passion and care for students was typical of all South-ern’s faculty members. The student body was similarly filled with grace and truth, he said. Such an atmosphere made Jen-nings eager to enroll.

So that’s what he did. Jennings began classes at Southern in the spring of 2004 and loved the atmosphere on campus so much that he applied to join the ambas-sadors, a group of students who repre-sent the seminary at conferences and events on campus and around the coun-try. After being hired as an ambassador, Jennings thought back on the helpfulness of ambassadors at his preview confer-ence. Their enthusiasm and helpfulness inspired him to talk about Southern with prospective students enthusiastically and authentically, he said.

“The ambassadors were indeed am-bassadors not just for Southern Semi-nary, but for Christ,” he said. “They were manifestly enthusiastic about this place. They were enthusiastic about what God was doing here and that came across to all of the prospective students who were a part of the preview conference the weekend that I was there. … One of my

first thoughts about Southern was that I wanted to be an ambassador.”

If you visit Southern today, you will likely find Jennings giving a campus tour to prospective students or preparing to leave on a trip to promote the seminary. His success and skill in ministry might make you think he has been involved in Christian service his entire life. But in reality, it has been a long journey from his childhood Baptist church in Detroit to Southern Seminary.

Jennings’ mother took him to church frequently, and at age 12 he was baptized. Yet for Jennings, Christianity was simply about being a good person, he said.

Through high school and college at the University of Detroit, Jennings continued believing that being a Chris-tian simply meant living a moral life. Then after college, he met a family that claimed to be Christians but acted “man-ifestly different from any other family in the neighborhood.”

The family had 16 children, and one daughter named Tina maintained a per-sistent witness to Jennings, telling him that being moral was not good enough to please God.

“She was witnessing to anything that breathed,” Jennings said. “So the sover-eign God knowing my state — thinking that I was saved and okay but not really being saved and okay — decided to gra-ciously place me in this train’s path.”

Tina pressed Jennings with questions from the Bible and told him that if he merely lived life as a moralist, he would go to hell when he died. Jennings could not answer Tina’s questions because he did not read his Bible and did not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, he said.

“I was this self-righteous moralist, who thinks, ‘Nobody really can tell me much of anything because I’ve got my act together,’” Jennings said. “And yet this young high school girl comes to me and slaps me in the face with the statement, ‘You’re going straight to hell.’ That was

the shocker that I needed to awaken me.”Over the course of several months,

Jennings thought about Tina’s statements and came to faith in Christ at age 24.

“With Tina’s bold fortitude, God did pull the scales back from my eyes and let me know that I was going to go straight to hell because I was a self-righteous moralist,” he said. “So with that I was born again, and it really was an awakening.

“Even though I was a moralist, I rec-ognized that I was a changed person. My thought patterns were incredibly dif-ferent. Just like Tina, Christ was now my life. Christ was all that I wanted. Read-ing the Scriptures, searching through the Scriptures, examining what they had to say about Christ and Christianity was what my desire was at that point.”

As he grew in his faith, Jennings increasingly felt a burden to teach oth-ers about the God he had come to know. Citing a George Barna poll, Jennings said that fewer than five percent of Americans are “genuine Christians.” To combat the lack of knowledge about God in Amer-ica, Jennings began to teach the Bible and theology at his church in Michigan.

Eventually, however, he felt God call him to teach theology as a profession. So Jennings quit his job as an engineer and enrolled in a master of divinity program through another seminary. When that program shut down, he attended the pre-view conference and came to Southern.

Upon completing his master of divin-ity, Jennings plans to pursue doctoral studies and teach systematic theology in a college or seminary setting.

“People profess to be Christians, but they have no idea what its systems are and the integral relation of its systems of truth,” he said. “It’s not just academic systematic theology. … The systems of theology need to come out of the text of Scripture.”

In the meantime he teaches and heads up a greeting ministry at the local church where he is a member. As Jen-nings prepares for a lifetime of teaching God’s grace and truth, he sees Southern as a training ground where he can learn from men who embody grace and truth themselves.

“The faculty here are committed with their lives to the truth of what the Scrip-tures have to teach,” he said. “That’s definitely what I want. … I knew what I wanted, and Southern is where I found that.”

STUDENT FOCUS


“The systems of theology

need to come out of the

text of Scripture.”

— Toby Jennings


FACULTY FOCUS

The TIE: Tell us about your “growing up” years. Did you grow up in church? I know you were headed for a career in politics early on, but how was your path was providentially changed?

