Here’s an article from the Desiring God blog on plagiarism that I ran across recently.

The question of plagiarism in sermon preparation is rather tricky, primarily because we are interpreting a document (the Bible) which has been interpreted by thousands of people for the last 3000 years. Almost everything we say, especially relating to Christo-centric interpretation, Greek and Hebrew linguistics or historical context, comes from commentaries and other sermons.

A while back I did a study of the official “rules” of plagiarism in preaching. They’re really hard to nail down. There are lots of articles written about it–people seem to agree that you don’t have to acknowledge every single instance when you gain an insight from someone else–after all, there is nothing new under the sun. On the other hand, we can’t copy another’s work and ideas and represent them as our own.

While people generally agree on the above, knowing exactly when something needs to be cited is the rub. “Jesus paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.” That’s not a verse… but does that idea need to be cited to Anselm and the phrasing back to my middle school camp speaker (who plagiarized it from someone else)? “Jesus is the true Noah, the ark in which we found shelter from God’s wrath.” That idea is not directly in the Bible. I think I heard it 1st from Darrell Gilyard and most recently Tim Keller. Does it need to be cited? Does John Piper need to cite Jonathan Edwards when he advances the idea that God’s glory is demonstrated by our delight in Him?

So, I generally operate by the following rules for myself:

1.     If I ever preach the gist of another person’s sermon, meaning that I used the lion’s share of their message’s organization, points, or applications, I give credit. I don’t ever think it’s a good idea to preach someone else’s sermon… but in those rare times when you feel like you just can’t help it, you have to give credit. A sermon is a major thought unit. If it’s not yours, you have to acknowledge where it came from.

2.    If I glean an interpretation of a passage from someone, but the organization of the points, application and presentation are my own, I generally do not feel the need to cite. After all, if it is a ‘new interpretation,’ it is probably heresy. We should be generally clear, however, that we are learning from others (this is the tricky part—how much and how often so to be honest and yet not overly cumbersome). And usually, I do not cite which commentary or author gave me the interpretation of a Greek or Hebrew word. Thus, I did not feel the need to explain when I learn a Hebrew or Greek nuance from MacArthur, Carson, Keller, Kidner, Kittel, or whomever.

Should you ever credit someone who illumines your mind to the real meaning of a passage? I think sometimes you should. For example, I learn a lot from Tim Keller and I’ll hear him interpret a passage in a way that blows my mind, but one that seems so natural and obvious to the text that I’m sure it is right–and it is so obvious that I wonder how everyone doesn’t see it that way. Often I’ll acknowledge my indebtedness to him, but if the title, organization, and wording of points  and application are my own, often I won’t.

Piper says it this way: “To base the structure of your sermon on someone else’s sermon, but to use your own words, is plagiarism. The author on whose work you are basing the structure of your sermon would need to be cited.” That is tough, because sometimes I feel like someone’s outline cannot be improved on, or it flows so logically out of the passage that you wonder how you could be faithful to the text and use any other outline! When I come up with the exact same outline they did, I feel like that outline is now mine and the texts, not just theirs. But, I try to be zealous and cite… though, admittedly, probably not often enough.

3.     When I take a direct point or a line or the creative wording of a truth from someone, I feel like I should cite. I obey this rule usually. The first 19 times I said “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,” I cited Piper.  Now I only cite him on that phrase every other time. People at my church know where I got it from. A newcomer might think I am trying to imply that I made it up. But I would annoy my congregation to death if every time I mentioned it now I said, “As John Piper says…”

4.     When I give a list that someone else has come up with or offer some piece of cultural analysis, I feel like I should cite. Again, a list or an organizational scheme is a thought unit. The truths inside that structure may not be unique to that person, but the organization of the presentation of those points is.

5.     If I hear a story told by someone else that reminds me of a story of your own, and I tell that story from my own life, I don’t think I need always to identify where I got the idea for that story from originally. I frequently hear intros and applications for which I find corollaries in my own life. Sometimes I feel the need to cite where the idea originated, and sometimes I don’t… it’s kind of a gut thing that depends on on how truly unique the idea was. For example, Tim Keller tells a story about how he hated classical music in college and only studied it to graduate college to get a job to make money, but now he uses his money to go to classical music concerts because he has learned to love it. He uses that to explain the difference between Gospel-change and religious change. I found an analogy to that in my own life with a Drama/Theatre class I took in college. I didn’t make that up. I really took the class. Should I cite Keller as the inspiration for that story? Not sure. Probably. The first time I told that to my church, I noted that I had heard that explained by Keller. The 2^nd and 3^rd times I did not. Maybe I should have. It is a pretty unique story, but one I find corollaries to in my own life and that illustrates a very non-unique point quite well.

