Southern Seminary Magazine (Vol 90.1) The Light of Truth: Apologetics in the 21st Century

4 The Changing Face of
Apologetics in a Secular Age
10 Adam and Eve
KYLE D. CLAUNCH
24 Playing Offense
ANDREW T. WALKER
v90 n1
R. ALBERT MOHLER JR.
SOUTHERN
SEMINARY MAGAZINE
The Light of Truth
APOLOGETICS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY

The D.Min. is an extension of your current ministry, not a
distraction from it. It’s about helping church leaders improve what
you’re actively doing every day—faithfully ministering in the place
you’ve been called. With professors that are practitioners as well
as scholars, you can be sure that every aspect of your education is
designed to fully equip you for more faithful service.

Summer 2022. Vol. 90, No. 1.
Copyright ©2022
The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
from the editor
JEFF ROBINSON
Vice President
of Communications:
Dustin W. Benge
Managing Editors:
Jeff Robinson and Stuart Hunt
Creative Director: Stuart Hunt
Production Manager: Evan Sams
Graphic Designers: Benjamin Aho,
Gareth Brady, Dustin Benge
Photographer: Trevor Wheeker
Contributing Writers: R. Albert
Mohler, Jr., Kyle D. Claunch,
Stephen J. Wellum, Andrew T.
Walker, Dustin Bruce, Thomas R.
Schreiner, Timothy K. Beougher,
Timothy Paul Jones, Jeff Robinson,
Travis Hearne.
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About the Cover:
“The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”
is a 1633 oil-on-canvas painting
by the Dutch Golden Age
painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It
was previously in the Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum in
Boston but was stolen in 1990
and remains missing. The painting
depicts the biblical story of Jesus
calming the storm on the Sea
of Galilee, specifically as it is
described in the fourth chapter
of the Gospel of Mark. It is Rembrandt’s
only seascape.
The door that led me into the booklined
hallway of serious theological
study was apologetics. It began in the
mid-1990s. I was working as a newspaper
journalist and had received some
serious questions about my Christian
faith as it relates to both reason and reality.
In my Bible reading, I had memorized
1 Peter 3:15 and wanted to obey
God’s Word and present a faithful,
well-reasoned rendition of the gospel
to my inquisitive journalism colleagues.
Some sharp brothers in my church
turned my attention to books by Josh
McDowell, Chuck Colson, and C. S.
Lewis. They introduced me to R. C.
Sproul and John Gerstner. Another
friend pointed me to Greg Bahnsen’s
big book on presuppositionalism, and
he gifted me John Frame’s book on Van
Til. I read Aquinas’s five proofs for the
existence of God. These were among the
first serious ministry books I owned,
and those apologists helped me over
my fear of evangelizing lost but bright
co-workers. It didn’t take long for me
to realize that they didn’t have good answers
to life’s ultimate questions, but
God’s Word did. That intensive study
also opened an entire universe to me
with constellations named systematic
and biblical theology, church history
and historical theology, biblical exegesis
and homiletics, philosophy and ethics.
Eventually, God used the seeds apologetics
had sown to grow up in me a
full-blown call to ministry and then to
Southern Seminary as an eager student
of the things of God.
It all began with apologetics.
And, really, the fundamental task
has never changed. Though I’ve been
teaching, preaching, and writing about
church history, theology, pastoral ministry,
the Christian life, and much else
for the past 25 years, all those things
really boil down to one thing: a defense
and proclamation of the glorious,
saving gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s the
foundational task for which Southern
Seminary equips us all.
I tell both my students and congregation
members that the goal of any discipline
I’m teaching is always, at its base,
evangelism. And the skeleton that upholds
full-orbed gospel proclamation is
apologetics—always being ready to give
an account for the hope that lies within
us, communicating it with humility and
in the fear of the Lord. In this new edition
of the Southern Seminary magazine,
we introduce readers to the discipline
of apologetics.
summer 2022
1

contents
v90 n1
THE LIGHT OF TRUTH • APOLOGETICS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY
1
from the editor
3
president’s
message
46
alumni:
we have to
live out
our faith
by Jeff Robinson
32
reaching
history’s most
secular
generation:
apologetics
and gen-z
by Dustin Bruce
36
we argue that
jesus is the
only way, but
are we living
it out?
by Tom Schreiner
40
you don’t
have to be
an expert to
share the gospel
by Tim Beougher
43
3 key truths
for better
apologetics
by Timothy Paul Jones
4
The Changing Face of
Apologetics in a Secular Age
by R. Albert Mohler Jr.
10
Adam and Eve
DID THEY LITERALLY EXIST IN THE
BEGINNING AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
by Kyle D. Claunch
18
Pillars and Bridges
HOW TO PROCLAIM AND UPHOLD THE GOSPEL
THROUGH APOLOGETIC METHOD AND STRATEGY
by Stephen J. Wellum
24
Playing Offense
HOW CHRISTIAN NATURAL LAW ARGUMENTS
WORK IN PUBLIC APOLOGETICS
by Andrew T. Walker
51
news &
features
55
alumni:
kitchens, sbts
alum, promoted to
air force chief
of chaplains
by Travis Hearne
57
faculty
books
60
york, nettles, &
schreiner:
25 years of
faithful service
by Jeff Robinson
2 the southern baptist theological seminary

President’s Message
r. albert mohler jr.
ALBERTMOHLER.COM
@ALBERTMOHLER
We are living in one of those hinge moments
in human history. The tectonic
plates beneath the society around us
are moving and changing in such a
way that many of us can recognize the before and after
within our own lifespans. The acceleration of social
change and the conditions of late modernity now represent
a challenge because we understand that—just to
take the issue of moral change—it can come with such
speed that human beings aren’t built to a scale even to
really understand it.
On May 9, 2021, the first openly transgender bishop
of any church in the United States was elected by the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. That was a
church that didn’t ordain anyone to the ministry who
identified as LGBTQ+ until 2009. If you look at that
change over the course of twelve years, you might
think that there have been two millennia of Christian
history and over five hundred years of the Lutheran
tradition in particular when something like this would
have seemed unimaginable.
If you had talked to the people who on behalf of that
denomination decided to ordain openly gay a clergy
back in 2009, they would have said that it was not in
their imagination that ordination could be extended
to someone with a transgender identity. They would
have said instead, “By the way, what is that?” After all,
the ideology behind transgender identity hadn’t been
developed yet. Now, it’s mainstream. Indeed, it’s the
reigning orthodoxy of the dominant cultural authorities
in our secular age.
Within my own lifespan, from 1959 until the present,
I’ve witnessed the changing of worlds. In fact, I
began to experience our culture’s shifts in a personal
way when I was in the eighth grade. It was then that
I was yanked out of a very comfortable and overtly
Christian culture and placed into a context in which
the ambient culture was markedly different. I had no
tools for it. I didn’t understand it. As I tell people, the
limits of my imagination about religious pluralism for
the first thirteen years of my life was related to the fact
that we had one Methodist and one Presbyterian family
in the neighborhood.
In a new school, I found myself surrounded by people
who came from many different parts of the world
and had many different worldviews. I also had teachers
who were ardent in their atheism—something that
I don’t know if I even knew about until I met an atheist.
The new culture I began to inhabit wasn’t as secularized
as our own in this current stage of late modernity,
but one could already see the threads of contemporary
secularization coming together.
We must consider the Bible’s command to “be prepared
to give an account for the hope you have” (1 Peter
3:15) in light of these rapid shifts. We must see that a
current seminarian’s entire life may be given doing the
work of evangelism and apologetics in a culture that is
a moving target. It’s a rather humbling realization. Seminary
graduates today are entering a culture that is in
such fast motion that it’s difficult either to exaggerate or
to predict the pace of change.
Let me be clear. The theological task has not
changed, but the task of apologetics does seem to have
changed, not in terms of its biblical mandate but in
terms of its current expression. That is the theme of
this issue of Southern Seminary Magazine. Within
these pages we’re exploring the theme of apologetics—
giving a reason for our hope.
When I was a young Christian encountering cultural
upheaval for the first time, I first encountered
apologists like Francis Schaeffer and R. C. Sproul.
They made a big impact in my life. It’s just that kind
of difference that the faculty of The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary has in the life of our students.
Every day, we are giving seminarians the intellectual
tools they need to take ideas and truth claims seriously
so that they can give a reason for their hope.
R. Albert Mohler Jr.
summer 2022
3

edeeming the time with r. albert mohler jr.
The
Changing
Face of
Apologetics
in a
by
r. albert mohler jr.
Secular
Age

“How do we speak
to a culture that not
only has lower rates
of people who say
they believe in God,
but who when they
do say they believe in
God, give decreasing
importance to
what they’re saying?”
I
was astounded by conversations with
many Americans who watched the dramatic
portrayal of Queen Elizabeth’s
coronation in the first season of the
television program, The Crown. Viewers
wondered aloud where they came
up with “that strange language.” The
strange language they were referencing was right
out of the Bible. For most of history, the British
crown (and basically all the monarchies in the
Western world) explicitly claimed a biblical and
theological legitimacy. It’s not by accident that
Handel’s majestic anthem “Zadok the Priest” is
what is played the very moment that the monarch
is shrouded in mystery. The coronation even
includes an anointing with oil just as with Samuel,
Saul, and David.
When we consider our own secular society,
we must realize that the word “secular” actually
emerged from the realm of politics. In the Middle
Ages, there was a union between the throne
and the altar, and it was very well understood that
a theological justification was necessary for the
monarchy. In this context, the term “secular” began
to be used to refer to the distinctly political
power of the government as opposed to the theological
and institutional power of the church. But
even though the distinction was made, it was
made from within a Christian worldview. After
all, the “divine right of kings” only makes sense if
the legitimacy of the regime is based upon a theological
affirmation.
Today, the idea of theism doesn’t even fit the
language of most governmental regimes. And it’s
not just true in government but throughout our
society. When I was a boy, it was assumed when
new neighbors moved to your community that
you’d ask them what church they wanted to attend.
That would be considered a very rude question
these days, but you also wouldn’t be surprised if
people answered, “No church at all.” We may take
this for granted, but the reality is that it’s a stunning
change in human experience.
A Society Unbound from Theism
We live in a society marked by secularization. And
when I use that term, I’m talking about the sort
of secularism that we’ve only experienced in the
wake of the Enlightenment and the advent of modernity;
we live in a society where theism has lost
summer 2022
5

the changing face of apologetics in a secular age
“If the world around us is
secularizing, then the church
must self-consciously practice
apologetics as a mode of existence.”
its binding authority. I’ve lived long enough to watch it
happen, and it still surprises me.
According to Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor,
this falling off of religious faith and practice will become
so much a part of the cultural landscape that no one will
notice what is missing. It’s an age, Taylor said, within
which there’s no longer any need for the society to be
grounded in belief in God or in any ultimate reality.
Human beings just are, and society requires no explanation
beyond itself. Government just is, and you may
argue about which government should be in place, but
no one is making any arguments about transcendence or
theism. As Taylor said, “In our secular societies, you can
engage fully in politics without ever encountering God.”
In fact, Taylor argued that a secular age is one in which
people engage all goods that are a part of human flourishing
apart from any sort of theological reference. In
our day and time, human flourishing has become an end
in itself. In fact, the government’s only reason for existence
in a secular era is to enhance the current society’s
understanding of the common good. If it succeeds at
that, government is understood as having achieved its
purpose. If it fails, then throw the crooks out and get
a new government.
In the secular age, what Taylor calls the social imaginary—the
sum total of the ideas that are imaginable by
people in a particular social epic—no longer includes
theological truth claims at all. The world is different now
precisely because it’s missing what had characterized
the world before.
Three Observations about
Apologetics in Our Changing Culture
How are we to think of the task of apologetics in this new
era? How does a Christian defend their faith in a secular
age? I want to make three observations:
1
First, if the world around us is secularizing, then the
church must self-consciously practice apologetics as a
mode of existence. When I was a young Christian reading
apologists like Francis Schaeffer, I didn’t think of
apologetics as the Christian mode of existence or even as
a necessary part of the Christian way of life, but I did feel
like it was a necessary part of mine. I largely saw apologetics
as a Christian method for answering specific sorts
of questions. And once those questions were answered,
you moved on from apologetics to something like systematic
theology.
That understanding of apologetics wasn’t unique to
me. The Anglican theologian Austin Farrer (1904–1968)
lived a short life—just sixty-four years—but it was one
that saw dramatic changes. When Farrer was born in
1904, four European countries had jurisdiction over
more than a third of the earth’s surface. It was a world
in which most people in most lands were governed by
crowned heads. But all of that, especially in the European
context, came to an end. Various empires, including the
Habsburg empire of Austria-Hungary and the Romanov
empire of Russia, all ended by the time Austin Farrer was
ready for grade school.
Farrer’s lifespan, which spanned from just after the
time of Victoria until the modern age, included two
world wars and a profound transformation of British life.
He saw governments that ranged from the High Tory
tradition to socialism by the time the Labor Party was
in power. The world that Austin Farrer knew at the end
of his life was a fundamentally different world than what
he had known in the beginning. But to him, the biggest
change was theological.
Farrer called what was taking place in Britain the
6 the southern baptist theological seminary

. albert mohler, jr.
de-Christianization of society. The word “secular” wasn’t
much a part of his vocabulary, but Farrer understood
that he had witnessed the eclipse of Christianity as a necessary
framework for thinking amongst the British people
of his own generation. By the time his life came to an
end in 1968, he had seen the receding of Christian faith
and doctrine. In fact, he’d seen biblical teaching largely
escape the imagination of the British people.
In the midst of these changes, Farrer raised the question
as to what the de-Christianization of society meant for
apologetics. He concluded that apologetics might only be
possible where there are people asking theological questions—questions
that the apologists could then answer.
Years ahead of his time, Farrer also foresaw a time when
the tools of apologetics would become very rare. Farrer
thought of apologetics as the defense of the Christian
faith—the defense of Christian truth claims and even of
Christian morality—in a time when people would at least
know what those claims were. It’s a very different challenge
when the society is so secular that it doesn’t even
know how to ask the questions or even assert denials. In a
secular age, apologetics changes from being merely a tool
to being a posture—a mode of existence.
2
Second, in the secular age, none of the fundamental
questions of modernity have gone away, but the essential
questions are now ontological and moral. Every question
imaginable—and some yet unimaginable—are now
on the table. But the main fronts of battle have shifted
from epistemology (questions of how we know truth) to
matters of ontology (questions about the nature of reality)
and morality (questions of how we should live).
Richard Dawkins, the most famous atheist in the
world and an absolute Darwinian right down to the selfish
gene, has recently been relieved of his Humanist of
the Year award. The American Humanist Association
gave him the award over a decade ago, but now they’ve
taken it away. Why?
Well, Richard Dawkins doesn’t have a worldview that
is free from ontological obligations. Dawkins is a materialist.
He believes in an ontological reality where XX and
XY are important. So, he said that a transgender woman
is a contradiction in terms, because the genes are still
there. As a result, he had to pack up his Humanist of the
Year trophy and send it back.
Dawkins found out the hard way that it’s moral issues
in our contemporary world that are likely to frame where
on the ground our hardest apologetic work is yet to be
done. There’s a revolt against being in the contemporary
world that is beyond what I could have imagined. In the
past, I saw the central challenges faced by Christian apologists
as cognitive and not so much moral, not so much
ontological, but if you’re dealing with something like the
LGBTQ revolution, then you’re dealing with the central
claims of identity politics and the transgender revolution,
and you actually have an argument against ontology.
The truth is we face a society that doesn’t think it’s important
whether Christianity is true or untrue. Rather,
what matters is whether or not Christianity when asserted
is dangerous and harmful to human flourishing. Many
believe that Christianity is at best an impediment and
summer 2022
7

the changing face of apologetics in a secular age
at worst enemies of the common good. In other words,
the scandal that Christianity faces right now is primarily
a moral scandal.
3
Finally, Reformed theology is the only adequate framework
for a genuinely scriptural and kerygmatic apologetic.
Because a theistic foundation is now so far from
the society’s imagination, our seminary graduates will
likely never live in a moment when the most basic truth
claims of Christianity will be heard or understood in
anything like the way they are intended.
Sociologist and theologian Peter Berger points out that
secularization has changed the plausibility structures
for people even if they recite the same creed. Even if
someone says the Apostle’s Creed precisely as their great
grandparents had said it, they may not believe the Apostle’s
Creed in exactly the same way.
In the US, and even in evangelical life according to
Berger, secularization works internally. Rather than taking
the Christian faith as a whole package, evangelicals
typically choose which doctrines they want to believe
and which they don’t. The same person may choose to affirm
both the bodily resurrection of Christ and gay marriage.
Confessing both doctrines feels life-giving so the
jerrymandered logic used to cobble them together goes
unnoticed. After all, belief is as a matter choice.
Berger calls this the heretical imperative, and I, frankly,
think it is quite frightening. How does the Christian
pastor or apologist speak to a culture that doesn’t even
have the foundation to hear and understand a coherent
biblical framework? How do we speak to a culture that
not only has lower rates of people who say they believe in
God, but who when they do say they believe in God, give
decreasing importance to what they’re saying?
Reformed theology is the only way. In Reformed theology,
we not only begin with the sovereignty of God, but
we understand God’s sovereign grace to be the operative
principle throughout the entire system of our thinking.
We believe that the most important work is the Spirit’s
internal work, a work which is beyond cognitive realization.
We know there is no way to break through the defenses
of a rebellious heart, even with the most ingenious
argument, until something happens inside that heart,
which can only come by the sovereign power of God.
For this reason, we affirm that the preaching of the Word
of God is the primary means of grace by which God, by
the Holy Spirit, reaches into dead human hearts bringing
regeneration, quickening, illumination, awakening.
The Christian apologist certainly employs intellectual
tools to defend the Christian faith. The task of apologetics
necessarily requires the use of intellectual tools.
It necessitates our taking ideas and truth claims seriously
and giving a reason for the hope that is in us. But
ultimately, our confidence is not in our intellect but in
the power of God.
R. Albert Mohler Jr. is President of The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary and daily host of The Briefing.
“We affirm that the preaching of the
Word of God is the primary means
of grace by which God, by the Holy
Spirit, reaches into dead human hearts
bringing regeneration, quickening,
illumination, awakening.”
8 the southern baptist theological seminary