Moore: I grew up in a little commu-nity called Woolmarket in Biloxi, Miss., so called because wool was traded a hundred years or so ago. My grandfather was the pastor of Woolmarket Baptist Church, and I grew up in that church. I came to faith at about the age of 12 or so. I was baptized shortly thereafter.

I was very active in our youth group

and struggled with a call to ministry really from my conversion. I did not pur-sue that call but instead was beginning a political career.

At the age of 17, I was leading a volun-teer movement for Gene Taylor, who was then running for U.S. Congress. At the age of 18, I actually went to work for him. At the age of 19, I was his press spokes-person and communications director. So I was really just planning that and running the communications part of his campaign while I was going to college, which was in his district.

I was really grappling with ministry that whole time. I surrendered to minis-try in 1993 and immediately went to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and on staff at my home church.

The TIE: What was your career goal as a politician?

Moore: I wanted to be governor of Mississippi. I had wanted to be governor of Mississippi since high school.

The TIE: How different would being governor of Mississippi be to holding the


A Conversation with Russell D. MooreA Conversation with Russell D. Moore


position in which you now serve as dean of the School of Theology at Southern Seminary and as an evangelical theolo-gian? How did God change your path?

Moore: I would have been a miser-able governor, if that had happened. I realized that [when I was] in Washing-ton. The Library of Congress used to have overstocked books they were try-ing to get rid of. We could go in and take what we wanted. I would go in and get so many books. I found myself getting a Freewill Baptist guide for pastors. I remember picking that up and wonder-ing, ‘Why do I have this?’ and resonating with the fact that I really wanted to be a pastor. That was one of the things that led me to realize that I wanted to be a pastor.

The TIE: Who were your earliest influences?

Moore: My grandmother, who is a godly Christian woman. She made sure I was in Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, training union, youth choir and Wednesday night. We went every Wednesday night except busi-ness meetings. Our business meetings were often fiery occasions and I think she wanted to protect me spiritually from that and I am glad. She was a great influence on me.

Also, a man by the name of M. L. Fahler, who was my pastor through my high school years. He was a very godly man and a great influence on me.

Probably the one who had a lot to do with me surrendering to the ministry was Argile Smith who was a preaching professor at New Orleans Seminary and who was our interim pastor. He is really the reason I wanted to be a seminary professor. He was a pastor/professor in a way that I had never thought about.

The TIE: When did you preach your first sermon?

Moore: At age 12. It was youth night and my pastor said I was going to preach. My sermon was 6-8 minutes long and it was a nerve-wracking experience. I didn’t preach another sermon until I sur-rendered to ministry.

I preached a sermon called “What the Well-dressed Christian Will Wear.” It was every biblical text that had to do with things such as “a gray head is a crown of righteousness.” I had people flip-ping through the Bible, back and forth throughout the sermon.

The TIE: Discuss some of the people who have had a formative influence on your life theologically.

Moore: Irenaeus of Lyons is the most important theologian in the history of the church. I love his influence on Chris-tianity. C. S. Lewis also. I don’t agree with everything C. S. Lewis said, but I love the way C. S. Lewis speaks to the imagina-tion and to the mind, which is something that is crucially important.

A major theological influence on me is a musician — Michael Card. Growing up I listened to so much Michael Card music. I still do. He is such a gifted theologian in weaving together con-cepts, doing albums based on Hebrews and the prophets and so forth. I will find myself often thinking about theo-logical concepts through the grid of Michael Card lyrics. … Quite honestly

he had a lot to do with my surrender-ing to ministry. I would listen to these lyrics, and he fired my imagination for ministry.

The TIE: Speaking of music, your love for old country and western music — Johnny Cash, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn — is well known around Southern Seminary. It seems to me these storytellers have much to teach us about sin and grace. Do you think this is true?

Moore: I grew up listening to country music. In fact, I had an eight-track player when I was young and used to play “Stars of the Grand Ole Opry.” I would play it over and over again, from when I was three or four all the way through college.

The South I grew up in was a story telling culture. I would sit around the fire listening to people tell stories. That is what country music is — telling sto-ries about real things, many of the things

you find in the Bible. Hank Williams Sr. is very much like the book of Proverbs. I think that country music has really shaped very much of what I am about.