I once read Spurgeon to say that you should master a few authors to the point that you can predict what they will say before they say it. I heard Peter Kreeft and Keller say the same thing. And I have done just that. My dilemma is that I have listened to Tim Keller now so much that I tend to plagiarize him before even hearing him teach through a particular passage! By that I mean I know how he’ll spin a passage even before I hear him do it, and I will sometimes end up doing that even without hearing him teach on it. There’s a reason for that–I think he’s right in how he interprets the Bible. BTW, I told him that once, and he laughed and said he was the same way with Ed Clowney. And Ed Clowney was personal friends with Savanarola, and used to steal from his sermons, too.

I try to be as transparent as I can with my congregation that I am heavily indebted to some particular theologians and teachers, and even some friends. Recently these have included Keller, Lewis, Piper, Kreeft, Packer, MacDonald, Luther, Edwards, Powlison, Welch, Stanley, Driscoll, and others. We also publish a manuscript each week in which I try to be a little clearer about sources I am drawing from about various points. I’ve found that most of these guys are heavily indebted to their own set of people they draw from.

I want to be zealous so as not to represent myself as more brilliant and original than I really am. The truth is I have had only 3 truly original ideas in my life, and they were not really that good. Almost all the others have been learned from the historic church, both ancient and modern.

What are your thoughts? Can you help me think through this?

This guest post comes from the Summit Church’s Pastoral Research Assistant, Chris Pappalardo:

I am always moved by the stories of those who labored faithfully for God for years, but who saw little to no fruit in their work.Their faith in the midst of apparent fruitlessness is a great encouragement to all of us who feel that we work in vain. They strengthen my resolve and remind me that no matter how hopeless the situation is at the time, no sacrifice made for Christ and for the gospel is ever made in vain.

Think of Noah, who the apostle Peter describes as a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5). Can you imagine it? Noah was told to build the ark 120 years before the flood came, and all that time he was preaching to his neighbors. But none of them repented. Zero converts in over a century. He would not be considered for many preaching posts in our churches today, but Scripture holds him up as a model of faithfulness.

Think of William Carey, the father of modern missions. He was largely opposed even by the Christians in England, who told him that his missionary zeal was misplaced. Despite the opposition, Carey left for India in 1793. He worked with all of his might, but it was a full 7 years before he saw his first convert. How many times, during those years, must he have thought, “Perhaps they were right. Maybe I should not have come.”

Robert Moffat was a 19^th-century Scottish missionary to South Africa. He spent 3 years (1818–1821) just traveling to his assigned mission post. He and his wife labored faithfully for 10 years, but with no tangible results. But then God began to stir within the people. In the period of three years, the number of converts in Moffat’s city went from 0 to 120. How different things would have been if they had decided to abandon the work in the 7^th or 8^th year!

Adoniram Judson, the first American missionary, spent six years in Burma (modern-day Myanmar) before he saw the first convert—a man named Maung Nau. Judson confessed that even at the moment of Maung Nau’s profession of faith, he was a bit skeptical because of the years of fruitlessness. He wrote in his journal:

“I begin to think that the Grace of God has reached Maung Nau’s heart. . . . It seems almost too much to believe that God has begun to manifest his grace to the Burmans; but this day I could not resist the delightful conviction that this is really the case. Praise and glory be to His Name forevermore. Amen.”

I am also reminded of the British politician William Wilberforce. After his conversion in 1785, he labored for 48 years to abolish slavery in the British Empire. For much of his life, it must have seemed like a lost cause. The last stages of the Slavery Abolition Act (of 1833) were carried out without him, since his health was failing for the last few years of his life. He was told that the act was passed just 3 days before his death. Nearly fifty years of faithful labor, and he nearly missed seeing the fruit of his faithfulness.