Tuesday, June 14, 2022
In the midst of chaos
and confusion, you need
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Adam
DID THEY LITERALLY
EXIST IN THE BEGINNING
AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
and Eve
10 the southern baptist theological seminary

y kyle d.
claunch
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve
from Paradise, Benjamin West, 1791
The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo
(creation out of nothing) is indisputably
basic to sound Christian
theology. This doctrine states that
the triune God exists necessarily
and eternally, and everything
that exists that is not God owes its
existence to God.
Nevertheless, among those who hold this basic
theological commitment, the question of how to
interpret the opening chapters of Genesis has been
a subject of debate throughout the long history of
Christianity. The urgency of the question increased
dramatically with the publication of Charles Darwin’s
Origin of Species in the mid-19th century. Since
that time, some version of macro-evolution has
been the consensus explanation for the biological
diversity of life on our planet in the scientific academy.
Therefore, the issue of the historicity (or not)
of the first man and woman named in Scripture—
Adam and Eve—has become an increasingly controversial
subject.
This article will argue that the historical existence
of Adam and Eve as the first human beings and the
biological progenitors of the entire human race is a
matter of great theological consequence for Christians,
and that some interpretive strategies are better
suited to defend belief in a historical Adam and
Eve than others.
We’ll begin by demonstrating the theological significance
of the historicity of Adam and Eve to show
summer 2022
11

seeking the historical adam
that forfeiting this belief would result in compromise to
several important doctrinal convictions of the Christian
faith. Among Christians committed to belief in the
historicity of Adam and Eve, there are many interpretive
approaches to the opening chapters of Genesis. These approaches
will be summarized briefly along with an assessment
of the potential strengths and weaknesses of each. In
the end, it will be shown that reading the opening chapters
of Genesis as historical narrative is the most consistent
way to maintain the tremendously important belief in a
historical Adam and Eve.
Historical Adam and Eve: What’s at Stake?
Genesis 1:26–31 states that God created humanity in his
image on the sixth day of creation. He made them male
and female; he commanded them to reproduce, filling the
earth with their progeny; he gave them dominion over the
earth and all life thereon. Genesis 2 describes the creation
of the very first man (named Adam, a Hebrew word meaning
mankind) out of the dust of the ground and the very
first woman (later named Eve) out of Adam’s side. The man
and the woman are joined together as one flesh in what
Scripture presents as the very first marriage union, which
is described as paradigmatic for all future marital relations.
In Genesis 3, the story of Adam and Eve takes a tragic
turn as the first man and woman rebel against God
through disobedience. God subsequently rebukes them
and a curse is pronounced on creation. The consequence
of their sin will be the regularity of human death, pain and
agony (including high mortality rates) for women and
their babies in childbirth, extreme difficulty in farming
the land for sustenance, and the punitive removal from the
life-giving covenant presence of God as represented by the
Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden of Eden.
Amid God’s declaration of judgment in the form of a
curse, he also announces a promise of future salvation,
stating that the seed of the woman will one day crush the
head of the serpent who deceived Adam and Eve (Gen.
3:15). Indeed, the rest of the storyline of Scripture can be
understood as a development of the conflict between the
seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent in anticipation
of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who will finally
fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15. The personal story of
Adam is concluded in Genesis 5:1 where he is described as
the father of Seth, his third son, whose future lineage will
eventually give rise to the fulfillment of the promise.
While some may wonder whether Christians need to
take the personal story of Adam and Eve as historical, attention
to later Scripture confirms that a historical reading
is the right reading of the earliest chapters of Genesis.
Furthermore, forfeiting the historicity of Adam and Eve as
real people undermines a number of important Christian
theological commitments.
Unlike the personal story of Adam’s life, the prominence
of Adam in Scripture does not end with the opening
chapters of Genesis. Rather, the accounts given there
are viewed by later biblical authors as both historical and
theologically consequential.
After Genesis 5, Adam is not mentioned again until 1
Chronicles 1:1. There, his name appears at the head of a
genealogy that takes readers from Adam, through Abraham,
all the way to the kings of Israel and Judah as descended
from David. Thus, for the chronicler, the historical
reality of Israel’s history under the Davidic dynasty is
of the same kind as the historical reality of Adam, Seth,
Enosh, and so on (see the genealogy of Adam and his posterity
in Genesis 5).
Later, the prophet Hosea likens the faithlessness of Israel
(Ephraim) and Judah to the sin of Adam (Hosea 6:7),
a likeness that is most naturally understood as historical
correspondence. What Hosea makes explicit is an implicit
biblical pattern of typology that many interpreters have
recognized. After Adam, many others emerge like him,
bearing the status of a kind of new Adam, tested as Adam
was. Noah as an individual, Israel as a nation, David as
representative of the nation—each of these is presented
as a new Adam, given the opportunity to succeed where
Adam failed. As Hosea observes, though, these all failed
in the same way Adam failed—covenant unfaithfulness to
the LORD. Hosea laments:
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I
do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning
cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore, I
have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them
by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes
forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt
offerings. But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me (Hosea 6:4–
7, emphasis added).
Fundamental to Christian theology is the happy conviction
that this typological pattern of new Adam-like figures
did not end with the failure of the Davidic dynasty
12 the southern baptist theological seminary

kyle d. claunch
under the administration of the Law of Moses. The Gospel
of Luke shows us that Adam’s genealogical line continues
past the Old Testament Davidic kings all the way to Jesus
Christ (Luke 3:23–38). The eternal Son of God, the second
person of the Godhead, assumed a human nature, being
made like us in every way so that he could be the one to
make propitiation to God (Heb. 2:14–18). Jesus was everything
Adam was, and he succeeded where Adam failed.
The apostle Paul makes the typological connection between
Adam and Jesus explicit: “Therefore, as one trespass
led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness
leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the
one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so
by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”
(Rom. 5:18–19).
In another passage, Paul expounds the connection
further, saying,
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also
the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. . . . Thus it
is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’;
the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is
not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then
the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man
of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the
man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and
as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of
heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man
of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of
heaven (1 Cor. 15:21–22, 45–49).
Jesus Christ is the last Adam, the one in whom we
have redemption from the consequences of Adam’s sin
and from the consequences of our own personal transgressions.
“The wages of sin (Adam’s and ours) is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our
Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
At this point, some argue that the typological and theological
importance of Adam in relation to Christ does
not depend on the literal historicity of Adam. Adam can
simply be a literary figure whose story makes a profound
theological point. Just as I might instruct my children
about perseverance in hard work by appealing to “The
Tortoise and the Hare” without implying anything about
the historicity of the fabled race, so Paul (and Hosea) can
appeal to the literary story of Adam without implying that
Adam is an actual historical person. This analogy, however,
will not hold up to close scrutiny.
In the case of a literary fable used in moral instruction,
the story is known to be merely illustrative by all who hear it.
There is no history of interpretation of “The Tortoise and the
“Fundamental to
Christian theology is
the happy conviction
that this typological
pattern of new Adamlike
figures did not end
with the failure of the
Davidic dynasty under
the administration
of the Law of Moses.
The Gospel of Luke
shows us that Adam’s
genealogical line
continues past the
Old Testament
Davidic kings all
the way to Jesus
Christ (Luke 3:23–38).”
Hare” that ascribes to it a literal sense. On the other hand,
the vast majority of interpreters of Genesis 2–3—ancient
and modern, Jewish and Christian—have understood
Adam and Eve to be literal, historical people. Indeed, even
those interpreters who deny the historical existence of a
literal Adam (such as Peter Enns 1 and Denis O. Lamoreux
2 ) have admitted that the apostle Paul and even Jesus
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seeking the historical adam
himself (see Matthew 19:1–10) did indeed believe Adam
to be historical.
Inerrancy Compromised,
Original Sin Scuttled
Such Christians argue that Jesus’ and Paul’s mistaken belief
about the historicity of Adam does not affect the theology
of the point being made by the story of Adam concerning
human sin, judgment, and redemption. However, this raises
an entirely new problem. The inspiration of Scripture as
the word of God (2 Tim. 3:16–17) and the trustworthiness
of Jesus as God the Son who speaks the word of God (John
3:34) is dramatically undermined by this argument. If Jesus
and Paul affirmed as historical that which is not historical,
then the word of God communicates as true that
which is false. Thus, a denial of the historicity of Adam
requires a radical retooling of the traditional doctrine of
the inspiration of Scripture and a denial of the inerrancy
of Scripture, a fact that those who reject the historicity of
Adam are willing to admit.
Another problem with denying the historicity of Adam
while affirming the theological claims made in the New
Testament about him has to do with the enduring effect
of the sin of Adam and Eve. The theological point being
made by Paul through his allusion to Adam is not only
the fact that Jesus succeeds where Adam failed but that all
of humanity is condemned and corrupted on account of
Adam’s sin. Paul is explicit that all of humanity is under
condemnation and corruption because of the sin of the
first man (Rom. 5:12–19). If Adam is merely a literary
figure (whether believed by Paul to be historical or not),
there can be no explanation for how the sin of a literary
character in a myth can have consequences for people in
the real world. Thus, a denial of the historicity of Adam
would completely undo the historic and very important
Christian doctrine of original sin.
Christian Interpretations of the
Early Chapters of Genesis
Among Christians committed to the historical existence
of Adam and Eve as progenitors of the human race along
with such traditional Christian doctrines as the typological
link between Adam as primal covenant failure and Christ
as Redeemer, the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture as
the word of God, and the doctrine of original sin, there
are many different interpretive strategies for the first few
chapters of Genesis.
Each view below is quite complex and nuanced, and proponents
have offered extensive treatments to defend the
views. The descriptions below are necessarily described
broadly, focusing exclusively on the view’s handling of the
historicity of Adam.
“If Adam is merely
a literary figure
(whether believed by
Paul to be historical
or not), there can be no
explanation for how
the sin of a literary
character in a myth
can have consequences
for people
in the real world.”
1Genesis 1–11 as Mythical. Some Christians take for
granted the claim that biological diversity on earth
is the result of a long process of macro-evolution by
which all known species of life today evolved from
other life forms such that all living things share a common
descent. A commitment to such an understanding of biological
life rules out the possibility that the opening chapters
of Genesis are to be interpreted as historical narrative.
Such Christians usually see the opening chapters of Genesis
(often the first 11) as bearing the character of “myth”
in the sense of non-historical primaeval stories that function
to explain why life in the world is the way that it is.
Typically, such interpreters want to preserve the historical
existence of Adam and Eve (and perhaps the other characters
in the narrative) without affirming the details of the
story. Along these lines, William Lane Craig uses the term
mytho-history to describe the genre of Genesis 1–11. 3
Others have used different terms to make similar points.
Such interpreters should be commended for insisting
on the historical existence of Adam and Eve, but the designation
of Genesis 1–11 as mytho-history is fraught with
problems. Despite protests to the contrary, there is nothing
14 the southern baptist theological seminary

kyle d. claunch
in Genesis 1-11 that marks it as an entirely different genre
than the rest of the book or other examples of historical
narrative in the Bible. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the
historical genealogies of Scripture, such as the extensive
one in 1 Chronicles and the genealogy of Jesus in Luke
3 give no indication of a different mode of historical account
with respect to the names on the list prior to Abraham.
As important as the affirmation of the historicity of
Adam is for Christian theology, grounding one’s theology
in the text of Scripture by means of a consistent hermeneutic
is equally important, and it is precisely here that the
mytho-history approach of Craig and others fails.
2
Genesis 1 as Non-Historical Literature. Other
interpreters affirm that the genre of the account
from Adam to Abraham is not markedly different
than the account from Abraham forward, but they
do see a difference in genre between Genesis 1 and Genesis
2 and following. In other words, the historical narrative
genre begins with Genesis 2:4 and is indicated using the
Hebrew word tôlǝdôt (“these are the generations of ”). This
expression is a key literary feature marking the historical
continuity of the Genesis narrative, linking the descendants
of Abraham with the rest of mankind.
Prior to the tôlǝdôt of Genesis 2:4, the text is seen as
communicating in some way other than straightforward
historical narrative. On this view, the six-day creation account
of Genesis 1 is not historical narrative, but a literary
unit intended to convey theological truth about God, man,
creation, and God’s redeeming purposes. Thus, the weeklong
structure of particular creative events occurring on
sequential days is an extended metaphor rather than a
literal week of history. There are multiple versions of this
view, sometimes called the literary framework theory. The
strength of the view with respect to the question of the
historical Adam is its space for one to maintain a commitment
to the historicity of the life of Adam and Eve and the
other events of Genesis 2–11 about which the New Testament
speaks as historical.
However, the sharp divide between the historicity of
Genesis 2 and the non-historical character of Genesis 1 is
not without problems. Perhaps the greatest difficulty is the
fact that Jesus identifies the man and the woman who are
joined together in Genesis 2:24 as the “male and female”
created on day six in Genesis 1. In Matthew 19:1–10, when
asked about the legitimacy of divorce, Jesus cites Genesis
1:27, which says that God made them male and female “in
the beginning.” He then moves seamlessly into a quotation
of Genesis 2:24, noting that God joined the two together.
In other words, Jesus unhesitatingly identifies the “male
and female” of chapter 1 with the “man and woman” who
were united as one flesh in chapter 2.
This kind of identity seems to indicate that Jesus understood
the detailed account of the creation of man and
woman and their union in marriage as giving greater
detail to the general creation narrative of the back half
of the sixth day in Genesis 1. The upshot of all of this is
that Jesus assumes the historical character of both Genesis
1 and Genesis 2.
3
The Days of Creation as Long Days. Another view
sees the entirety of the opening chapters of Genesis
as historical. However, the six “days” of creation
are not 24-hour days but rather very long epochs
of time. A “day” of creation may cover a time-period of
hundreds of thousands to many millions of years. On this
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15

