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

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
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