Some people, like Judson and Carey, eventually see the fruit of their apparently fruitless labor. Others, like Noah—and almost Wilberforce—never live to see the impact that their faith in Christ produces. But all of them had to endure years of barrenness. May God grant us the patience to pursue him with passion, even if he calls us to years of seemingly fruitless obedience. He is worth it. And his promises are sure. “Be still and know that I am God,” he reminds us: “I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10)

As many readers will know, the SBC Annual Meeting will gather in Houston on June 11–12, 2013. In conjunction with the Convention, I teach an elective travel course at Southeastern Seminary titled The Southern Baptist Convention. The course is divided into three components. First, we meet on campus for one full day to discuss Southern Baptist history, theology, and polity, as well as specific information related to the upcoming annual meeting. Second, the students read several books and articles and listen to numerous audio resources related to these themes. Finally, the students attend the SBC Annual Meeting itself. While at the Convention, the students attend most of the proceedings, meet a couple of times with key SBC leaders, hobnob at the SEBTS booth, and attend the SEBTS Friends and Alumni Luncheon. Most also attend auxiliary events such as the Pastor’s Conference, Baptist 21 Luncheon, and 9 Marks at 9 events, among others.

I thought I would pass on to you some of the resources I use to prepare students for the SBC Annual Meeting. Obviously, we spend quite a bit of time walking through the Convention program, which, along with numerous other helpful resources, is available online. In addition to my lectures and guided class discussions, the students also watch or listen to several lectures, sermons, and panel discussions. This year, I’ve required them to watch the various Baptist 21 panel discussions from previous years (available at the B21 website), which are a helpful gauge of the “hot topics” in the SBC in recent years. I also required the students to watch one of the panels from last year’s 9 Marks at 9. The panel, which included Mark Dever, Al Mohler, and Danny Akin, discussed Fred Luter’s presidential election, the nature of SBC cooperation, and Calvinism, all of which remain important topics a year later.

I also point the students to four lectures or sermons. They watch David Dockery’s fine sermon “Participants and Partners in the Gospel,” which was preached in SEBTS chapel back in February. The sermon is vintage Dockery, calling for denominational unity around the gospel and basic Baptist orthodoxy for the sake of the Great Commission. Students also listen to Dockery’s lecture “The Southern Baptist Convention since 1979,” which helps to orient them to recent Baptist history. The final two lectures are Timothy George’s “The Future of Baptist Identity in a post-Denominational World,” which remains a timely topic, and Al Mohler’s “The Future of the Southern Baptist Convention,” an address that every Southern Baptist needs to listen to at least once.
The students read two books and over a dozen journal articles or book chapters. The first book is Roger Richards’ History of Southern Baptists (Crossbooks, 2012), which is the most recent history of the SBC. The second book is a helpful collection of essays titled The Great Commission Resurgence: Fulfilling God’s Mandate in Our Time (B&H Academic, 2010), edited by Chuck Lawless and Adam Greenway. The latter volume touches upon most of the current tension points in the SBC from a perspective that advocates unity for the sake of gospel advance.

Unfortunately, for reasons of copyright I can’t make most of the additional essays I require available outside of the class. The students read chapters, articles, and booklets written by SBC leaders and thinkers such as Danny Akin (on the Great Commission Resurgence), David Dockery (on Baptist theology), Nathan Finn (on Baptist identity, Calvinism, and the future of the SBC), Timothy George (on Baptist theology), John Hammett (on regenerate church membership and the ordinances), Chuck Lawless (on Calvinism), Al Mohler (on Baptist identity), Paige Patterson (on the Conservative Resurgence), Ed Stetzer (on missional churches), and Malcolm Yarnell (on the priesthood of all believers).

One resource that I can make available to you is Dr. Patterson’s e-booklet “The Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence: The History, the Plan, the Assessment ” (Seminary Hill, 2012). In this booklet, was which was originally published as three separate articles in The Southwestern Journal of Theology, Dr. Patterson offers a first-hand account of the Conservative Resurgence. It is a helpful look at recent Baptist history from one of the most important shapers of that history. It is also a reminder that Dr. Patterson needs to publish a volume that brings together his collected articles and essays, a topic I have pestered him about in the past. (And again, now, on a public blog . . .)