“If Christians are to maintain
faithfulness to the Lord in
this hostile age, we must be
able to articulate a clear
and consistent doctrine of
humanity rooted in the fact
that God has made mankind
in his image, mankind is fallen
into sin through Adam, and
the only hope of redemption
from our condemnation and
corruption is the redemption
found in the second
Adam, Jesus Christ.”
kyle d. claunch
16 the southern baptist theological seminary

kyle d. claunch
reading, the interpreter is able to maintain the historical
character of Genesis 1 without being committed to a particular
age of the earth. If this view is correct, no account is
given in Scripture for how much time elapses between the
dawn of creation and the historical Adam and Eve.
While this view is more consistent in its commitment
to the historicity of Genesis, it is not without problems of
its own. Many find the interpretation of the word “day” as
a long period of time to be strained, at best. It is true that
the Hebrew word for day can mean many things, including
an undefined and long period of time. But the “days”
in Genesis 1 are clearly presented as corresponding to a
week (consider the sabbath command of Exodus 20:8-11,
for example), whereas other examples of “day” having a
meaning other than a 24-four-hour day bears that meaning
obviously in context so that a 24-hour meaning would
be nonsensical. This is clearly not the case in Genesis 1.
More importantly, however, is the fact that this view presupposes
a long history of death in the created order prior
to the creation and sin of Adam.
Proponents of this view will point out that Romans 5:12
only demands that human death is a result of Adam’s sin
and says nothing of animal death. However, Romans 5:12
is not the only relevant New Testament text in this regard.
In Romans 8:18-23, Paul anticipates the restoration of all
creation at the time of the glorification of redeemed humanity
in the eschaton. He rehearses the devastating effect
of mankind’s fall into sin on the rest of creation. He states
that creation itself has been “subjected to futility” (v. 20)
on account of human sin. Furthermore, all creation is held
in “bondage to corruption” (v. 21) while awaiting the day
of its freedom when the children of God are glorified. The
Greek word for “corruption” is phthora, a word usually associated
with the decay of death.
Peter uses a form of this word in Acts 2:27 when talking
about the body of the Lord Jesus, which God will not allow
to undergo “corruption” (diaphthora). Paul’s point in
Romans 8 seems to be that the futility and corruption of all
creation is a result of mankind’s fall. Thus, the completion
of mankind’s redemption will result in the freedom of creation
from its bondage. As goes mankind, so goes creation.
Thus, Paul seems to teach that death in the non-human
creation is the result of Adam’s sin. The long-day interpretation
of the days of creation cannot consistently maintain
the view that death is entirely the result of human sin, a
problem that plagues the other views surveyed here as well.
4
Genesis 1 Is Historical Narrative with 24-hour
Days. To my understanding, the only view that
maintains a commitment to the historical Adam
and Eve while avoiding the interpretive inconsistencies
and potential theological pitfalls identified above
is the view that takes Genesis 1 to be a straightforward
historical narrative that gives an account of God’s creation
and initial formation of the material universe in six 24-
hour days consisting of a literal “evening and morning.”
This view is consistent in that it does not force a distinction
between the genre of Genesis 1 and 2 nor between
Genesis 1–11 and 12–50. Rather, the historical character
of Genesis is maintained throughout the narrative and is
in historical continuity with the whole Pentateuch and the
rest of the Old Testament, leading to the birth of God’s Son
from the virgin Mary “in the fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4–5).
This view accounts for all creaturely death and bondage
as a result of human sin, a conclusion Paul seems to commend
in Romans 8:18-23 and other places.
Conclusion
The doctrine of humanity (theological anthropology) is
one of the most contentious aspects of the Christian faith
in an increasingly secular age. Massively important ethical
issues—questions pertaining to the life of the unborn and
the elderly or infirmed, questions of societal justice and racial
reconciliation, questions of gender and sexuality—all
depend on one’s commitment to the doctrine of creation,
namely the conviction that it is God who made us and not
we ourselves (Ps. 100:3). As Creator, he alone has the right
and wisdom to set and direct our ethical commitments.
If Christians are to maintain faithfulness to the Lord in
this hostile age, we must be able to articulate a clear and
consistent doctrine of humanity rooted in the fact that
God has made mankind in his image, mankind is fallen
into sin through Adam, and the only hope of redemption
from our condemnation and corruption is the redemption
found in the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
This kind of doctrinal clarity and fidelity requires belief
in a historical Adam and Eve as non-negotiable, and the
most consistent way to maintain belief in the historicity
of Adam and Eve is by adopting an interpretive strategy
that treats all the early chapters of Genesis as straightforward
historical narrative with Genesis 1 understood
as describing God’s creative activity over the course of
six 24-hour days.
Kyle Claunch, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology
1
The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins
(Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2021).
2
“No Historical Adam: Evolutionary Creation View” in Four Views on the Historical
Adam, ed. Matthew Barrett and Ardel Caneday (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 2013).
3
William Lane Craig, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021).
summer 2022
17

Pillars and
Bridges
HOW TO PROCLAIM AND UPHOLD
THE GOSPEL THROUGH APOLOGETIC
METHOD AND STRATEGY
by stephen j. wellum
18 the southern baptist theological seminary

What does apologetic method
and strategy have to do with
W
our understanding and practice
of evangelism?
For many people, to ask
such a question is strange,
since it is common to think
that apologetics and evangelism belong in distinct
domains. In apologetics, we defend the truth of
Scripture, give reasons for why we believe the gospel,
and challenge the unbelief of the non-Christian.
But is not evangelism something different? Is it not
less polemical than apologetics? Is not evangelism
more about sharing the good news of our Lord Jesus
Christ as we call people to repentance and faith
than about arguing for the truth of the gospel?
Although some people distinguish apologetics
from evangelism in this way, in truth, this is an
artificial and unhelpful distinction. In fact, it is
especially unhelpful if one embraces a presuppositional
view of apologetics. Why? Because properly
understood, presuppositionalism involves both
the defense and proclamation of the gospel.
As such, as a method and strategy, a presuppositional
approach is vitally necessary to help the
church fulfill her calling to proclaim Christ Jesus
and to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion
raised against the knowledge of God, and take every
thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
To explain why this is the case, let me develop
two points. First, I’ll explain what a presuppositional
approach to apologetics is. Unfortunately, there
are not only varieties of apologetic approaches
known as “presuppositional,” there are also a number
of misconceptions of the view. Second, after
clarifying what presuppositionalism is, I’ll then explain
why it is crucial to a sound defense and proclamation
of the gospel.
What Is Presuppositional Apologetics?
Without describing every use of the term “presuppositional,”
let me describe how I am using
the word. “Presuppositions” refer to one’s ultimate
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pillars and bridges
criterions that are foundational
to and which ground one’s overall
worldview. Although some
deny that they have a worldview,
this is not the case: everyone has
a worldview whether they acknowledge
it or not.
Despite differences between
worldviews, every view is grounded
in some ultimate criterion(s)
or presuppositions that directs
their reasoning and allows them
to interpret their experience of
the world, especially on ultimate
matters. Given this fact, this is
why what is most significant in
worldview analysis is comparing
and contrasting a worldview’s
presuppositional commitments.
Furthermore, it is important to
note that it is not enough merely
to assert one’s presuppositions;
one must also argue for them, at
least if one wants to argue for the
truth of one’s view over against other worldviews. For
this reason, a presuppositional approach to apologetics
does not merely assert the truth of the gospel, it also argues
for the objective truth of the Christian worldview
over against non-Christian views.
Additionally, to clarify what presuppositionalism is as
an apologetic method, it is crucial to note that it is not
against the use of evidences in the defense of Christianity.
Unfortunately, the term may convey such a misunderstanding,
as if presuppositionalism is only concerned
about arguing for one’s ultimate criterions and not concerned
about giving specific proofs and evidences for
the truth of the gospel. On the contrary, presuppositionalism
affirms the necessary role that evidences serve
in the defense of the gospel, especially given the nature
of Christianity.
Unlike other religious and philosophical views, the
truthfulness of Christianity depends on the claim that
our triune God is not only the Creator of the world but
also the God who acts in history as the sovereign and
providential Lord.
Creation and history are the stage and theater on which
God displays his glory, and ultimately in the incarnation,
life, death, and resurrection of God the Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ—the one who has assumed our human nature
to accomplish our redemption. For this reason, Christianity
stands or falls on the objective truth of particular
events in history. Thus, for example, if the flood, exodus,
“Creation and history are the
stage and theater on which God
displays his glory, and ultimately
in the incarnation, life, death, and
resurrection of God the Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ—the one who
has assumed our human nature to
accomplish our redemption.”
and Old Testament events did not occur as Scripture describes—or
in the case of our Lord Jesus, there was no
virgin conception, miraculous life, bodily resurrection,
glorious ascension, and Pentecost—Christianity crumbles.
If these events did not occur in history, the truth of
Scripture and the claims of the gospel are false.
However, presuppositionalism rightly reminds us that
evidences never stand alone apart from being presented
in an overall theology. Why? Because there are no such
things as “brute facts,” namely un-interpreted or self-interpreting
“facts.” Instead, “facts” are part of an overall
context—an interpretive system or worldview—by which
they are understood. This is why in our presentation of
the “facts” for Christianity, facts must be presented within
the entire worldview they are embedded, otherwise
they signify nothing.
For example, think of Christ’s bodily resurrection.
Apart from the worldview of Scripture, the resurrection
would not signify what it actually does in Scripture. After
all, Jesus’ resurrection is more than a mere historical
event: it is evidence that Jesus alone is the Savior, Lord,
Judge, the one who has ratified a new covenant, and inaugurated
a new creation (Acts 2:32-36; 4:12; 13:32-38;
17:30-31; 1 Cor. 15:1-3; Heb. 9:15-28). Apart from a
specific view of God, history as the unfolding of God’s
eternal plan, and a specific conception of the Redeemer,
Christ’s bodily resurrection in history would signify
none of these truths.
20 the southern baptist theological seminary

stephen j. wellum
Defining Presuppositionalism
So what, then, is presuppositionalism? Five points will
summarize the overall view.
1
It contends that no one is neutral in their thinking
and lives. Everyone (Christian or non-Christian) is
committed to a worldview, whether they are self-conscious
about it or not.
2
Divine revelation is the foundation of all knowledge.
This includes God’s revelation of himself in creation
(natural revelation) and Scripture (special revelation).
Without God creating the world and revealing himself
in nature and Scripture, we would have no ultimate
warrant for what we know. True objective knowledge
requires its ground or warrant in the triune God who
is there and who speaks.
3
In our defense of Christianity, we must look beyond
the surface of the debate and critique a person’s ultimate
criterions or presuppositional commitments. In
other words, it isn’t enough merely to give evidences
for the truth of the Bible (which we must do). We must
also compare and contrast presuppositional differences
between worldviews so that the full intellectual
challenge of the gospel is brought against other views.
4
Due to God’s self-revelation in creation and history,
all people are without excuse for their rejection
of the truth and rebellion against God. Whether the
non-Christian admits it or not, they know God from
nature, and within their conscience, since the one true
and living God is clearly revealed in what he has created
(Rom. 1:18-32; Ps. 19:1-6). In our sin, we attempt to
suppress this knowledge, yet the unbeliever cannot fully
rid himself of the knowledge of God. Therefore, all
non-Christian thought can never be completely consistent
with itself. Instead, in some form, it lives off the
“borrowed capital” of the Christian view. For this reason,
non-Christians may have a limited understanding
of the world and themselves—despite their view and
not because of their ultimate commitments.
In this regard, presuppositionalists make a crucial
distinction: non-Christians can know many truths
due to creation and common grace, but they cannot
account for or provide a rational grounding for
what they know and why they know based on their
worldview alone. This is why Scripture teaches that
non-Christian views are not and cannot be self-consistent
given that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning
of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction”
(Prov. 1:7) and “The fool says in his heart, ‘There
is no God.’” (Ps. 14:1a).
5
The strategy employed by presuppositionalism applies
Proverbs 26:4-5 to worldview analysis and critique.
In this text, we are exhorted to “Answer not a fool according
to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer
a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his
own eyes.” If we begin with the second exhortation, we
seek to do an internal critique of the non-Christian’s
worldview by demonstrating that on its own terms
(i.e., according to his folly) it leads to self-contradictions,
tensions, and ultimately an inability to provide a
rational accounting for what we know to be true.
After this occurs, we then return to the first exhortation
to present the Christian worldview as the only
view that can account for such things as rationality,
laws of logic, science, human dignity, objective moral
norms, and so on. In this way, we seek to demonstrate
that the Christian view alone warrants these
things that we know to be true, while the non-Christian
view internally self-destructs on its own terms.
How Does Presuppositional Apologetics
Help in our Evangelism?
Let me answer this question by focusing on two points.
First, because presuppositionalism begins with the entire
Christian worldview, or better, an entire Christian theology
as its starting point, it gives evangelism its message
to proclaim. To proclaim the gospel faithfully and rightly,
we must have a whole theology in place. For example, to
proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior requires an entire
theology of who the triune God is, who humans are, the
nature of the human problem, the identity of Jesus as God
the Son incarnate, the nature of the cross, and so on. Presuppositionalism
provides such a theology for evangelism,
and thus gives to evangelism its message to proclaim.
Second, presuppositionalism also gives evangelism its
summer 2022
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pillars and bridges
method and strategy by which we go about proclaiming
the gospel. For this reason, the task of apologetics and
evangelism is the same, namely, to bring the truth of the
gospel to bear on the lives of unbelievers who stand under
divine judgment for their suppression and denial of
the truth. Just as apologetics seeks to “destroy arguments
and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge
of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”
(2 Cor. 10:5), evangelism seeks the same goal. In other
words, in apologetics, our strategy is to compare and
contrast the worldview thinking of the Christian with the
non-Christian, seeking to demonstrate that it is only the
Christian view that stands.
In evangelism, our strategy is no different.
In fact, presuppositional apologetics helps us carry out
our task of evangelism in a more precise manner. As we
share Christ with non-Christians, we remind them that
they are God’s fallen creatures and image-bearers who
stand under his judgment due to their denial of him as
their Creator and Lord. Our message is that apart from
Christ and building their thought and lives on him, their
worldviews are reduced to foolishness. Why? Because in
their refusal to fear God, in their refusal to build their
lives on the triune God and his self-revelation, their
thinking is unable to account for the basic truths of the
world on their own terms.
Thus, apart from coming to Christ in repentance and
faith as their only Lord and Savior, their thought and lives
have no solid foundation on which to be built; instead, they
will discover that their views are built simply on quicksand.
This is why the only solution for the non-Christian
is to repent of their rejection of the truth and to turn to
their Creator and Lord, and to receive in God’s gracious
promise of Christ the forgiveness of their sins, the work of
the Spirit to unite them to Christ, and to be transformed
after the pattern of Christ’s glorified humanity. Then, forevermore,
they will fulfill the purpose of their existence in
a new creation—to know, glorify, worship, and obey God.
Organically Related
In this way, presuppositional apologetics and evangelism
are organically related, and even more, presuppositionalism
is necessary to a sound defense and proclamation
of the gospel.
Although we can distinguish between the domain of
apologetics and evangelism, both carry out the theological
task of knowing the glory of the triune God and applying
Scripture to every area of life.
Additionally, both apologetics and evangelism seek
to fulfill the biblical mandate to “always be prepared to
make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for
the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15) and to “destroy arguments
raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5)
by proclaiming the glory of the triune God in the face of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
After all, as Paul reminds us, in our apologetics and
evangelism, it is Christ “we proclaim, warning everyone
and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may
present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). Why?
Because in contrast to worldviews grounded in “empty
deceit and human tradition” (Col. 2:8), in Christ alone is
true wisdom (Col. 2:9).
May what God has joined together never be separated
as we fulfill our calling as the church to know, proclaim,
and defend that Jesus is Lord.
Stephen J. Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology and
Editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.
22 the southern baptist theological seminary

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24 the southern baptist theological seminary

