Here - Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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<strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Seminary</strong> beefs up<br />
biblical counseling faculty<br />
By Garrett E. Wishall<br />
<strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Seminary</strong> continues to bolster its<br />
biblical counseling program with the addition<br />
of several renowned authors and scholars as<br />
visiting faculty.<br />
Paul David Tripp, president of Paul Tripp<br />
Ministries and a counselor for 25 years, and<br />
David Powlison, faculty member at the Christian<br />
Counseling & Educational Foundation<br />
(CCEF), have both been added to <strong>Southern</strong>’s<br />
faculty as visiting professors.<br />
Tripp, who also serves as an adjunct professor<br />
at CCEF, said being<br />
able to impact the next<br />
generation of leaders<br />
attracted him to <strong>Southern</strong><br />
<strong>Seminary</strong>. He said he<br />
looks forward to helping<br />
students integrate God’s<br />
Word, sound theology and<br />
wise counseling into a unified<br />
whole.<br />
“I view successful ministry<br />
as building a bridge<br />
from the shore of God’s<br />
Word to the shore of everyday<br />
life,” he said. “It seems that theologians<br />
are often able to build a bridge from the<br />
shore of God’s Word and theology, but they<br />
struggle with connecting it to every day life.<br />
Counselors seem to struggle with the reverse<br />
problem. I love having the opportunity to help<br />
people build a completed bridge so that they<br />
can look at life in a fallen world from a biblical<br />
perspective.”<br />
Tripp is the author of Lost in the Middle,<br />
Age of Opportunity, War of Words and Instruments<br />
in the Redeemer’s Hands. He also<br />
serves as an adjunct professor at Westminster<br />
<strong>Theological</strong> <strong>Seminary</strong> in Philadelphia, where<br />
he earned his D.Min.<br />
David Powlison edits The Journal of Biblical<br />
Counseling, is a visiting professor at Westminster<br />
and is the author of several books,<br />
including Seeing with New Eyes and Speaking<br />
Truth in Love. He earned his master of divinity<br />
from Westminster and his Ph.D. from the University<br />
of Pennsylvania.<br />
Powlison said he looks forward to teaching<br />
at <strong>Southern</strong> and is pleased with the <strong>Seminary</strong>’s<br />
decision to center its counseling on pastoral<br />
ministry and not secular professionalism.<br />
Paul David Tripp David Powlison Robert Jones Robert Burrelli<br />
“I pray that Christian colleges, universities<br />
and seminaries will get a vision toward orienting<br />
counseling around the Gospel,” he said. “One<br />
expects pastoral training, missionary training<br />
and evangelistic training to be centered on the<br />
Gospel, but counseling has been the odd sister<br />
out. To play a role in [changing] that is a terrific<br />
opportunity and a great honor.”<br />
In addition to Tripp and Powlison, <strong>Southern</strong><br />
has added as visiting faculty Robert Jones,<br />
assistant professor of biblical counseling at<br />
Southeastern <strong>Baptist</strong> <strong>Theological</strong> <strong>Seminary</strong>,<br />
and Robert Burrelli, pastor of Grace Bible<br />
Church in Bridgewater, Mass.<br />
Jones is the author of Uprooting Anger:<br />
Biblical Help for a Common Problem and<br />
Burrelli is a certified counselor with the<br />
National Association of Nouthetic Counselors.<br />
Stuart Scott, director of the Center for Biblical<br />
Counseling at <strong>Southern</strong>, said the addition of<br />
all four men will help the seminary continue its<br />
mission of training biblical counselors.<br />
“I am very pleased that several outstanding<br />
men in the biblical counseling arena have agreed<br />
to come and teach a course or two each year<br />
here at <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Seminary</strong>,” said Scott, who also<br />
serves as associate professor<br />
of biblical counseling at<br />
<strong>Southern</strong>. “Drs. Powlison,<br />
Tripp, Burrelli and Jones<br />
are fully committed to the<br />
sufficiency of God’s Word<br />
for counseling and will be<br />
invaluable assets to <strong>Southern</strong>’s<br />
growing biblical counseling<br />
program.”<br />
Tripp said applying<br />
the biblical counseling<br />
model to counseling,<br />
instead of taking a secular<br />
or integrated approach, best complements<br />
the faithful proclamation of Scripture that<br />
should take place in local churches.<br />
“If you have a person who is faithful in<br />
their attendance to church, and they are hearing<br />
good preaching that is giving them a good<br />
model of thinking about life – and they then<br />
go to a counseling office on Tuesdays that<br />
presents a different way of thinking about<br />
life, then that is very confusing,” he said. “It is<br />
helpful if people are hearing the same thing<br />
from counselors that they are hearing from<br />
the pulpit.”<br />
Over 120 people participated<br />
in the 2nd Annual 5K Walk /<br />
Run for Missions. Photos by<br />
John Gill<br />
page 24<br />
Fall 2007 | <strong>Southern</strong> <strong>Seminary</strong> Magazine
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