Anyway, I hope you find these resources helpful. And I hope that many of you will consider attending the 2013 SBC Annual Meeting in Houston. Perhaps I will see many of you there.

(Note: This post was cross-published at Christian Thought & Tradition)

Videos of the main sessions from Advance13 are now available online! Check it out here. Special thanks to Lifeway for doing such a good job in the filming and simulcast of these.

The Great Commission is, in many ways, the marching orders of the church, the benchmark by which we measure success. Inherent to the Great Commission is the command to make disciples, which implies two types of growth—width and depth.We are to reach people from every nation on earth. That’s width. We are to make true disciples of them, teaching them to obey all that he has commanded. That’s depth. To be faithful, a church must vigorously pursue both.

Depending on a person’s disposition, however, it is easy to gravitate toward one or the other. It certainly makes decision-making a lot easier. But evaluating success by width alone or by depth alone is both unfaithful and self-defeating. Churches that grow only wide (and not deep) are not growing nearly as wide as they think; and those that grow deep (without caring about width) are not nearly as deep as they think.

1. Width Without Depth Is Unfaithful.

When a church produces converts who aren’t really disciples, the “width” they’ve produced is illusory. Jesus did not command us to make converts, but to make disciples and to teach them all the things he commanded us. I shudder when I hear pastors imply that their task is to just get people “saved and baptized,” and that other people can worry about growing people up in their faith. That is a faulty—and a deadly—view of conversion.

Think of the parable of the seeds (Matt 13:1–9). Jesus warned us that there would be those who appear saved but ultimately fade in the sun or get choked out by thorns. Where are those people? Many of them are in our churches, blissfully relying on a past experience and refusing to go all the way in their faith. Make no mistake: teaching people to walk faithfully with Christ is not a matter of simply bringing people to maturity; it is a matter of salvation.

I am not against counting numbers: Jesus counted them; Acts is full of them; the shepherd in Jesus’ parable was so in touch with his number of sheep that he knew when one was missing. But count and celebrate the right ones, recognizing that heaven counts different numbers than many of our Christian magazines. Heaven counts disciples, not those who merely prayed a prayer, signed a card, or got dunked in a baptismal.

So those who grow wide without also focusing on growing deep are not really growing as wide as they might think. If they are producing only converts and not disciples, then their growth is a charade.

2. Depth Without Width Is Unfaithful.

I know that it is very possible to be faithful to God and to see very little visible fruit, particularly in terms of quantifiable numbers. Many great men and women of God labored (and labor) for years to apparently no avail; I don’t want to disparage their faithfulness in any way. But these people would be the first to admit that while the fruit seemed sparing, their vision was still immense. The gospel teaches you to dream big, and to continue yearning for it even when you don’t see it.

Jesus taught his disciples to think like this. When he called Peter, he did so by bringing in a huge haul of fish and saying, “This is how you will catch men.” And remember, the Great Commission has as its scope every nation on earth. So the question for those of you who are not seeing growth is, Do you desire to see a harvest? Do you weep over the lost of your city—like Paul did, like Jesus did?

Is it possible that you are using an excuse of “faithfulness” to hide a root of unbelief? Perhaps you simply do not believe that God could bring a flood of growth. You would not be prepared for it if it happened. You are skeptical when you hear of growth from others. God’s arm, however, has not grown short. His ear has not grown heavy. He is as moved with compassion as he was the day he cried out for their forgiveness from the cross; and he is as powerful to save as the day he walked out of the grave. So let us follow God faithfully, expecting great things from him and attempting great things for him.

Many young pastors have found themselves in over their heads during their first couple of years in pastoral ministry. Just last week, I spent some time praying with one of my students who is pastoring his first church and facing a very difficult shepherding situation. While Christian colleges and seminaries do their best to prepare rookie pastors for the various scenarios they could face, it’s simply impossible to cover everything. Even seasoned pastors mentoring younger ministers can’t cover every situation that might come up. It can especially be difficult for a young man serving as a solo pastor in a smaller church, because often he is the only person providing any (formal) pastoral care and leadership to the church.