Playing
Offense
HOW CHRISTIAN NATURAL LAW ARGUMENTS
WORK IN PUBLIC APOLOGETICS
by andrew t. walker
F
or many Christians in our culture, it’s easier
to stay silent when one is in the minority
opinion about a controversial topic
rather than risk disturbing the status
quo. Of course, there are wisdom issues
about knowing when to speak up, and
not everyone is called to join the battle in
all the same ways.
But being in the minority does not excuse a total refusal
to speak up—especially when Christians have better answers
to the most pressing challenges of our day that threaten to
tear apart our social order and rob individuals of the flourishing
they are owed as image bearers. And that’s the whole
point I want to argue: Christians have better, more satisfying
answers to explain the confusion and conflict that plagues our
contemporary culture, so we should speak up. To engage in
public apologetics, though, Christians must understand the
types of arguments we need to make.
summer 2022
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playing offense
Making Sound Arguments
Much of my role as an ethics professor at Southern Seminary
is convincing students that on the most controversial
issues of our day, the best answers are not only
Christian answers, but Christian answers are also the
most coherent answers one could offer to their secular
neighbor. To do public apologetics—to make arguments
in hopes of explaining and persuading—requires
us as Christians to understand the relationship
between faith and reason. We must understand the
reasonableness of the ethics we hold as Christians if
we hope to make arguments that would hope to see
individuals converted and culture more humane.
I’ll use a famous illustration to explain my point. In his
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
made a profound argument for overturning racist laws.
But it was not just the conclusion he reached that we
should agree with; it was how he got there, too. His argument,
which was intended to be publicly accessible and
persuasive for pricking consciences and changing laws,
appealed to the Christian natural law tradition. Citing
Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, King argued that “an
unjust law is not law at all.” He wrote:
How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust?
A just law is a manmade code that squares with
the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a
code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put
it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law
is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and
natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is
just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation
distorts the soul and damages the personality.
What King meant was that a law that purposefully
harms does not retain the actual power to command
obedience; it is thus not true law. Justice can never entail
the denial of what is owed to persons. That is, well,
unjust. A law, after all, is a standard or measurement that
obligates individuals to obey its precepts on the basis that
the precept advances some rational good. All truly sound
laws will reflect an ordinance of reason that directs persons
to their good. To say a law is reasonable means it
accomplishes justice. But a law that obstructs or thwarts
the good cannot be an actual law because it is unjust.
King argues that not only are racial supremacy laws in
violation of Christian theology, they violate all rational
grounds for justice as well. A true law reflects the principle
of justice. A law that does violence to one’s neighbor
is wrong because we can grasp the harm the law perpetrates.
We would ourselves not want to be on the receiving
end of that unjust law’s application. This explains the
logic behind the Golden Rule in Luke 6:31. Jesus assumes
that any action is just toward others insofar as it is the
type of action we would want applied to ourselves. No
one in their right mind goes looking to harm themselves
for no good cause, so likewise, any law that harms others
cannot obtain the grounds of justice, either. Crucially,
it’s worth noticing that King does not pit reason against
“Much of my role as an ethics professor
at Southern Seminary is convincing
students that on the most controversial
issues of our day, the best answers
are not only Christian answers, but
Christian answers are also the most
coherent answers one could offer to
their secular neighbor.”
26 the southern baptist theological seminary

andrew t. walker
theology. Instead, he shows us the reciprocal relationship
of both. That, I suggest, is what the task of public apologetics
requires. We must explain how the theological
premise of our conviction can be embraced by, and bears
relevance to, the interest of our secular interlocutor.
Widening the Sufficiency of Scripture
King’s argument serves as a model for how Christians
should think about the types of arguments we make. Yes,
we should make our case from Scripture and see it as
our ultimate and all-sufficient authority, but Scripture is
not the only tool in our arsenal that God gave to us, and
we would be wrong to assume that knowledge of right
and wrong are disclosed only in Scripture. This in no
way violates our understanding of the Bible’s sufficiency
but widens it.
A narrow sufficiency that does ethics only by prooftext
alone will, unintentionally, leave Christians without
answers to a whole host of questions. A broader sufficiency,
one that encompasses how Scripture speaks over
all of created reality, broadens our understanding of the
Bible’s relevancy to public apologetics.
The task of public apologetics will often require us to
go beyond the pages of Scripture, but never against it.
God is the source of all moral knowledge, but a God-implanted
moral knowledge is broader than what is contained
in Scripture. True moral knowledge resides in all
persons regardless of their acknowledging God. He gives
humanity the powers of reason and cognition to know
whether something is true or false on its own grounds
(Rom. 2:14-15). We may suppress the truth or err in
our application of the moral law (Rom. 1:18-21), but
Scripture attests to the reality of the moral law. Nowhere
does Scripture argue that non-Christians are incapable
of knowing truth. Scripture argues that non-Christians
suppress the truth.
What does this have to do with public apologetics?
It means we’re going to have to engage in reasoned debate
about deeply moral questions. All moral law certainly
emanates from God, but that does not mean one
who does not believe in God does not have actual moral
knowledge. The unbeliever may have no solid ground
upon which to base their morality, but unstable foundations
do not invalidate that the knowledge they do have is
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27

playing offense
true. That may sound like I am investing
too much weight or optimism in reason
itself. That’s not my intention. Instead, I
want us to understand that a secular progressive’s
refusal to agree with Scripture
also signals their refusal to agree with
what are ultimately the sound principles
of morality as such. Principles of morality
will be sound or they will not be,
regardless of the non-believer’s understanding
of their foundation. A non-believer
may want to argue that an apple is
an orange or a man can be a woman, but
if they insist upon an irrational conclusion,
a part of the task of apologetics is
not only offering sound foundations but
also sound principles for determining
the nature of reality and truth as such.
We can and should debate origins, but what we should
be concerned preeminently with, is truthfulness. If God’s
world is one of order, there must be truth to be understood.
If that is true, Christians are called to every sphere
of engagement for God’s glory.
God speaks with one voice in two ways: in Scripture
and in creation. Suppose we pit these two against each
other, as though faith and reason are opposites. In that
case, we do violence to Scripture and send the wrong signal
to unbelievers that they are justified to sever reason
from faith, as though there are degrees of knowledge incompatible
with faith.
Now, some aspects of reason may be incomplete, but
they are never incompatible with faith. For example, an
unbeliever might not know God as triune. Still, the same
triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is also the God
who rationally ordered a universe where all can know
injustice exists and should be rectified. Creation order
speaks (Psalm 19; Rom. 1:19-20). An unbeliever may
not be able to give account for the identity of the triune
God, but they could, in principle, understand that abortion
is wrong. And that’s because the world God created
is intelligible. It explains why non-Christians can make
wonderful discoveries or become experts in medicine:
the world has order to it.
Biblical Morality Is Truly Reasonable
Scripture speaks in a panoramic way when it comes to
morality. The whole edifice of Christian morality should
cause us to point our interlocutor to God because without
God, there can be no stable foundation of morality.
We should not let our secular neighbors off the hook
because they reject Scripture. We should also ask them:
from whence does your understanding of sound ethics
“The whole edifice of
Christian morality should
cause us to point our
interlocutor to God because
without God, there can be
no stable foundation of morality.”
derive? Morality reduces to two options: either (1) A
transcendently given morality that is universally true
and objectively accords with reason and reality as such,
or (2) a contingent, evolving neural mechanism promoting
dopamine-like sensations based upon group, preference,
and power.
If all moral knowledge is known exclusively by Scripture
rather than ultimately by Scripture’s testimony of God’s
sovereignty, we might unintentionally forfeit the ground
on which we’re called to play, which is everywhere. But
neither should we ever grant the premise that the morality
Scripture speaks of is anything ever less than truly
reasonable. Thus, to jettison Scripture, in other words, is
to jettison reason itself because the Lord is a God of reason,
not sheer will. God does not create Christian morality
“over here” and non-Christian secular morality “over
there.” The triune God is not only the God over salvation
but also creation, which means when God rationally orders
the universe, the morality that goes with it is not
bifurcated between “Christian” and “non-Christian.”
We see this in Genesis 1.
Genesis describes a creational order that bears witness
to creation as such, not simply a Christian view of
creation as though the world we inhabit as Christians is
different for non-Christians. No, there is one God, one
cosmos, one world, and one morality. The beauty of
Christian ethics is that properly ordered reason will always
harmonize with what Scripture teaches is true. Reason
is subordinate to Scripture but never at odds with it.
There is no tension and can never truly be. God is not a
God of chaos, irrationality, or contradiction.
Our ethics are never less than biblically rooted, but
biblically rooted ethics necessarily spin us outward. Our
knowledge is not valid insofar as it only agrees with
28 the southern baptist theological seminary

“If God’s world is
one of order, there
must be truth to be
understood. If that is
true, Christians
are called to
every sphere
of engagement
for God’s glory.”
andrew t. walker

playing offense
Scripture, but reason as well. But if it’s reasonable, it will
never be at odds with Scripture. If there are reasoned
justifications for the ethics we espouse that satisfy the
criteria for rational soundness, then where that truth is
located—whether in special revelation or general revelation—is
irrelevant.
What matters is whether the argument in question is
true or false. No tenet of Christian ethics will ever be
at odds with what reason can know as true. Therefore,
when we speak of “Christian Ethics,” we speak of an inherently
public discipline because Christian ethics are
grounded in creation, divinely attested to in Scripture,
and confirmed by reason. The truthfulness of our ethics
is not a private, self-disclosed reality.
Deploy the Full Range of
God-Given Arguments
What I want to encourage you with in this brief essay
is not so much the correctness of Christian ethics upon
such matters as abortion, sexual ethics, and gender—and
indeed, they are true—but how Christians should think
about our arguments in themselves. I say this because
there is a tendency among Christians to think that our
viewpoints only have merit because they are found in
Scripture. Of course, they have infinite worth because
they are found in Scripture, but their soundness expands
beyond just Scripture. Their truthfulness reflects the pattern
of an orderly creation patterned by God. Practically
speaking, it means the pro-choice advocate or transgender
activist is revolting against both reason and revelation.
But I’d like to suggest that grounding our ethics and
the call to public apologetics in Scripture alone is to bypass
the full range of arguments that God gives us. We
should never appeal any less to Scripture. We are, after
all, Protestants who believe in sola Scriptura. But sola
Scriptura is not solo Scriptura. It has never been the position
of Christian ethics that authority is found only within
Scripture, but that Scripture is our ultimate authority.
The basic question this raises is whether there are other
valid sources of authority that Christians should consider
when making public arguments. Sound reason that
comports with God’s creation is one of them.
All matters of public policy and cultural flash-points
subject to intense debate in the public arena, if they are
essential to organizing our shared life around, ought to
and can be debated on the basis of reason, which is never
disconnected from theology, but merely its entailment.
Further, any principle of public policy that a Christian
would want to see codified as a sound reflection of biblical
morality would necessarily be grounded in the natural
law. Any cultural debate that requires Christians to
offer a definitive response must never be at odds with
reason; if it were, it would not be grounded in God’s eternal
law from the start.
For example, it is either reasonable or unreasonable to
kill an unborn child in the womb. This is either a morally
good act or a morally evil act. What it cannot be is morally
benign. Reasoned arguments that are grounded in a
scriptural worldview require us to consider whether the
principle that would license abortion is in fact worthy of
our affirmation. But both reason and revelation testify to
abortion’s unreasonableness. It constitutes the unlawful
taking of human life, which is a violation of the right to
life and God’s authorship of life, and it is therefore a violation
of the sixth commandment (Ex. 20:13).
But to determine whether abortion violates the sixth
commandment, I need to apply principles of reason to
determine whether the unborn child meets the threshold
of a right to life. That requires understandings of hermeneutics,
philosophy, biology, embryology, and ethics. All
this means is that in a topic like abortion, we need to argue
from all sources that coordinate to the truthfulness
of abortion being sinful.
Total Ethics, Total Christ
The task of public apologetics is to bear witness to the
total Christ. The Christ who redeems is the same Christ
who creates and orders (John 1:3; Col. 1:15-17). Where
Christ is rejected, nature and reason are dismissed as well,
which produces the very pottage of decay all around us:
an anti-culture basking in the absurd and the perverse.
Perhaps the greatest non-canonical theologian of the
church, Augustine, echoed such a similar refrain when
he admonished his readers:
Let us attend to the real matter in debate, and let
our arguments appeal to reason and to the authoritative
teaching of the Divine Scriptures, dispassionately
and calmly, so far as we are able.
There’s no principle of Christian morality, whether decreed
in Scripture or attested to in nature, that is not
simultaneously ordered to God’s glory and our good. If
good, an ordinance of reason; if reasonable, it is sound; if
sound, it is binding; if binding, it is God-ordained.
Christianity provides the most consistent, coherent account
of morality necessary for the task of public apologetics.
It offers God as the source of our ethics, reason as
the basis of moral knowledge, and an all-encompassing
goal: our good, but chiefly, God’s glory.
Andrew T. Walker is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics
and Apologetics and Associate Dean of the School of Theology.
30 the southern baptist theological seminary

Is it ok to be friends with unbelievers? | Episode 3
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“Is it ok to be
friends with
unbelievers?”
04:35 05:23 04:45
Your big questions?
Answered.
Following Christ means asking lots of questions. Whether
it's about friends, faith, theology, or life itself, get the
answers from the biblically faithful faculty at Boyce College.
Find an answer or ask your question today.
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y dustin bruce
reaching history’s most
secular generation:
apologetics and gen-z
In the West, the demand for the church to
do the work of an apologist compares only
I
with the task of reaching the pagan culture
which the church faced in the second and
third century AD. Report after report testify to the fact
that Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012 according
to Pew Research Center) is the most secular generation
in history.
In recent findings by Barna, the rates of atheism among
Gen Z were double that found in older generations. Anecdotal
evidence confirms the statistics and survey results.
In a recent conversation with a ministry leader,
he relayed to me that his teenage daughter often had to
explain what a “pastor” was after sharing her father’s vocation
with classmates in a suburban public school. That
a young person would have such a lack of familiarity with
32 the southern baptist theological seminary
32 Southern Seminary

“THE LORD HAS PROMISED TO BUILD HIS
CHURCH AND THAT WILL INCLUDE MANY
FROM AMONG GEN Z. BUT AS THOSE CALLED
TO MAKE A DEFENSE REGARDING THE
HOPE WITHIN US, WE MUST BE STRATEGIC
IN MEETING THE QUESTIONS OF GEN Z
WITH THE ANSWERS OF SCRIPTURE IN THE
HOPE OF THE GOSPEL.”
the Christian faith would have been unthinkable among
any previous generation of Americans.
While the effects of secularization on the rising generation
should concern the entire church, those who work
in student and college ministry face these challenges daily.
The Lord has promised to build his church and that
will include many from among Gen Z. But as those called
to make a defense regarding the hope within us, we must
be strategic in meeting the questions of Gen Z with the
answers of Scripture in the hope of the gospel.
The conversation related to how best reach the most
secular generation in history (so far) is just beginning,
but I would like to put forward four recommendations
based on the current research, my own experience, and
conversations with ministry leaders across the country.
1. Emphasize the goodness of God and the
Christian faith. For young men and women catechized
by a secular culture, religion—and Christianity in particular—is
now seen as not only pointless, but often as
dangerous. The blame for oppression, conflict, and strife
often gets laid at the feet of Christianity, particularly in
its institutional form. Engaging Gen Z with the gospel
may require not just making a case for why Christian
belief is plausible, but contending against a fear that embracing
Christianity would be to engage in a religious
form of self-harm.
Against such suspicions, apologists to Gen Z must emphasize
that the God revealed in Scripture “abounds in
goodness” (Exod. 34:6) and that “the earth is full of the
goodness of the Lord” (Ps. 33:5).
The Christian gospel recognizes the brokenness of the
world but presents a story of a good God sending his only
Son to redeem sinful humanity. We can be honest about
the failings of those who have born the name of Christ,
recognizing that “there is no one good but God alone”
(Mark 10:18) and pointing Gen Z to the spotless Lamb
who died for the sins of the world.
2. Distinguish between rational objections
and emotional barriers to faith. The discipline of
apologetics possesses a long track record of presenting
thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments for the plausibility
of Christian belief. While an emphasis on the rationality
of Christianity will be necessary until Christ
returns, the barriers to faith present among Gen Z are
often more emotional than rational.
The rising generation often perceives Christianity to be
out of touch and in opposition to the expressive individualism
of the secular culture. In our efforts to reach the
next generation, we must be wise to distinguish when a
student has a sincere intellectual objection to some point
of Christian doctrine and when a student worries that
some belief would require them to maintain a belief that
contrasts with their feelings.
3. Present Gen Z with a thick view of Christianity. As
we engage with the most secular generation in history,
the temptation can be to minimize the points of disagreement
between the Christian faith and the secular world.
While this reaction is understandable, those apologists
summer 2022
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dustin bruce
who present the most full-throated vision of Christianity
will serve Gen Z best.
The Lord Jesus Christ makes comprehensive demands
on the life of those who follow him (Luke 9:57–62).
While the gospel remains a simple message that calls for
a straightforward response of repentance and faith, the
Christian faith works itself out as an entire world and life
view. Every generation must be presented with the truth
that all things were created through and for Christ (Col.
1:16). The comprehensive nature of Christ’s claim over
the lives of those who follow him should be a part of the
initial apologetic conversations and not an afterthought.
4. Make your case in the context of community. Gen
Z is not only the most secular generation but also the
loneliest. Recent reports from Pew and the Survey Center
on American Life detail how smaller families and broken
homes contribute to epidemic levels of loneliness in the
emerging generation.
Jean Twenge connects the ubiquitous presence of technology
to decreased social behavior among today’s teens
and young adults in her book, iGen. With all the supposed
opportunities and conveniences available to Gen
Z from contemporary secular culture, members of this
emerging generation are suffering from a lack of meaningful
relationships and community. This, of course, represents
an opportunity for the church.
Come Together
As we make our appeal to the next generation, we must
be clear that the summons to follow Christ includes
the commitment and blessing of Christian community.
Christ expects his disciples to gather (Matt. 18:20) and “to
stir up one another in love and good works” (Heb. 10:24).
Apologetics aimed at Gen Z will be most effective
when accompanied by a genuine invitation into a personal
relationship and the opportunity to witness Christian
community. Secularism ultimately cannot live up to
its promises. Christians have an opportunity to engage
in an “apologetic of normalcy” as secularism continues
to drive society in a direction at odds with creation order
and Scripture. The imperfect but rightly ordered lives
of Christians will present an attractive alternative to the
secular norm and undergird the work of the apologist.
While the apologetic task of reaching the next generation
looms large, those of us who work with Gen Z know
“the arm of the Lord is not too short to save” (Isa. 59:11).
As we make our defense of the faith to the coming generation,
we do so confident that many will “taste and see
that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). The surveys and studies
alert us to the challenge of reaching the most secular generation
in history; but we rise to meet that challenge in
the confidence of the gospel of our Lord Jesus and by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Dustin Bruce is Dean of Boyce College and Assistant Professor
of Christian Theology and Church History.
“APOLOGETICS AIMED AT GEN Z WILL BE MOST
EFFECTIVE WHEN ACCOMPANIED BY A GENUINE
INVITATION INTO A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
AND THE OPPORTUNITY TO WITNESS CHRISTIAN
COMMUNITY. SECULARISM ULTIMATELY CANNOT
LIVE UP TO ITS PROMISES.”
34 the southern baptist theological seminary