Country music — especially the old, authentic country music — presents the consequences of sin. Sin in the best of country music is never hidden in the same way the Bible never hides it, and neither are the consequences hidden. I think there is something helpful about hearing Loretta Lynn singing “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ with Lovin’ on Your Mind.” That is exactly what the book of Proverbs is telling you. So when you hear Hank Williams sing-ing about “My Son Calls another Man Daddy,” that not only tells you some-thing about the human condition, it tells you something about the destruc-tiveness of sin. When you hear Hank Williams singing “I Saw the Light,” I think that resonates much more deeply than the Christian bubble gum pop that you hear these days.

The TIE: Getting back to theology, you take a very canonical approach to preaching and teaching Scripture and seem to be at great pains to show how every part of the biblical story fits within the larger story. How important is it for us to understand the entire Bible in terms of itself?

Moore: I love the Old Testament. Very rarely do we hear the Old Testa-ment preached the way the apostles

preached it. Often when we hear the Old Testament, we hear moral truths or character sketches. It has become more of a burden to me to read the New Testa-ment and see the way that Jesus and the apostles preached the Old Testament.

Going through and seeing the way that all of the Bible fits together as a whole is critical. I think you ought to read the Bible the way you would read any other book — as a whole. You don’t read a piece of Moby Dick. The Bible has one author and you read that Jesus is the ‘yes and amen’ to every-thing in Scripture. So, I think preach-ing the whole counsel of God doesn’t mean just preaching the whole of the Bible. It means preaching Christ from all of the Bible.

Russell D. Moore is senior vice presi-dent for academic administration and dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

FACULTY FOCUS


“I think preaching the whole

counsel of God doesn’t mean

just preaching the whole of

the Bible. It means preaching

Christ from all of the Bible.”

— Russell D. Moore


At some colleges, classroom exercises seem unconnected with the realities of everyday life. But such is not the case at Boyce College.

Just ask Zach Thurman.Since coming to Boyce in the fall of 2004, the Toccoa,

Ga. native has applied his theological training to such ministry endeavors as organizing an evangelistic out-reach to 55,000 students at an FFA convention, leading a troubled youth to Christ and speaking to church groups across Kentucky and Georgia.

“Boyce has really prepared me to effec-tively minister to every world religion that you can think of,” he said. “It helped me when it comes to dealing with postmod-ern people and people of all different ethnic groups.”

Although he has long felt passionate about working with teenagers, Thurman was unsure how to prepare for ministry after graduating from community col-lege in Georgia. But as he prayed for guidance, God directed his thoughts toward Louisville. Then while conducting an Internet search, Thurman learned about Boyce. A visit to campus confirmed that God was indeed calling him to Boyce.

During his first year of study, the youth ministry major learned the basics of theology and biblical exegesis.

“It’s just really prepared me to speak—to be able to do an exegetical sermon,” he said. “I had no clue how to do that before coming here.”

Thurman quickly applied his classroom knowledge to practical ministry endeavors by participating in a ministry to international students in Louisville. At one event he met a student named Umed from Tajikistan. As the two developed a friendship, Thurman demon-strated the love of Christ to Umed through practical gestures of friendship.

As Thurman learned an increasing amount of theol-ogy, he became increasingly convicted that he needed to develop authentic relationships with non-believing men and women. So Thurman and a group of friends moved to an apartment complex where they would come into contact daily with people from all walks of life.

Within a week of moving into his apartment, Thur-man met a teenager named Curtis. Over several days Thurman and his roommates explained the Gospel to Curtis until he committed his life to Christ during a tearful conversation.

“He repented and he turned 180 degrees around and has been seeking God,” Thurman said. “It’s really neat to see that.”

In the future, Thurman plans to use his Boyce train-ing to conduct youth ministry in a local church. Eventu-ally he hopes to open a home for troubled boys. In all aspects of his ministry, however, Thurman says he will draw from the education he received at Boyce.

Boyce fuels Thurman’s passion for youth ministryBy David Roach


www.BoyceCollege.com

At Boyce College students don’t just prepare

for ministry, they do it. They take what they’re

learning in the classroom and apply it in the

real world. A Boyce College education does

more than fill the head. It changes the heart.

If God is calling you to make a difference,

don’t wait. Start today. Join the students at

Boyce College as they impact the church,

the world, and the future.

the church. the world. the future.

A School of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Louisville, Kentucky · 1-800-626-5525

FOR THE TRUTH · FOR THE CHURCH · FOR THE WORLD

FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

Doing all things for the glory of God means doing them well. Let Southern Seminary help you fulfill your calling.

THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

WWW.SBTS.EDU

PREACHthe

“Word.”