My friend Wayne McDill has co-authored a new book to help young pastors navigate the early years of ministry. Wayne has experience as a pastor, church planter, state convention evangelism coordinator, and—for 21 years—preaching professor at Southeastern Seminary. He is the author of numerous books on preaching, pastoral ministry, and personal evangelism. His co-author Austin Tucker is also a longtime pastor, professor, and author. Their new book, The Young Shepherd: Nathan Murray’s First Year as Pastor (CreateSpace, 2013), offers a treasury of wisdom for new pastors who are still a little wet behind the ears. It would also be a helpful read for veteran pastors.

The Young Shepherd is a fictional account of a young pastor’s first year serving New Hope Church, a rural congregation in the North Carolina Piedmont. Nathan Murray’s story is inspired in part by the experiences of Wayne’s son, Matthew McDill, as well as the experiences of Wayne himself and many other young pastors over the years. During the course of his first year of ministry, Pastor Nathan struggles through the nuts and bolts of shepherding God’s flock, some of the pitfalls and temptations that befall pastors (especially rookies), and how to navigate balancing church and family responsibilities. Along the way, he receives ongoing advice from his father, a veteran pastor, and other wise folks, both from inside and outside the New Hope family.

Students preparing to be pastors would do well to read this book before they tackle their first official church ministry position. But again, even those who are already involved in pastoral ministry, perhaps for many years, would benefit from this book. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter and the recommended readings at the end of the book make The Young Shepherd a helpful resource for associational reading groups, mentoring relationships, or classroom use.

This is the last of a multi-part series on racial integration in the church. For the previous post, click here.

I have sometimes heard the concept of a “third race” as a theological solution to the problem of racial integration within Christian churches. Essentially, this view seeks to define a Christian not as black or white (or Asian or Arab), but as a third race—Christian. The distinctions that the world would use to classify us into two different races are dwarfed by the fact that in Christ, there is no “Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” (Gal 3:28).

Paul even said that to the Jew he “became a Jew” (1 Cor 9:20). How could that be? After all, Paul was a Jew. But his ethnic identity was not his primary identity anymore: it was something he felt he could take on and off, like a garment. His “third race” (being in Christ) was more permanent and more central to his identity.

Paul says elsewhere that those of us who are in Christ are bound together into one body, making us “one new man” (Eph 2:11–22). Paul never ceased to identify with his Jewish and Roman background, using either when it served the purpose of the gospel (cf. Acts 21:39; 22:25, 1 Cor 9:20). But his Christian identity was weightier to him than his race.

As I have often said at our church, the problem is not always that our desires are wrong, but that they are too weighty for us. The Hebrew word for “glory” is kabod, which literally means “weight.” When we give glory to something, we are assigning weight to that thing. So we might believe all the right doctrines about Jesus, but in our daily lives, we are tempted to make Jesus “light” and other things “heavy.” That is the root of all idolatry.

Whites can never cease to be white, nor blacks black. But our identity in Christ should be weightier to us than our ethnic identity. That means that our purpose with integration is not to create one culture-less race. We should retain and celebrate our “1st race,” but recognize that our 3rd race outweighs it (as I illustrated in this post). This makes unity in the church possible. It is not that our ethnicities are unimportant to us, but that they are not as weighty as our “in Christness.” There is nothing sinful about our race, our ethnicity, or our culture; we simply possess a unity that goes much deeper than these things.

For too many of us, our race can become an idol. It takes on too much weight and makes Jesus look lightweight. The answer is not to make our racial identity lighter in our eyes, but to consider Jesus as even more weighty. Racial bigotry is uprooted like every other type of idolatry, by fixating on the grace of Christ and allowing his love to transform every aspect of our identity from the inside out. This alone makes unity in the church possible, since it is a unity that goes deeper than cultural styles and preferences. When our identity in Christ outweighs our racial identity, then we begin to display the “manifest wisdom of God” that we call the gospel (Eph 3:10).

We at BtT are pleased to announce that Southeastern has received permission from its Board of Trustees and SACS, and has petitioned ATS for permission to offer the entire Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree online, beginning in 2014. Although we have been offering MDiv courses online for years, accreditation standards have made it impossible to offer this 90-hour degree completely online.