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Biblical Counseling
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now offers a way to develop your skills while remaining in your current ministry
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rigor, convictional fidelity, and biblical faithfulness.
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y tom schreiner
we argue that jesus is
the only way, but are
we living it out?
For scholars, pastors, and engaged Christians,
belief that Jesus is the only way changes
F the way we live and interact with others. It
may be helpful to reflect on a few ways that
belief in the exclusivity of Christ affects our lives.
First, if Jesus is the only way, we must be courageous.
We must not flinch from telling others that Jesus is the
only way, even if it means we are rejected by others.
Consider the blind man Jesus healed in John 9. He
boldly testified to what he knew about Jesus, even though
it cost him social standing and acceptance. He forfeited
his place in the synagogue, and thus lost the approval of
those with power and influence in the community. He
was faithful to what he experienced, repeating over and
over again that Jesus healed him of blindness. And when
Jesus revealed himself as the Son of Man, the man who
36 the southern baptist theological seminary

“A FEW YEARS AGO, EVANGELICALS DISCUSSED
AND DEBATED THE EXCLUSIVITY OF CHRIST MORE
INTENSELY THAN IN RECENT YEARS, INCITED BY
BOOKS, PERSONALITIES, AND CONFERENCES. THAT
YEAR, THE EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
FOCUSED ITS MEETING ON THAT CRUCIAL TOPIC.”
was formerly blind worshiped him.
But the Pharisees reviled the man as an ignoramus,
criticizing him for trying to teach them and characterizing
him as one entirely born in sin. And his parents
showed they were cowards, for when they were asked
about their son, they said:
We know this is our son and that he was born
blind.… But we don’t know how he now sees, and
we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of
age. He will speak for himself.
His parents protested ignorance since they didn’t see
first-hand what happened. They gave an answer that
would preserve their social standing. They put their finger
in the wind and concluded it would be too costly socially
to stand up for Jesus.
How about you? Do you shrink back from saying
what you believe to gain the praise of others? Scholars,
do you modify your words and even your convictions
to ensure your social standing at academic societies like
ETS, IBR, or SBL?
I am always struck and convicted when I read why
many did not believe in Jesus, according to John
5:43-44. Jesus says:
I have come in my Father’s name, yet you don’t accept
me. If someone else comes in his own name,
you will accept him. How can you believe? While
accepting glory from one another, you don’t seek the
glory that comes from the only God.
The fundamental reason for their disbelief, despite
their words, was not intellectual or theological. They
lusted for praise from others, and therefore they failed
to believe. It is right for us to regularly ask ourselves: Am
I captivated by fear of what others think? Am I holding
these beliefs to get praise from others whom I respect?
Or am I living as if Jesus is the only way, so there is nothing
sweeter to me than receiving the glory that comes
from God? May God help us to stand firm so that we live
to bring honor and praise to him.
Arrogance and Truth
Many today think we are arrogant if we believe Jesus is
the only way. How can we, finite and limited, claim to
know the truth? Such a view contradicts what we find in
Scripture, i.e., we know the truth because the Holy Spirit
has revealed Christ to us. Paul makes this plain in 1
Corinthians 2:6-16.
But here I quote the prophetic words of G. K. Chesterton:
Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition.
Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction—
where it was never meant to be. A man was meant
to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about
the truth: this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays
the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly
the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he
doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the
Divine Reason.… The new skeptic is so humble that
he doubts if he can even learn.
If we live like Jesus is the only way, we will be courageous.
We will testify to the truth in Christ. We will not
trim our convictions to please others, but in our teaching,
preaching, and writing we will be faithful to our Lord.
We will remember the words of Paul to Timothy: “So
summer 2022
37

tom schreiner
don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of
me his prisoner. Instead, share in suffering for the gospel,
relying on the power of God” (2 Tim. 1:8).
Don’t Detract from Truth
That leads me to the next point, which is related to the
first one. Living like Jesus is the only way also means that
we will be humble. Our Lord calls on us to courageously
and boldly testify to the truth, but sometimes the way we
testify to the truth detracts from the truth.
I remember when I was a young scholar, and some of
the most prominent defenders of evangelicalism were
known for their brilliance and their boldness in fighting
error. But they were also known for their arrogance
and egos. There is no excuse for departing from the
truth of the gospel, but surely some have left evangelicalism
behind because of the spirit with which we have
defended the truth.
When we are contending for the truth, we must not
forget Paul’s admonition to Timothy:
The Lord’s slave must not quarrel, but must be gentle
to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing
his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will
grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge
of the truth (2 Tim. 2:24-25).
It is hard for people to hear the truth that Jesus is the
only way if we speak with an arrogance that suggests
that we are the only way. We must be firm in contending
for the truth, but Paul also commands us to be gentle
and patient and to proclaim the truth with gentleness
to those who disbelieve. Gentleness doesn’t mean
that we are wimpy. There is a gentle firmness, a gentle
sternness. But we must beware of anger, for it so often
stems from the flesh.
And those who oppose us are watching us, wondering
if we are genuine or if we pontificate about truth to exalt
ourselves. If they see anger, they conclude that we are defending
ourselves rather than the Lord. They suspect that
we defend certain positions to advance ourselves rather
than Jesus. So, we may proclaim that Jesus is the only way
but actually live as if we are the only way.
Proper Thanks
My third point reveals itself when we draw attention
to ourselves rather than the way, Jesus. We aren’t living
as if Jesus is the only way if we focus on ourselves in
conversations. Like everything else in life this is a matter
of spiritual wisdom. There are no formulas here. If you
have opportunity, it isn’t wrong to talk about your writing
projects and speaking opportunities. In fact, not sharing
what we are working on may be a form of false humility.
But we aren’t living as if Jesus is the only way unless we
obey Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do, in word or
in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through him.”
If we are promoting our own name, we are not doing
“everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” If we are living
to impress others, we are not living for the glory of
God, and we are not honoring him by depending upon
him. If you dominate most conversations and don’t really
listen to others, then you aren’t living as if Jesus is the
only way. If in most situations, you are the big cheese, and
you are critical, cynical, and negative, then your pride is
motivating you rather than the glory of God.
Do we listen—really listen—to others? We demonstrate
our love for God as 1 John says by loving our
brothers and sisters. We don’t truly love others if we don’t
listen to them respectfully and seriously. One of the dangers
of being Christian leaders is that we may listen to
fewer and fewer people as we get older. And we may fall
into the trap of having all of our prejudices confirmed, so
we don’t really see ourselves as we are.
That’s one reason it is a good idea to listen to our critics,
for even if they exaggerate their critiques, they almost
always see something that is true about us, something
that we need to repent of.
Finally, we live as if Jesus is the only way if we are
thankful people. As Psalm 36 says, those who know God
“feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them
drink from the river of your delights.” Believers drink
from the living water that Jesus gives us; we feast on the
beauty of God; we find him to be our joy, our meat and
drink; we are happy and thankful because of his love. We
know that there is nothing greater than knowing Christ.
Everything else is dung in comparison.
And you know what? People will know, no matter your
personality, if God is your portion. That can’t be hidden.
It will be evident. And they will be reminded by your joy
and contentment that Jesus is the only way.
Tom Schreiner is James Buchanan Harrison Professor of
New Testament Interpretation and Professor of Biblical Theology,
and Associate Dean of the School of Theology.
Editors’ note: This article was originally published at The Gospel Coalition.
38 the southern baptist theological seminary

Discover the explosive
power of Jesus’ parables.
AVAILABLE AT BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE

y tim beougher
you don’t have to
be an expert to
share the gospel
Many Christians are reluctant to do personal
evangelism out of a fear that the lost
M person will ask them a question they cannot
answer. This fear presupposes two faulty
lines of thinking: first, that every unbeliever with whom
they converse must be an expert on science, history, and
sociology; and second, that to be an effective witness
they must be able to respond to every single question or
objection on the spot with carefully crafted answers.
The passage most often associated with the exercise of
answering questions posed by unbelievers (apologetics)
is 1 Peter 3:15 (NASB): “But sanctify Christ as Lord in
your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone
who asks you to give an account for the hope that
is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.” Peter writes
to believers calling them to humility and harmony. In no
40 the southern baptist theological seminary

“SURVEYS SHOW THE GREATEST BARRIER TO
CHRISTIANS WITNESSING OF THEIR FAITH
TO UNBELIEVERS IS FEAR. WHILE THE MOST
COMMON FEAR MANY BELIEVERS FACE IS
THAT OF REJECTION BY THE PERSON TO
WHOM THEY ARE WITNESSING, FOR A GREAT
NUMBER OF BELIEVERS THERE ALSO EXISTS
A GREAT FEAR OF BEING ASKED A QUESTION
THEY CANNOT ANSWER.”
way does the readiness to defend conviction imply an arrogant
spirit; rather, the advancement of reasons for hope
should be done winsomely.
I define evangelism as, “The compassionate sharing of
the Good News of Jesus Christ with lost people, in the
power of the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of bringing them
to Christ as Savior and Lord, that they in turn might share
Him with others.” Notice that the work of evangelism involves
the verbal witness of the Good News in the power
of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16).
Lost people are born again not because of impeccable
argumentation but by the will and power of God working
through the verbal witness (2 Thess. 2:13). Apologetics
serves evangelism. Apologetics may be viewed as a type
of pre-evangelism. If evangelism, narrowly defined, is the
verbal witness to the offer of the gospel, then apologetics
seizes the opportunity to lay the groundwork (pre-evangelism)
that anticipates the sharing of the good news.
Paul’s encounter with the world philosophies of his
day at Mars Hill in Acts 17:22-34 illustrates this kind of
pre-evangelistic apologetics. Paul observes the pagan
trappings of his surroundings and uses that as a bridge
to explain who the one, true, and living God is. He takes
the Athenians’ best philosophical attempt to explain the
world in “an unknown god” and skillfully introduces the
Christian worldview before calling on people to repent.
Essentially, Paul identifies the shortcomings in the Athenian
worldview and shows how the biblical worldview is
coherent. Today’s world is ripe with faulty philosophies
Christians would do well to observe, identify the holes,
and lovingly retell in light of the glorious Christ.
Why Do People Ask Questions?
As we get involved in evangelism, we quickly discover
that good evangelistic conversations are not monologues,
but dialogues, and include persons asking questions.
Why do people ask questions in witnessing situations? I
have observed two main reasons:
1. An unwillingness to forsake sin. The questioner
doesn’t really consider their questions to be serious.
They are simply “playing games.” Their mind is closed.
They are raising questions as a smokescreen to avoid
dealing with their sinfulness.
For example, while I was witnessing on a college
campus a student said to me, “Well, I have a question
for you: where did Cain get his wife?” I sensed that this
wasn’t really this student’s question, so I responded by
saying, “I’ll answer your question if you answer a question
from me first: who was Cain?” The student replied
sheepishly, “I don’t know.” I then asked, “Well if you
don’t know who he was, then why are you concerned
summer 2022
41

tim beougher
about where he got his wife?” The student told me he
had heard someone say if a Christian ever talks to you
to ask them that question, since Christians can’t answer
it. While I did answer his question, it was abundantly
clear this student was just playing games. He didn’t have
a serious intellectual objection to Christianity. He understood
following Christ would involve him forsaking
his sin, something he was unwilling to do.
2. An honest expression of doubt and confusion.
Not all persons who raise questions are playing games.
Some ask legitimate questions because they are genuinely
seeking answers. Francis Schaeffer argues, “It is
not more spiritual to believe without asking questions.
It is not more biblical. It is less biblical and eventually
will be less spiritual because the whole man will not
be involved.” Schaeffer goes on to say, “Christianity demands
that we have enough compassion to learn the
questions of our generation.”
We need to remember that faith in Jesus Christ is
not a “leap in the dark” as it is sometimes described
by skeptics. Faith in Jesus Christ is instead a “step into
the light.” We have good reasons for believing what we
believe. When people ask genuine questions, we need
to seek to answer them. Paul Little quotes John Stott as
offering a wonderful balance: “We cannot pander to a
man’s intellectual arrogance, but we must cater to his
intellectual integrity.”
General Principles in Responding to Questions
First, don’t get defensive. Don’t be intimidated. After
2,000 years, no one is going to come up with a question
that will undermine the Christian faith—and it’s not
because people haven’t tried! God’s Word has stood the
test of time. Just because you do not have an answer to a
question does not mean there is no answer.
Second, avoid an argument. Bringing people to faith
in Christ is much more than merely giving an answer
to their questions. You can “win” the debate but “lose”
that person if your demeanor and tone are sarcastic
and argumentative.
Third, answer questions in the right spirit—a spirit of
humility. First Peter 3:15 exhorts us to give answers to
unbelievers “with gentleness and reverence.” One of the
classic definitions of evangelism (from D. T. Niles) says:
“Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another
beggar where to get food.” This definition reminds us of
the importance of humility in our witness.
Fourth, don’t be afraid to respond, “I don’t know the
answer to that question.” We see that even the apostle Paul
could not unravel all mysteries. He testified in 2 Corinthians
12:2 (about whether being caught up in the third
heaven was “in the body” or “out of the body”), “I do
not know, God knows.” In my evangelism classes I have
students practice saying that three-word phrase “I don’t
know,” since many of them have mistakenly thought it is
an admission of failure to utter those words.
Fifth, study to find answers. Not every question has an
easy answer, and some questions cannot be answered with
our limited knowledge. We don’t have full answers to every
question because God hasn’t fully revealed his mind to us
on everything. Deuteronomy 29:29 reminds us, “The secret
things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed
belong to us …” Not every question has an easy answer
but seek to learn answers to common questions people ask.
Seventh, if possible, present the entire gospel message.
People aren’t converted merely through receiving answers
to their questions, but through hearing and responding
to the gospel message. Paul reminds us in Romans 1:16
that “the gospel is the power of God for salvation.”
Eighth, deal with people as people, not as projects (1
Thess. 2:8). No one wants to feel like they are someone’s
project. Lost people are lost but they are not stupid—
they can sense whether you genuinely care for them
as an individual.
Finally, trust in the work of the Holy Spirit. Remember
your role and God’s role. As Paul testifies in 1 Cor 3:6, “I
planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the growth.”
You don’t need to cringe in fear as you share the gospel.
You can be free from the burden of thinking you
have to have all knowledge and understand all mysteries
to communicate the good news of who Christ is
and what he has done for sinners. You can be free to respond
“I don’t know” to complex questions, even as you
study to find answers.
Tim Beougher is Associate Dean of the Billy Graham
School of Missions, Evangelism and Ministry, and Billy
Graham Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth.
Editors’ note: This article is adapted from Invitation to Evangelism: Sharing the
Gospel with Compassion and Conviction (Kregel, 2021).
—
1
Francis A. Schaeffer, “Form and Freedom in the Church,” in Let the Earth
Hear His Voice, ed. J. D. Douglas (Minneapolis, MN: World Wide Publications,
1975), 368.
2
Ibid., 373.
3
Cited in Paul E. Little, Know Why You Believe (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2009), 25.
42 the southern baptist theological seminary