We are compelled by a number of reasons to add a fully online M.Div., but the most important reason is its Great Commission potential. Thousands of church planters and missionaries now desire theological education but are not in a position to uproot themselves from the ministry God has given them in order to move to our campus in Wake Forest, NC. Some of these church planters and missionaries are American, but others of them hail from the Middle East, Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, the Pacific Rim, Europe, and other areas of the world. An online M.Div. means that these men and women won’t be robbed of the opportunity for a more comprehensive theological education than they currently have.

Pending approval by our accreditors, this new development will allow students to remain actively engaged in ministry while taking their M.Div., without having to relocate to Wake Forest, NC, for their studies. This opportunity should prove especially helpful for those serving on the mission field, in the military, in local church and para-church ministries, and in bivocational ministries.

Although some Master of Arts degrees are already available in full online delivery, the full MDiv approval will allow for a more in-depth program of training and ministry preparation to those who otherwise might never have access.

One of the most exciting and important aspects of the online courses from Southeastern is that although our delivery methods are accessible and creative, we are determined never to lessen the quality or depth of our content. Students taking online MDiv courses participate in the same lecture content as those in our on campus courses both in quality and quantity. They read the same books, complete the same or comparable assignments, and participate in various creative and meaningful interactive discussion opportunities throughout a semester. The vast majority of our online instructors are full-time SEBTS faculty members. In some courses, we capture creatively the best content from several of our professors as well as other experts in the subject matter. The result is a powerful educational experience marked by breadth, depth, and diversity.

For readers who wish to investigate the online format, Dr. Akin’s online hermeneutics course is available for public viewing. Currently, the course is being offered to the public in for-credit and not-for-credit formats. Over 2,600 students are enrolled, with students from every continent taking the course. Dr. Akin’s videotaped lectures are the exact same lectures he delivers in our on-campus courses. Other online courses follow this pattern as well.

Our Distance Learning Office has years of experience developing these courses and preparing our faculty. They are ready to assist any current or prospective student in participating in an online course or degree. Courses will be offered fall, spring, and summer. Long term schedules will be available to help students at a distance plan out the completion of their entire degree. For more information about distance learning through SEBTS, click here.

Should the theological school be considered an “academic” enterprise? Or is it a “churchly” endeavor? Yes and yes. Or, so says Richard Mouw in his recent monograph, The Challenges of Cultural Discipleship. In the next-to-last chapter, “The Seminary, the Church, and the Academy,” Mouw argues that the theological school is an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom, and yet it is a manifestation closely related to the church.[1]

Mouw begins the chapter by providing a concise overview of the struggles within the Christian Reformed Church in the late 19^th century, in which the Free University of Amsterdam (associated with Abraham Kuyper) promoted an essentially non-ecclesiastical model while Kampen Theological Seminary (where Herman Bavinck spent the large portion of his career) operated under ecclesiastical control. Kuyper was anti-ecclesiastic because of his doctrine of sphere sovereignty, which argues that each sphere of human culture (e.g. the academy) has its own unique integrity and should not be controlled by another sphere (e.g. church).

Mouw notes that the “theological school” is an interesting case study for proponents of sphere sovereignty (of which Mouw is one), and argues that the theological school’s ontology is of the academy and for the church. For him, the theological school is an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom. It is a kingdom manifestation not because it is a church, or is essentially churchly, but because it honors God in the way it conforms to God-given principles and norms for academic-type work.

He further argues that both churches and theological schools are manifestations of the same kingdom of Christ. “To emphasize,” he writes, “that the church and the theological school are together accountable to something larger than either of them is to guard against the impression that either entity exists simply to serve the other’s interests. A theological school may be accountable to a specific ecclesial body, but it also has other accountability relationships—not the least being its relationships to the larger world of theological education.” For this reason, there exists a special pattern of accountability between theological schools and the church: “the theological school is indeed in the academy; but it exists there to make the benefits of academic life available to the church, and out of a deep love for the church’s life and mission.”

Theological schools, Mouw argues, should be accountable to church bodies because ecclesial concerns necessarily should shape and inform its curricula. Although the theological school might also focus on other constituencies such as relief organizations, occupation-specific laity groups, parachurch organizations, etc., its most significant focus should be on the struggles and challenges of congregational life. In exactly this manner, the theological school is “more than” an academic institution. The church should expect its theological schools to complement the church in spiritual formation, community involvement, psychological training, etc. In fact, in doing these “more than” activities, the seminary can impress upon the broader academic world the significance of such matters.

Toward the end of the chapter, Mouw provides a nice summary and distillation of his view when he writes, “Theological education needs to be free to pursue its unique functions in the context of the kingdom of Christ. In insisting on this I am not espousing an unbridled ‘free inquiry.’ As an evangelical Calvinist I am convinced that theological education will be at its healthiest only when it is grounded in a deep commitment to biblical orthodoxy. I firmly support the maintenance of confessional boundaries that define and safeguard that commitment to evangelical institutions. Theological educators ought not to lust after a promiscuous intellectual freedom. We are bonded to the Word of God, and to the cause of the Savior whose cosmic redemptive mission is infallibly revealed in that Word. This means that our academic callings can never be pursued in a way that distances us from the church over whom the Savior reigns as Lord.” For Mouw, the theological school is “an academic manifestation of the rule of Christ” which is accountable to the church.

My response will be limited to a brief reflection on the hybrid nature of theological schools such as the institution at which I am employed, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Although we are indeed an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom, the seminary is essentially church-related.  We exist at the pleasure of the SBC and in order to train ministers for SBC churches, missionaries for the IMB, and leaders for the convention entities. We operate faithfully and gratefully within SBC confessional boundaries. We want our education grounded in the worship and witness life of the redeemed community. For this reason, we require our students to be meaningful members of their churches. Further, we build “churchly” elements into the seminary’s life and curriculum: we have chapel services, promote spiritual formation, community life, and evangelism.

And the seminary is not a church. A seminary is distinctively different from a local congregation. We do not baptize or administer the Lord’s Supper. We do not endow any members of the seminary with pastoral authority. Unfortunately, however, seminary students can (either consciously or unconsciously) allow seminary to replace church. The chapel services become congregational worship, the professors become functional pastors, and a student’s peers become the members of their “covenant” community. If and when a student allows seminary functionally to become his church, he warps and distorts God’s purposes for the seminary and does so to his own detriment.

Although the seminary is church related, it is an academic manifestation of Christ’s kingdom. SBC seminaries are called forth by Southern Baptist churches in order to serve the church in the academic aspect of its discipleship and leadership training. Our education includes academic elements: we deliver lectures, administer exams, seek accreditation, publish journals, require Chicago style for our papers, and participate in conversation with the broader academy. These are essentially academic elements of seminary life; they are not “churchly,” and yet they count as “kingdom work.” For each aspect of the seminary’s life is to be brought under the Lordship of Christ and normed according to his word.

And yet the seminary is not purely academic. It is called forth into existence by the church and in turn serves the church. It does not bow to secular norms for the academic disciplines. For each academic discipline which has a counterpart at state universities, we ask at least three questions: What is God’s creational design for this discipline? How has this discipline been corrupted and misdirected by human idolatry? In what ways can we bring healing and redirection to his discipline? By asking these three questions, we are able to transform (or in some cases, reconstruct) disciplines such as biblical studies, counseling, or ethics in light of God’s normative word.

I’ve limited myself to a few brief reflections, and wish to hear our readership’s reflections on this significant topic. Do you agree with the basic thesis of the blog? Is there anything you would add or modify? Do you see further dangers of misunderstanding the seminary’s place in between church and academy?

HONORING “LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL

By Mark Liederbach with Tom Iversen

April 16^th marked the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”

Many (including us) rank his letter as one of greatest pieces of American literature ever written.  It is at once a powerful and elegant exposition of, and argument for, natural law as well as a sturdy call to repentance and an outright challenge for those who claim to be aligned with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to stand up and be counted in the fight for truth and justice.  Fifty years later it is still poignantly relevant to a culture experiencing a full assault on notions of moral truth, ethical standards, religious conscience and rightly ordered freedom.

Sadly, too many evangelicals (both white and black) are unfamiliar with the masterpiece that is MLK Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” But consider some of the astounding statements found within:

Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’ But they went on with the conviction that they were a ‘colony of heaven’ and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.’ They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest. Things are different now. The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the archsupporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

The early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

In considering the philosophical and biblical sturdiness as well as the theological and moral challenge present in the Letter, we can’t help but be drawn to the words and thoughts of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 that have a similar shaping influence on questions of justice, truth and morality.  There, in Athens, on Mars Hill, while engaging the Greek philosophers and bringing the truth of the Gospel into the marketplace of ideas, Paul made this remarkable statement:

and God made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being… (Acts 17:26-28. Italics added for emphasis). 