y timothy paul jones
Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the
Resurrection, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, 1835
3 key truths for
better apologetics
1
Apology; it’s a defense that includes evidence.
A few years ago, I was reminded of my initial misunderstanding
when I found this comment appended to an online
review of one of my books: “It says he’s an ‘apologist’!
If Christianity is worth believing, why would he need to
write a book apologizing for it?” The band R.E.M. was
apparently operating with a similar misunderstanding
when they produced a song entitled “The Apologist”:
“They call me the apologist.../but now I’m facing up/I
wanted to apologize for/everything I was—so I’m sorry.”
As it turns out, even though “apology,” “apologetics,”
and “apologist” can all be traced back to the same root
words, being an apologist has little to do with saying
we’re sorry and everything to do with whether the facts
confessed in the Christian faith correspond with reality
and are internally coherent. Apologetics is the reverent,
reasonable, and humble defense—through our
words and through our lives—of the hope we have in
summer 2022
43

timothy paul jones
the risen Christ.
The philosopher Aristotle used the words apologia
and kategoria to describe the two types of speeches
presented in a court of law. Kategoria was a speech of
accusation related to events that had happened in the
past; the apologia was a speech of defense in response
to the kategoria. The apostle Peter used this term for a
defense when he wrote these words to Christians in
Asia Minor: “In your hearts regard Christ the Lord as
holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who
asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet,
3:15, emphasis added).
Here’s how I define “apologetics,” on the basis of this
text and others scattered throughout the Scriptures:
apologetics is the reverent, reasonable, and humble defense—through
our words and through our lives—of the
hope we have in the risen Christ, as this hope has been
revealed in his Word and in his world. Apologetics isn’t
saying, “I’m sorry”; it’s a defense that reveals the incoherence
of the unbeliever’s worldview by pointing to the internal
coherence and external evidence for the believer’s
hope in the risen Christ and in his written Word.
2
Holiness provides the foundation for the proclamation
of our hope.
The words of Simon Peter in 1 Peter 3:15 can become a
bumper sticker for apologetics, but this text is far richer,
deeper, and more beautiful than we sometimes recognize.
This text seems to have been written to Christians who are
beginning to experience social exclusion and perhaps even
civic consequences for their faithfulness to Jesus. In this
context, the first defense of the faith to which Peter calls
them is holiness (1 Pet. 1:15–17; 2:9–17; 3:13–17).
Our defense of the Christian faith doesn’t end with our
holiness, but it must start with holiness. Holiness won’t
ultimately protect the people from persecution, but it ensures
that whatever they suffer will be for the sake of their
Savior and not because of their sin.
3
A Christian’s hope is centered in the resurrection—and
so is our defense.
Throughout 1 Peter, Simon Peter centers the Christian’s
hope in the resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3, 13, 21).
Sometimes, his focus is on the resurrection of Jesus on
the third day; other times, it’s centered on our future resurrection,
which the resurrection of Jesus guaranteed. But,
either way, resurrection is the foundation of our hope.
So, what does this mean for apologetics?
If apologetics is giving a reason for our hope, and hope
is centered in the resurrection, the resurrection should be
central in Christian apologetics. When the resurrection is
not central in apologetics, the practice of apologetics can
turn into a bad game of theological trivia, with the unbeliever
raising a random series of objections until he or she
“wins” by coming up with a question that the Christian can’t
answer. When the resurrection of Jesus is central, however,
apologetics can never stray far from the gospel, and we respond
to the unbeliever’s questions by turning the question
toward the cross and the empty tomb.
If you choose to focus your apologetics on convincing
an unbeliever that a particular approach to creation
is correct—even if you convince the unbeliever that
you’re correct—that individual has still not been confronted
with the gospel. If you convince someone that
there are sound philosophical reasons why a good God
might allow evil in the world, and they agree with you
but never hear the hope of the resurrection, your defense
is a miserable failure. Why? In your passion to defend
the truth, you have wandered from a focus on the gospel—the
life, death, and resurrection of Jesus by which
God is reconciling sinners to himself and revealing his
reign in the world.
Any apologetic that defines the truth and defends the
truth but never delivers a call to believe the gospel is
empty and vain. Apologetics is a means that God chooses
to use for his glory; the power, however, is not in our
apologetics but in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel
alone is “the power of God for salvation” (Rom 1:16).
That’s what Charles H. Spurgeon was getting at when
he said, “Suppose a number of persons were to take it
into their heads that they had to defend a lion.… Open
the door, and let the lion out!… He would take care of
himself.… The best ‘apology’ for the gospel is to let the
gospel out.… Preach Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Let the Lion out!”
Timothy Paul Jones is Vice President for Doctoral Studies
and C. Edwin Gheens Professor of Christian Family Ministry.
44 the southern baptist theological seminary

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alumni
by jeff robinson
photos by trevor wheeker
HOW ONE SBTS ALUM IS LEADING HIS CHURCH
AMIDST THE RUBBLE OF A DEADLY STORM’S WAKE
WE HAVE TO
LIVE OUT
OUR FAITH

THIRTY TO SIXTY SECONDS.
That’s how long it took for the storm to explode Wes Fowler’s carefully
regimented weekly schedule and, of profoundly more importance, to
change his life and the lives of Mayfield, Kentucky’s citizens forever.
Fowler, a PhD student at Southern Seminary and
2015 DMin graduate, spent the daytime hours
that Friday as most busy pastors do—finishing
his sermon and preparing his heart to preach to
God’s people on the fast-approaching Lord’s Day.
But by the next day, Fowler was being interviewed
by CNN, the Washington Post, and other
local and national media outlets about what had
unfolded in his hometown during that tragic
half-minute late Friday night.
Fowler, with his wife and three kids, survived
the deadly tornado that obliterated Mayfield,
Kentucky, and the surrounding area on
December 10, killing at least 84, including one
member of the church he pastors, First Baptist
Church of Mayfield. Several FBC members
lost homes and property. Mercifully, the storm
spared Fowler’s house.
In the days following, he responded to a
non-stop barrage of queries from national
news media, along with dozens of emails and
text messages offering help with recovery. FBC
staff members and volunteers operated out of
a motor home positioned on church property
across from the main sanctuary. During our
interview, he received a call from the mayor of
Mayfield, and his phone beeped regularly as text
messages rolled in.
“The last few days have been unique,” he said,
his phone lighting up with yet another unknown
caller, this one from Mississippi.
“See, look at that,” he said. “There have been
phone calls from all over the country, text messages
coming in, emails coming in. On day
one I was trying to respond to them as they
came in, but now there’s an overwhelming feeling
that I can’t keep up. I want to, but at one
point I had over a hundred text messages that I
hadn’t even seen yet.”
Fowler and his church became an epicenter
for communicating the tragedy to the outside
world. He was interviewed by CNN’s Anderson
Cooper. Amid the rubble, Fowler has been
amazed at how God has given church leaders
the opportunity to share the gospel with media
members and beyond.
“In the conversation with Anderson Cooper,
both before and after, we talked about the
church, we talked about the Lord, I was sharing
about my calling to the ministry and he was incredibly
open to that conversation and incredibly
genuine,” Fowler said.
“It has given me a chance to share the gospel
with people who don’t know the gospel well at
all. I shared the gospel with a New York Times
reporter, with an LA Times reporter, and with an
AP reporter who already knew the gospel. We’ve
had a good experience with the media. They’ve
been very kind to us, and we’ve tried to be very
kind to them.”
Less than 48 hours after the storm, Fowler and
the staff organized a Sunday morning prayer service
at the damaged building. They prayed, sang
hymns, and worshiped the Lord. For most FBC
members, it was their first look at the torn city.
“That was very hard,” Fowler said. “It was difficult
to see the heartbroken looks on their faces.
We were and are still learning how many of our
people were affected, but many of our members
showed up to pray and worship our great God.”
FBC held a similar service a week later and
church leaders are pondering how the congregation
might continue to gather, perhaps in smaller
groups, while the church is repaired, an effort
that will take many months and millions of dollars.
FBC Mayfield has survived much adversity
since it first met in 1843 on the outskirts of town.
A Deeply Personal Tragedy
One week after deadly tornadoes rampaged
across Western Kentucky, Mayfield looked like
old photos from bombed out cities in World War
II; it was as if a massive lawn mower sat and spun
over the town during those horrific seconds. For
summer 2022
47

alumni
Fowler, this tragedy is deeply personal; he
grew up in Mayfield, graduated from high
school here, came to faith in Christ here,
and has pastored his home church since
2011 here.
But “here” will never be the same.
“My parents go to this church,” he said.
“My grandparents went here. My great
grandparents were here. I was baptized in
this church. I made a profession of faith at
this church. I baptized my kids here. I sat
between my grandparents in the balcony
growing up.
“I think the emotional part of this is that I
know some of this is not coming back, and it
certainly will never be the way it was. Some
of it will be built back, and I think we’re going
to be okay at First Baptist; but it’s just not going to
be the same Mayfield. It’s going to be different; there’s no
way around it. Everything in downtown Mayfield is gone
except for our church building. Our building is the only
one left standing that still has structural integrity.”
In the days before the storm struck Mayfield, forecasters
warned that a rare December outbreak of violent tornadoes
was possible. Fowler figured there might be bad
weather but thought it would miss Mayfield. A tornado
passed nearby in 2016 but dodged the city.
But on that Friday as the storms grew worse and the
“THERE WAS A VACUUM IN THE
TUNNEL IN A MOMENT. THE
CEILING TILES BEGAN TO POP
UP AND DOWN. THE PRESSURE
CHANGED. THE LIGHTS WENT OUT,
WHICH MADE IT A LITTLE SCARIER,
AND THE KIDS WERE SCREAMING
AND CRYING. WE GOT INTO A
SECTION ON THE FLOOR.”
long track tornado that would decimate Mayfield, Dawson
Springs, and other Western Kentucky communities
slithered toward his community, Fowler decided it was
time for his wife and three children to seek shelter at
the church, two miles from their house. The church has
an underground tunnel that connects the main church
building to the children’s center across the street.
Fowler and the family of youth pastor Kody Hopwood,
a MACE graduate of Southern Seminary, arrived simultaneously
at the church. It was 9:20 p.m.
Wes and Kody briefly debated whether the tunnel or
All of FBC’s buildings were damaged by the December 10 storm.
48 the southern baptist theological seminary

Wes Fowler talks with church members just days after a tornado devastated their hometown.
the gym would provide a safer haven. They chose the
tunnel. It was a life-saving decision; the gym was pummeled
by the storm, its roof pulled off like the top of a
tin can.
At 9:27, the tornado hit.
“I could hear it coming and it grew louder and louder,”
he said. “There was a vacuum in the tunnel in a moment.
The ceiling tiles began to pop up and down. The pressure
changed. The lights went out, which made it a little scarier,
and the kids were screaming and crying. We got into
a section on the floor.
“My wife got on top of my daughter, and I got on top of
my two sons. Kody and Heather were on top of their family,
so there for a few moments we were laying on top of
our families as debris and dirt filled up the room. It was a
terrible, loud sound. It lasted 30 seconds to a minute, but
it felt like five minutes.”
Wes and Kody emerged from the tunnel. What they
saw was incomprehensible.
“I never dreamed the church was damaged like it was,”
Fowler said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I came
back up and looked outside into Mayfield for the first
time. I had my flashlight, it was still raining, and I’m
looking around, and it was the most disorienting thing. I
thought something was wrong with me. I was confused.
I couldn’t see any buildings. I couldn’t see buildings I’ve
seen my whole life.
“This glass shop here (next door to the church) where
we know the owner and where we buy our windows: I
couldn’t see it. I could see our church bus. It had been
inside a big garage, but the garage wasn’t there anymore.
The bus was smashed. It was disorienting, a bit confusing.
Then it started to sink in: It’s all gone.”
summer 2022
49

alumni
Existential Questions,
Heightened Opportunities
In the days following, the world seemingly descended on
the region, hundreds to help recovery efforts and many
to report on the unconscionable destruction. Fowler, his
staff—four of whom either hold degrees from Southern
or are current students at the seminary—and numerous
volunteers handled media requests while also fanning
out to help church members whose lives have been affected
by the storm.
FBC’s staff faced the inevitable existential question:
“Why did God allow his people to suffer such seemingly
random affliction?” Fowler’s daughter asked him a
similar question. The longtime pastor drew upon John
9 where the Lord’s disciples ask him whether a man was
born blind due to his sin or his parents’ sin.
“I told my kids, we have to use this for the glory of
God,” he said. “The reality is I don’t know why it happened
to Mayfield on this day at this time. But I do know
what we can do now, though: we use this opportunity to
share the gospel. I’ve said to several media sources that I
think when times are good, it’s very easy to be a follower
of Christ. When times are bad, it’s more difficult, but
that’s what people are watching.
“We have to live out our faith now. We have to share
the gospel now. In fact, this teaches us that the gospel is
really our only hope. Our only hope is Christ, and this
scene in Mayfield visually depicts that. You can’t put your
faith in a building. You can’t put your hope in a city. As
Hebrews 13 tells us, our faith and hope is in an eternal
city. That’s what I’m trying to teach my children. That’s
what I’m trying to tell the community in bite-sized pieces
as it comes up.”
Blake Shuecraft, a current Seminary Track student
at Southern/Boyce, who has served as associate pastor
of children at FBC Mayfield since 2019, said his seminary
training has been invaluable in helping others sort
through the questions that come with a tragedy of such
magnitude. Shuecraft grew up in Western Kentucky and
his wife is a Mayfield native.
“There are a lot of people who are open to hearing the
gospel who might not have been before,” Shuecraft said.
“I’ve been thinking about Dr. (Tim) Beougher and how
he uses the term ‘being sensitive to opportunities’; what
an opportunity right now.
“We’ve been fielding questions as to why this happened.
We don’t know necessarily why, but we do know
that now we have an opportunity to be a light to the community.
We have an opportunity to offer help to those
who are hurting through Jesus. It’s been great to be able
to apply those great truths we see in Scripture that we’ve
learned at Southern. It’s being put to use right now. It’s all
come together.”
Wes Fowler stands in front of the damaged sanctuary of FBC of Mayfield, KY.
50 the southern baptist theological seminary