One Blood

In Him we live and move and have our being.

Ideas to rock the status quo and change a world.

One blood means there is only one race: the human one.  Thus, racism is fundamentally stupid and unbiblical.

In Him we live and move and have our being means all humans will only find hope fulfilled and a satisfied soul as each person rightly aligns him or herself to the God who created all things for His own glory.  And that can only happen through faith in Jesus Christ.

One important difference between Dr. King’s Letter and the Apostle Paul’s speech on Mars Hill relates to the audience to whom each was directed.  It is interesting to note that Dr. King made his argument not so much to unbelievers or those who directly persecuted him, but to his brothers and sisters in Christ.  His target audience was those tepid, timid “white churchmen [who] stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” and justify their inaction by saying “those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern.”

Perhaps the reason the words of MLK Jr. and Paul are so powerful and transcend notions of race or ethnicity is not because of the elegance of the writing or the catchiness of certain phrases, but rather (and far more importantly), because truth always transcends categories of race and ethnicity.  And speaking truth in the face of injustice or ideas that stand in opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the key ways true Christ followers must “take captive” and “destroy” ideas and speculations that stand against the things of God in their own heats and in the culture at large.

It is for this reason that at the 50 year anniversary of Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”  we are especially grateful to God for Dr. King and his calling all of us to be stand and fight not just for ending the moral stupidity of racism, but even more so, to be the kind of people who do not acquiesce to the ideas of culture but rather shape it for the Glory of God.

Fifty years ago Martin Luther King Jr. stood like a man and called all of us to be better.  Fifty years later he is still calling us up to be men with him.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is timeless work of ethics, philosophy, theology, amazing writing … AND a good reminder of two astounding truths: 1) The Gospel is thicker than blood (and therefore skin color) and; 2) our lives and our world can only be transformed into wholeness  through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

(Image credit)

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Mark Liederbach is Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as Vice President for Student Services and Dean of Students, and is a Research Fellow for the L.Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. Tom Iversen serves as an elder at North Wake Church in Wake Forest, NC.

The following thoughts come from a recent conversation I had with John Piper during the Advance Conference. I believe I am reflecting Piper’s words accurately, even though they are recorded here from my memory of the conversation, not verbatim.

“I sometimes think of John the Baptist’s death, how absurd it must have seemed,” Piper began. “Can you imagine it? The guard opens the door and says, ‘John, come here and kneel.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because a middle school girl danced and asked for your head.’ What a pitiful way to go! John the Baptist was probably kneeling there, about to die, thinking, ‘Really, Lord? I go out like this? Killed because of a middle school girl and her dancing?’”

“And, of course, the real reason that John was killed—the reason he had been imprisoned in the first place—was because he had called out King Herod’s sexual immorality. You can hear today’s critics: ‘That’s just what you get, John, for poking your head into politics.’ But Jesus wasn’t ashamed of John’s sacrifice. He thought it was a noble act of courage that led to his death. In fact, when people told Jesus about the execution, Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest prophet who ever lived.”

Here is a pressing question for my generation: is the courage of John the Baptist at work in us, or will we falter when the question comes to us? It reminded me of what my wife remarked to me recently: that the day may come when I may be forced to choose between the size of our church—which I love, of course, we love reaching people—and faithfulness to the gospel. I mentioned this to Piper, and he responded:

“That’s not exactly it. Take homosexuality, for example. The only time I’ve seen Tim Keller depressed was over this issue in our culture. 20% of the people in our society will always think that homosexual behavior is wrong. But Keller thinks we’ve essentially lost the other 80%. Now, that doesn’t mean that your church is going to shrink. The 20%, after all, will always be looking for someone with the courage to speak the truth. The more homosexual behavior is praised in our society, the more that 20% will flock to your church.”

“You won’t have to choose between faithfulness and a big church per se. But you might have to choose between faithfulness and your personal freedom. What I mean is, you will have to decide whether or not you’re prepared to go to prison. I’m not exaggerating. So, in a roundabout way, I guess your wife is right… because, after all, how big of a church can you have in prison?”