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
news & features
the ultimate goal of
theological education
is holiness, mohler says
at spring convocation
—
By Jeff Robinson
Studying theology at the deepest
level is not an end to itself but is
ultimately a means to the learner’s
holiness, Southern Seminary President
Albert Mohler told students
and faculty Tuesday at the school’s
annual Spring Convocation.
Drawing on 1 Peter 1:13-25,
Mohler said studying the Word of
God is such a high privilege, angels
long to obtain such knowledge.
The president’s address was titled,
“Preparing Your Minds for Action:
The Means and Ends of Christian
Learning.”
“I don’t think it’s wrong to think
that there are angels that are envious
of you,” Mohler said to students
and faculty, (envious) of those who
are going to be able to dive deeply
into the truth of God’s Word, to
look deeply into the truths revealed
in Scripture, to know the doctrine
and teaching of the church deeply,
to understand the gospel more
comprehensively.
“Angels long to look into these
things. Angels—beings created for
the glory of God—have a knowledge
certainly, but the knowledge
given to us in Scripture is superior
to their knowledge.”
In 1 Peter and many other places
in Scripture, such as Leviticus
11:44, God commands his people to
be holy because he is holy. Mohler
said this is the ultimate goal for all
study of God’s Word. He noted that
theological education is merely the
means to the end of holiness, and
the two must never be confused.
“Books, classes, lectures, teachers,
schools, colleges, universities,
seminaries—even the most godly—are
simply means, not ends,” he
said. “Means to what? Means to the
preaching of the gospel and the fulfillment
of the Great Commission?
Yes. Means to the edification of the
saints and to growth in godliness?
Yes. Means for planting churches
and feeding churches? Yes. But
even those are penultimate. The
end is holiness.”
Mohler encouraged students to
prepare their minds for action, to
apply rigorous efforts to their studies,
preparing for ministry to the
glory of God.
“It’s a good word at the beginning
of an academic term,” he said.
“You can’t just lazily enter Christian
learning and expect to get learning.
You can’t lackadaisically enter the
classroom. You can’t just unenergetically
accept this as the use of
time.
“Something explosive is going to
take place. The mystery of learning
is beyond our comprehension—
how is it that God allows our mind
to comprehend his revelation? It
is, of course, the imago dei, it is his
condescension to us, his grace and
mercy to us.”
four vital truths are
foundational to human
flourishing, anderson
says in gheens lectures
—
By Travis Hearne
Important ground on our culture’s
understanding of human nature
has been lost in the last decade,
Ryan T. Anderson told the Southern
Seminary community during
the annual Gheens Lectures March
16-17.
Truths that were self-evident
summer 2022
51

news & features
a generation ago now require an
academic response in the public
sphere, Anderson argued.
Anderson is founding editor of
Public Discourse and president of
the Ethics and Public Policy Center
in Washington, D.C. He is author
of five books, including When
Harry Became Sally: Responding to
the Transgender Moment and Truth
Overruled: The Future of Marriage
and Religious Freedom.
Anderson identified four creational
truths found in nature and
the opening chapters of Genesis
that Christians must defend to promote
a flourishing society.
God made humans in his image
and likeness. Christians should
fight for legal and cultural change
to protect the infants while also aiding
and supporting women harmed
by the abortion industry.
God created human beings
male and female. Anderson urged
that work must be done to recover a
sound understanding of the sexual
differences. The answer is not the
harmful transforming of the body,
but a return to God’s good design
revealed through the natural law
and Scripture.
God created males and females
for each other. “It’s not that God
created two random sexes,” said
Anderson. “God created male and
female precisely with the design for
us to unite as one flesh.”
God created us for himself.
“We’re not just created in the image
of God, but we are made for God,”
Anderson said. “Which is simply to
say that religion should have a role
in our public life. Not only have we
secularized our public square, but
now we are using the law to punish
people who have not gone along
with secularization.”
union with christ is the
christian doctrine
of salvation, noted
theologian says in
annual norton lectures
—
By Travis Hearne and
Jeff Robinson
Union with Christ is central to the
doctrine of salvation, theologian
Fred Sanders told the Southern
Seminary community at this year’s
Norton Lectures Series, held February
9-10 in Heritage Hall.
Sanders gave three lectures on
“Union with Christ, Systematically
Considered.” Sanders is professor
of theology at Biola University
and the author of numerous
books, including The Deep Things
of God: How the Trinity Changes
Everything and The Triune God.
In the first lecture, Sanders argued
that union with Christ is a
unifying theme of soteriology,
even though it is sometimes underplayed
in contemporary theology.
“While it makes sense to speak
about the Christian doctrine of
God or the Christian doctrine of
the incarnation,” Sanders said, “it
seems somehow less believable in
the contemporary world to assert
that there is such a thing as one
single Christian doctrine of salvation.
“It is the powerful, scriptural,
and spiritual drive toward union
with Christ that gave rise to the
creeds.”
Being prominently present in
the early church councils and
in the writings of reformer John
Calvin, union with Christ is fundamental
to any unified Christian
teaching on salvation, he argued.
In the other lectures, Sanders examined
the doctrine biblically and
theologically.
Union with Christ is one of the
key themes in the apostle Paul’s
theology, particularly in Romans
5-6 and in the first two chapters
of Ephesians—often summarized
concisely in two words: in Christ.
But the doctrine is also present in
the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, he said.
52 the southern baptist theological seminary

news & features
Southern continues to fulfill its
calling, not only as an academically
rigorous institution, but as a training
ground for those called to take
the gospel to the nations.
sbts trustees elect
faculty and approve
annual budget at
Spring Meeting
—
By Jeff Robinson
Graham School Dean Paul Akin interviews IMB President Paul Chitwood
during Great Commission Week at SBTS.
sbts encourages
mission-centric work
during great
commission week
—
By Travis Hearne
Southern Seminary encouraged
students, faculty, and staff to get involved
in missions both locally and
globally during the school’s Great
Commission Week April 12–14.
Southern filled the week, themed
“Send Me!”, with events designed
to present options and information
for the many students considering
full-time missions after graduation.
Paul Chitwood, president of
the International Mission Board,
kicked off the week with a chapel
message on the need for the gospel
in solving the world’s greatest problem.
“Lostness is the world’s greatest
problem.” Chitwood said, “We
know the solution to the world’s
greatest problem, the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and we have been called
to share it.”
Paul Akin, Dean of the Billy
Graham School of Missions, Evangelism
and Ministry, interviewed
Chitwood in The Bookstore at
Southern on the mission of SBTS
and the IMB. Southern has proudly
partnered with the IMB for 160
years and the seminary is more
mission-centric than at any other
time, Chitwood said.
“Today’s SBTS is more focused
on deploying a generation of missionaries
to the nations than at any
time I’ve witnessed over the past 30
years,” he said.
Southern also hosted Kevin
Ezell, president of the North American
Mission Board, for Thursday’s
chapel. Ezell called for churches to
prioritize sending missionaries in a
sermon on Acts 13:1–8.
“In the end, success for churches
will be determined, not by their
seating capacity, but by their sending
capacity,” Ezell said.
All in all, the week provided resources
and guidance to any student
called to serve in local, regional,
and international missions.
The IMB, KBC, and NAMB each
offered info fairs and active missionaries
from each agency offered
testimony and answered questions
from prospective missionaries.
Great Commission Week is no
exception to Southern’s mission,
Akin said. It’s just one of the ways
In their spring meeting Monday
evening, trustees of The Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary
unanimously approved a $50.4
million operating budget for 2022-
2023, as enrollment and finances
remain very strong.
The new budget represents a $2.3
million increase (4.8 percent) from
the budget trustees approved last
year. Over the past two budget cycles,
Southern’s budget has grown
by more than $13 million despite
challenges from the recent pandemic.
“God continues to bless Southern
Seminary and our churches
continue to send us the most amazing
students,” SBTS President Albert
Mohler said.
“This is a great era in the history
of this seminary and college and
we are pressing ahead. Our board
of trustees and faculty and staff
work together for the best theological
education we can provide our
students for a lifetime of faithful
ministry. We pray to bear this great
mission with faithfulness until Jesus
comes.”
The new budget is just right for
the current economic circumstances,
seminary leaders said.
“We believe this is a conservative
budget,” said Jon Austin, senior
vice president for institutional
summer 2022
53

news & features
administration. “We are mindful of
the economic state of not only the
country, but the world, so we want
to navigate that and be very mindful
of that.”
Two years ago, the seminary cut
tuition by 15 percent to stabilize
student enrollment during the pandemic.
Trustees approved a small
tuition increase of four percent for
the coming year.
In other business, the board
unanimously elected Josh Powell as
chairman of the trustees, replacing
Clint Pressley, who has served in
that role for the past two years.
“It’s been joyful to serve and it’s
been intense,” said Pressley, who
has served as pastor of Hickory
Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte,
N.C. for the past 12 years. “It
has been eye-opening to see all the
hard work it takes to run a seminary.
It has been deeply edifying to
see the God-honoring work leaders
put forth on behalf of theological
education. It has been a great privilege
to serve in this role.”
Powell serves as pastor of First
Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C. and
has served as a trustee at Southern
for nearly six years. Powell received
his MDiv from Southern in 2003.
Said Powell, “I consider this one
of my greatest honors in life and
ministry to be a part of this institution,
to be a graduate of this
Hershael York greets trustee Chairman Clint Pressley.
Clint Pressley leads his final meeting as Chairman of the SBTS board of trustees.
institution, and now to be able to
serve in this capacity is a true privilege.”
Trustees also elected other officers,
including Bill Behrens as first
vice chairman, Keith Daniels as
second vice chairman, Bill Sones
as secretary, and Jeremy Rhoden as
financial board chairman.
The board elected several faculty
members including Tyler Flatt as
Associate Professor of Humanities,
Justin Irving as Professor of Leadership,
and Abraham Kuruvilla as
Professor of Christian Preaching.
Trustees designated Irving to the
Duke K. McCall Chair of Christian
Leadership and Kuruvilla to the
Carl E. Bates Chair of Preaching.
Flatt was promoted from Assistant
Professor of Humanities to Associate
Professor of Humanities, and
Miguel Nunez was promoted from
Associate Professor of Pastoral
Leadership to Professor of Pastoral
Leadership.
Trustees also approved sabbatical
leave for several faculty members,
including Jonathan Pennington,
Bryan Baise, Duane Garrett, John
David Trentham, Brian Vickers,
John Wilsey, and Gregg Allison.
Board members honored the
faithful service of four trustees who
are rotating off the board after 10
years of service: Ellie Coursey (KY),
Nick Floyd (AR), Patricia Skelton
(KY), and Merril Smoak (CA).
Trustees also heard a testimony
from Keith Percic, an MDiv student
in the Billy Graham School of
Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry,
who detailed how Southern, its
faculty, and its students have deeply
impacted his life.
In his report to trustees, Mohler
said: “If your heart is ever heavy, or
you worry about the future of the
church, just meet one of the young
students on this campus. You will
thank God for giving Southern
Baptists a future. We get to see that
bright future on this campus.”
54 the southern baptist theological seminary

alumni
kitchens, sbts alum,
promoted to air force
chief of chaplains
by travis hearne
In 1994, Captain Claudia Foss couldn’t sleep. She thought
she believed in God, but her family didn’t go to church,
and she never considered becoming a Christian.
Then desperation kicked in.
After exhausting all other options, Captain Foss, a
rising star in the Air Force, called her chaplain. Randy
Kitchens, a young Baptist minister just four years removed
from seminary, answered.
Twenty-eight years later, Foss continues to write and
speak publicly about that night when Kitchens shared the
beauty of the gospel with her. Soon after, Kitchens baptized
Foss as a Christian in an indoor pool.
But Foss is just one. One of the many American airmen
and airwomen touched by the life and ministry of
Kitchens. Kitchens remains called to serving his God
and country. And God has multiplied his role. Last year,
Kitchens achieved the rank of major general and rose
to become Air Force Chief of Chaplains with the unanimous
consent of the Armed Services Committee.
“My promotion was a humbling experience and I recognize
the magnitude of this responsibility,” Kitchens
said. “My family has always supported God’s call and
leading within my life, career, ministry and military service.
My parents, wife, children, and their families are
excited about this new level of leadership and service,
especially for a time such as this.”
Kitchens will lead the Department of the Air Force
Chaplain Corps—consisting of 2,200 active and reserve
chaplains and religious affairs airmen. He will also continue
serving on the Armed Forces Chaplains Board by
providing insight to the Secretary of Defense and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff on matters related to religion, ethics
and quality-of-life.
“I realize that God’s calling upon my life and new
areas of service have prepared me for the present and
future,” Kitchens said. “As a pastor at Big Coppitt First
Baptist Church in Key West, Florida prior to seminary,
I learned a great deal about ministry, identity, service,
love, compassion, and people that created a great
foundation—which then blossomed during my time at
Southern Seminary.”
Chaplain Kitchens was ordained as a Southern Baptist
minister in 1983. He joined the Air Force Reserves
in 1987 and served as both a Chaplain Candidate and
Chaplain. In 1989, he received a master of divinity from
Southern. Entering active duty in the Air Force in 1993,
Kitchens went on to earn a PhD from Louisiana Baptist
University in 2001.
Said Kitchens, “Both of our children were born while
my wife Sherri and I learned all we could grasp about
ministry, missions, theology, scripture, and methodology.
I began my military career as a USAF Reserve Chaplain
Candidate with summer training during those years
at Southern. This aided my framework and understanding
of theological pluralism within military chaplaincy
and greatly prepared me for chaplaincy and my role today
as Chief of Chaplains for the US Air Force and US
Space Force.”
The road to promotion, however, wasn’t always easy.
In 2017, Kitchens overcame a cancer diagnosis which
resulted in surgery.
“While many have called this a miracle, I have called
this a journey of faith and trust in my God who has
guided, delivered, prompted, and ordered my steps and
movements during my life. Overcoming this challenge
has given me a greater understanding and resilience
during difficult times, which enables me to live each day
and lead each person with a renewed compassion and
fervor unlike before.
“Pray for the Lord to give me wisdom as I serve the
religious needs of our Airmen, Guardians, and their families,
and for the Lord alone to be glorified in my new
ministry responsibilities.”
summer 2022
55

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
recent faculty books
Invitation to Evangelism
Timothy K. Beougher
Kregel 2021 | $26.99
What exactly does it mean
to “evangelize” in a Christian
sense? And how is
such evangelizing supposed
to be done? Longtime
pastor, evangelist, and
SBTS professor of evangelism
Timothy K. Beougher
answers these questions
and more from theological,
historical, and practical
perspectives. Beougher
demonstrates God's goodness
in evangelism through
relatable anecdotes, Bible
teaching, and encouraging
instruction. Invitation to
Evangelism welcomes believers
into the experience
of stepping out in faith of
behalf of people God loves.
Grace & Truth Study Bible
R. Albert Mohler Jr., Editor
Zondervan 2021 | $26.99
The NIV Grace and Truth
Study Bible paints a stunning
canvas of the goodness
of God’s redemptive
plan revealed in the gospel
of Jesus. Warmhearted and
practical study notes guide
your reading as you learn
and relearn the good news
of Jesus on every page.
Whether you are just starting
your walk with God
or have been studying the
Bible for years, you’ll gain
fresh insights of grace and
truth while you learn to
love him more deeply.
The Joy of Hearing: A
Theology of the Book
of Revelation
Thomas Schreiner
Crossway 2021 | $19.99
In this first volume in the
New Testament Theology
series, trusted scholar
Thomas Schreiner walks
step-by-step through
the book of Revelation,
considering its many
themes—the opposition
believers face from
the world; the need for
perseverance; God as
sovereign Creator, Judge,
and Savior—as well as its
symbolic imagery and
historical context. The Joy
of Hearing brings clarity
to the content and message
of Revelation and
explores its relevance for
the church today.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
recent faculty books
When Home Hurts:
A Guide for Responding
Wisely to Domestic
Abuse in Your Church
Jeremy Pierre, co-author
Christian Focus 2021 | $16.99
This work seeks to equip
pastors, church leaders
and church members to
respond with the heart
of God to situations of
domestic abuse that occur
in their local church. Prioritizing
the safety of the
victim at all times, Pierre
and Wilson seek to help
you be the kind of church
leader, church member,
friend, parent, sibling, or
neighbor who responds
wisely. We want the church
to be a new normal for
those grown accustomed to
abuse. A home that doesn’t
hurt those inside, but
instead welcomes them into
the tender care of the Lord.
40 Questions About
Roman Catholicism
Gregg Allison
Kregel 2021 | $23.99
The Roman Catholic
faith is one of the world’s
most widespread religious
traditions, yet the unique
aspects of Roman Catholicism
elicit perennial questions
from adherents and
outsiders alike. Such questions
tend to fall into three
major categories: historical
backgrounds, theological
matters, and personal relationships.
Using Catholic
Church documents and
the writings of Catholic
scholars, Baptist systematic
theologian Gregg R. Allison
distills the teachings
of Catholicism around 40
common questions about
Catholic foundations, beliefs,
and practices.
Jesus’s Final Week
William F. Cook III
B&H Academic 2022 | $17.99
Jesus’s Final Week leads
readers through a close
examination of the last experiences
of Jesus’s earthly
life, including his entry
into Jerusalem, cursing
of the fig tree, and final
Passover meal. Author and
pastor William F. Cook
doesn’t merely comment
on the events themselves
but studies the key biblical
passages carefully, evaluating
their meaning and
significance. An excellent
resource for any Christian
who wants to learn more
about the events of Holy
Week and to prepare for
celebrating Easter.
summer 2022
57

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
recent faculty books
Typology:
Understanding
the Bible’s
Promised-Shaped
Patterns
James M. Hamilton Jr.
Zondervan 2022 | $29.99
This work shows us how
to put our Bibles together
and demonstrates that the
similarities we find in the
Bible are based on genuine
historical correspondence
and demonstrates
how we recognize them
in the repetition of words
and phrases, the parallels
between patterns of events,
and key thematic equivalences.
When read in light
of God’s promises, these
historical correspondences
spotlight further repetitions
that snowball on one
another to build escalating
significance.
The Loveliest Place:
The Beauty and
Glory of the Church
Dustin Benge
Crossway 2022 | $22.99
The local church is a beautiful
reality, and Dustin
Benge urges Christians to
see the holy assembly of
God’s redeemed people in
all its eternal beauty. He
explains what makes the
church lovely, including the
Trinitarian relationship,
worship, service, and gospel
proclamation. For those
who have never learned
to view the church as God
sees it, or have become
disillusioned by its flaws,
this book is a reminder that
the corporate gathering of
believers is a reflection of
God’s indescribable beauty.
Iron Sharpens Iron:
Friendship and the
Grace of God
Michael A.G. Haykin
Union Publishing 2022 | $14.99
The modern world, with
its emphasis on speed and
busyness and the misnamed
“social” media,
has not been an especially
welcoming place to
develop long-lasting, solid
friendships that help to
nurture the heart.
Providing exemplars and
guidance in this challenging
situation, this
book on friendship looks
at some of the details
of the friendships of
the eighteenth-century
pastor-theologian Andrew
Fuller to help us
think about and engage
in meaningful relationships
and joy for the
Christian journey.
58 the southern baptist theological seminary

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
recent faculty books
Hope For All the Earth:
Understanding the Story
of the Old Testament
Mitchell L. Chase
10ofThose 2022 | $6.99
In this helpful guide,
Mitchell L. Chase takes
readers, step by step,
through the whole sweep of
the Old Testament, through
its stories and songs,
through its prophesies and
promises, and shows us
how each one points us
to the coming Savior, and
God’s plan rescue us from
our sin and establish his
everlasting kingdom.
A Concise Guide to the Life
of Muhammad: Answering
Thirty Key Questions
Ayman S. Ibrahim
Baker Academic 2022 | $24.99
This companion volume
to the author’s A Concise
Guide to the Quran answers
many of the key questions
non-Muslims have about
Muhammad, reveals the
importance of Muhammad
for Christian-Muslim and
Jewish-Muslim interfaith
relations, and examines
Muslim and non-Muslim
primary sources. This introductory
guide is written
for anyone with little to
no knowledge of Islam
who wants to learn about
Muslims, their beliefs,
and their prophet.
God and the Transgender
Debate: What Does the
Bible Actually Say
about Gender Identity?
Expanded and Updated
Andrew T. Walker
The Good Book
Company 2022 | $16.99
This warm, faithful and
compassionate book that
helps Christians understand
what the Bible says
about gender identity has
been updated and expanded
throughout, and
now includes a section on
pronoun usage and a new
chapter challenging some
of the claims of the transgender
activist movement.
summer 2022
59

25 YEARS OF
FAITHFUL
SERVICE
TOM SCHREINER, TOM NETTLES, & HERSHAEL YORK
by jeff robinson

interview
In 1997, three conservative scholars joined the faculty at
SBTS, and their presence loomed large in the re-embrace
of biblical and theological fidelity at Southern Seminary.
Veteran Kentucky pastor Hershael York joined as professor
of preaching, noted Baptist historian Tom Nettles
came on board to teach church history/historical theology,
and noted New Testament scholar Tom Schreiner
joined the faculty as professor of New Testament.
The teaching and writing of all three in the ensuing
decades helped Southern rebuild a strong confessional
foundation and reassert the founders’ original vision
for the seminary.
Twenty-five years later, York and Schreiner continue to
teach and write as regular members of the faculty, and
Nettles retired from teaching full-time in 2014 but remains
as professor emeritus. In this interview, the three
of them spoke about their early days at Southern, the
changing landscape in culture and the church, and also
offered words of well-earned wisdom about endurance
in the Christian life and ministry.
With the seminary’s transformation was far from
complete when you were hired in 1997, what did
you expect during those early days of teaching
here? Did you expect things to turn around as
quickly as they did?
Hershael York. A large part of the faculty at that time
was still very resistant to Dr. Mohler’s leadership and the
conservative direction of the seminary. The Western Recorder
actually wrote an article criticizing my addition to
the faculty as well as my theological commitments, so I
knew what I was getting into. Some of those early faculty
meetings were rancorous, to say the least, but within
two years the tide had turned. It became obvious that the
seminary was returning to its original theological commitments
and those who were not on board left.
Tom Nettles. Twenty-five years ago, a majority of the
faculty still hovered within the realms of the moderate
resistance to the Conservative Resurgence. Dr. Mohler
had come as president of the Seminary 14 years into the
resurgence in 1993. This movement was a slow, painstaking,
step-by-step commitment on the part of biblical
inerrantists. Both laymen and ministers desired that
all employees in denominational agencies believed and
functioned in their calling as believers in the infallible
character of Scripture.
This commitment would determine their belief that
the Bible, in its every assertion properly and contextually
understood, was free of error. The very fact that Al
Mohler had been called as president in 1993 said that the
inerrantists were having much greater success than anyone
could have anticipated. There was no turning back,
and in time the goal would be achieved. It seemed, however,
to be three or four years away, for, in 1997, there
was still a tilt in favor of the opposition. I had come on a
contract basis in order to avoid having to appear before a
faculty committee.
The president was wise in the way he chipped away
at the prevailing commitment to moderatism. On one
of my first days in my office in the Robertson wing of
Norton, I stepped into the hall, saw a faculty member
coming from his office in my direction. I introduced myself,
and he said, “Oh no!” and turned around and went
back to his office. By God’s gracious providence, around
ten new faculty members were added the next year and
established a majority of the faculty in the inerrantist/
confessional position. Dr. Mohler from the beginning
had tied the resurgence at Southern to a regaining of
conscientious commitment to the Abstract of Principles.
So, a high degree of broad theological consensus existed
throughout the new faculty appointments. In 1976, I
had no expectation that Southern ever would be other
than the model—a virtually immutable Platonic ideal—
of liberal Southern Baptist theological education. The
Lord God who created heaven and earth and sent his Son
to redeem his elect and the Spirit to inspire the word of
revelation of these eternal covenantal commitments had
determined otherwise. Through chosen vessels to whom
he gave insight, courage, and determination he spoke,
and even Southern Seminary succumbed to the historic
Baptist commitment to inspired Scripture, evangelical
theology, in the form of its original founders.
Tom Schreiner. When I came in 1997 the change was
fundamentally over. There were just a few professors left
from the former era.
Could you have ever envisioned God’s work
these past 25 years in drawing thousands of
young people to SBTS to study the Bible and
theology? What has been most gratifying to you
in this revival of love for God’s Word and sound
doctrine among several overlapping generations
for which SBTS has been called “ground zero”?
York. I had no concept of being at Southern for 25 years,
nor of the rich spiritual returns on that investment that
awaited. I was so focused on the immediacy of the seminary’s
resurgence that I did not then appreciate how God
would give me a part in shaping generations for ministry.
summer 2022
61

25 years of faithful service
year, graduations of those classes
recurring after (approximately) every
three years, and even children
of former students showing up in
class, the degree of impact made
by this historic shift in theological
commitment overwhelms my
mind with gratitude and awe.
Schreiner. I think the most gratifying
thing is seeing our students
going out as faithful pastors, missionaries,
staff members, educators,
counselors, worship leaders, etc.
Now, with a broader and more mature perspective I can
better understand the remarkable grace that God has shed
on Southern. Our graduates are glorifying Christ and serving
his churches by preaching, pastoring, teaching, ministering,
evangelizing, and discipling all over the world.
Nettles. Though the reality of what happened never
ceased to be a point of gratitude and praise, and even
some degree of astonishment at how thoroughly the
threshing floor was cleansed, given the dynamics of close
to two decades at that time, I anticipated with hope the
kind of comprehensive strength and substance that became
a mark of theological education at SBTS. Part of my
understanding of history is based on 2 Timothy 1:10-12
where Paul expresses his confidence that God himself is
committed eternally to protect the deposit of truth that
he has revealed about the covenanted redemptive work
of his Son. Of course, like warnings to the churches in
Revelation, God could sovereignly remove the lampstand
from its place due to a history of unfaithfulness,
but the text teaches that until the day of Christ, he will
not allow the testimony to the work of his Son lose its authoritative
form of sound words, its power, its clarity, or
its success. It seemed, that having begun the good work,
God would continue it for his glory, the honor of his Son,
the demonstration of the Spirit’s power, and the faithful
and thorough equipping of his appointed ministers of
the gospel. That I expect such to happen in sovereignly
selected pockets throughout the world does not diminish
the impact of God’s grace in doing that eternally conceived
work of protection and restoration right here. The
existential experience of seeing new classes come in every
Since you began here in
1997, it seems we’ve had a
revolution, or perhaps many
revolutions, in our culture,
most of which have impacted
the church. So, would you give different advice to
our graduates going out into ministry today than
you would’ve back then?
York. The tools of war may change through the years,
but not the essential character of war. That’s true of spiritual
warfare as well. Satan may use different weapons, but
the battle is still won through the atoning work of Christ.
I have seen certain cultural challenges arise that I never
anticipated or imagined, but I do not consider our difficulties
greater than those the apostle Paul faced. So whatever
new battle fronts Satan might establish, the gospel
of Jesus Christ is still the way the war is won. I am more
committed than ever to teaching our students to believe
in the power of the gospel and to proclaim it faithfully as
the only hope for a world wrapped in lostness.
Nettles. Cultures have no absolutes, apart from pervasive
fallenness and rebellion against God, to govern
the changes that introduce new affections and “orthodoxies”
into each generation. The biblical revelation has
stood against the world in every generation and the call
of the prophet always is to repent and return. The biblical
standard of truth in its explanation of the gospel never
wavers and its confrontation with the lies of the world
always is the same.
I would encourage every student to know Scripture so
thoroughly, its leading themes in their integration with
gospel themes so profoundly, the specific words and verses
that constitute the doctrinal ideas so accurately, the
history of doctrinal departures and recoveries with such
understanding, that error will become obvious upon
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interview
investigation and the antidote of truth will be virtually
palpable. When the leading principles of philosophical
systems, social analyses, popular movements, and even
a political agendum are inconsistent with the worldview
and eternal perspective engendered by gospel categories,
their errors should be exposed, warned against, and,
when fitting for the health of the church, publicly opposed.
One cannot predict what will emerge as the next
great crisis, but ever-increasing knowledge of revealed
truth as epistemologically determinative and the triune
God as the only absolute ontological foundation for reality
will be consistent tools for understanding the rapidly
flying errors and challenges to biblical faith.
Schreiner. I wouldn’t give different advice. First
Timothy 4:16 says watch your life and your teaching.
I think that is the primary thing
we still need today. Yes, we have
challenges today, but there have
always been challenges and there
will always be challenges. The best
preparation for every situation is
living a life of godliness and knowing
the Word of God.
Nettles. If one does indeed endure to the end, the only
explanation finally is that “the grace of our Lord overflowed
for me with the faith and love that are in Christ
Jesus” (1 Tim. 1:14). A God-given mate willing to endure
and share the difficulties that often punctuate the life of
a gospel pilgrim makes even the most difficult road a secure
and pleasant place to travel. Several perceptions that
might be consistent with that most fundamental reality
include: be aware of how God has gifted you and press
those gifts to their maximum effectiveness; gain understanding
as to how your gifts might be of service in the
various challenges that consistently are set forth by the
world; take the Davy Crockett summary of biblical faithfulness
seriously, “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”
Unceasingly cultivate a love for biblical truth and refuse
You’ve exhibited faithful
endurance to your Lord,
to your family, and to your
ministry during your years at
SBTS (and long before). What
has been the key to running
strong and long in the “race
set before us?” What piece of
wisdom would you give brandnew
students and brand-new
ministers that might help them
to endure faithfully over the
long haul during such difficult
times?
York. The only “key” I know is simply to love the Lord
Jesus. No other reward or motivation will keep one focused
and faithful. The advice I share is that by which I
seek to live, namely, that my sole purpose is to bring glory
to Christ. The Holy Spirit is not interested in making me
a better teacher, or preacher, or even a better Christian.
His great ministry is to glorify the Son, and when I ask
the Holy Spirit to help me glorify Jesus, he always answers
that prayer. It is unthinkable that the Holy Spirit would
not grant my desire to glorify Christ. When glorifying
Jesus is our passion, we always have strength to do it.
to rest in present knowledge but always “grow in grace
and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,”
through his revealed truth. Do not fear those that can kill
the body and then have nothing more they can do, but
fear God who inhabits and controls eternity.
Schreiner. Certainly, the key to any of us making it is
the grace of God! My advice is trust the Lord one day at
a time. Live a life of repentance before God every day.
Don’t worry about whether you will make it for the long
haul. Trust God today and then tomorrow and then the
day after tomorrow.
summer 2022
63

25 years of faithful service
What must future generations do to keep the
Southern Seminary faithful to the founders’
vision?
York. The Trustees must always ensure that every professor
at Southern must be committed to the inerrancy of
Scripture and the doctrines cherished by our founders as
expressed in the Abstract of Principles. We are not called
to innovate or to create, but rather to “keep” the faith
once for all delivered to the saints and also to proclaim it
to the world. A deep doctrinal commitment that spawns
a passionate evangelistic spirit will keep Southern faithful
to the vision that began in 1859.
Nettles. The dynamic so clearly perceived by Dr. Mohler
in his mature grasp of how one can steer a straight path
through treacherous terrain should be emulated. Never
concede to diminished views of biblical relevance and
thorough truthfulness. Embrace the consistency of the
biblical revelation through a carefully constructed confession
that should expand, at least in your personal life,
to the very last proposition of biblical revelation. Larger
confessions, not smaller, are the food of faithfulness.
Schreiner. Actually, I think 1 Timothy 4:16 is the key.
Be faithful in your life and teaching.
What has been a personal highlight of your
teaching career at SBTS?
York. Through the years several students have kindly
told me that a class I taught changed their lives. Something
I shared with them had such a profound impact and
transformed them so radically that the direction of their
lives shifted, and God used them in ways they did not
think possible. The knowledge that the Lord graciously
allows me sometimes to have that effect is overwhelming.
Nettles. The fellowship of kindred minds, as in the
church, so in theological education is like to that above.
There have been many delightful and spiritually sustaining
moments in this unique fellowship. The encouragement
and opportunity to write on ideas, issues, and
persons that are important in giving a framework for
God-centered ministry has been encouraged by collegial
example, the availability of resources, and a healthy expectation
of expanded usefulness in the larger community
of theological education. And ah! The students in the
classroom—what a challenge and delight they provide
for continual personal growth and fruitful investment
in the future. The last few years, I have accompanied my
wife, Margaret, in working voluntarily in the Southern
Exchange (formerly The Attic). That has provided opportunity
to see the larger context of the life and needs of
students and has been an encouragement for prayer as
to the broader commitment that an entire family makes
when a God-called disciple takes on the stewardship of
theological education.
Schreiner. The students who are faithful in ministry
are my greatest encouragement.
64 the southern baptist theological seminary

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