For those of our readership who are not aware, the Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation has entrusted Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary with the papers and correspondence of the late theologian, apologist, and evangelist. His son-in-law Udo Middelman made the presentation in Southeastern’s chapel last year , on behalf of the Schaeffer Foundation. To access the official press release, click here.

The collection includes select unpublished papers and correspondence, source materials, notes, and recorded discussions of Schaeffer, who is also the author of 27 books. The collection has been placed under the direction of Bruce Little, professor of Christian philosophy and director of SEBTS’s L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture.

Purpose Driven was the first bogeyman I remember in Southern Baptist life. Instead of focusing on real dangers facing our denomination, some Southern Baptists started preaching against wearing Hawaiian shirts and sitting on stools (from the annual meeting and Pastors’ Conference, no less).

But now, Rick Warren has just spoken at the Anabaptist Conference at Southwestern Seminary.  And, I think that’s great.  I just wish we had not spent over a decade making Purpose Driven the bogeyman and a generation of Purpose Driven churches feel unwelcome in and disconnected with the SBC.  (If you don’t think that is the case, look around and see how many contemporary churches are actively involved in Convention life.)

These contemporary church bogeymen were not denying the Bible—the SBC ones believed in the Conservative Resurgence and wanted to live it out in their contemporary churches.  But, after hearing that they were the new bogeymen, they are not around that much today.

Five years ago, the bogeyman was “emerging.”  Ironically, there was never much that “emerged” in the SBC, though you would not know that by some of the loudest voices.  Turns out, I found out, I was emergent—yep, Brian McLaren and me, according to one critic. Yet, the Emergent wing of the emerging church was about three pastors in SBC life. As I explained in Baptist Press, most SBC pastors just wanted to preach the gospel in emerging culture. Those SBC pastors soon distanced themselves from those moving out of orthodoxy.  Yet, some in the Convention started swinging a big bat at a little gnat and drove out another generation of people who simply wanted to reach what was called, at that time, a postmodern culture.

Now, the new bogeyman is Calvinism. Critics are labeling people as Calvinists and Calvinist “sympathizers” (yes, they are using that scare word). Yet, most SBC Calvinists (about 10 percent of pastors and 30 percent of recent seminary graduates) affirm the current Baptist Faith and Message, want to reach people for Christ, and desire to cooperate together in SBC life.

So, in a decade, the bogeyman has gone from Purpose Driven, to emerging, to Calvinism. And, although it is much bigger than me, I’ve been labeled a bogeyman in each era.  First, they said I was Purpose Driven, then I was emerging, and now I am a Calvinist.  Ironically, I haven’t changed much.

My mother used to instruct me not to go out after dark because the bogeyman would get me.  In truth, there were serious dangers outside after dark, but the bogeyman was not one of them.  Bogeymen are exaggerated dangers to scare people—and that is what some are doing in SBC life, just as they have in the past.

In the same way, there are real issues here to address.  The Conservative Resurgence was over matters that were crucial.  And even in the aforementioned bogeymen, there have been very real challenges at every turn.  Ten years ago (and in every decade), some churches that called themselves “Purpose Driven” pursued relevance more than they pursued righteousness.  Five years ago, some bad theology “emerged” (and because of such, many quit using that term).  And, today, there are some militant Calvinists so driven by Calvinism, they can’t cooperate and don’t need to be in the Convention.  I call them “nostalgic Calvinists,” pining away for the past more than engaging and cooperating in the present.

I described such Calvinists five years ago in an interview with the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Seminary:

I do see many self-identified Calvinists who are constantly discussing the 18th century as the golden age of theology and praxis in Baptist life. So, I don’t want them to get over Calvinism, but it would be nice if they got into the Third Millennium. At times, I am convinced some “nostalgic Calvinists” have forgotten our mandate is to see men and women brought into the kingdom, not into Geneva.

I am concerned about some of the trends in SBC Calvinism and think we need more conversation (and less insinuation) about the topic. It’s easier to talk about bogeymen.

Some want to divide us—yet I believe that most SBC pastors want us to be united and on mission. They want to build on the Conservative Resurgence to see a Great Commission focus.

I am a Baptist—a Southern Baptist at that. I’ve written or contributed to over a dozen books that point churches to be more effectively engaged in missions and evangelism—the focus of my ministry for over two decades. And, I hoped and prayed that Baptists would be more concerned about reaching the lost than labeling one another.

The Southern Baptist Convention can and must include Purpose Driven pastors, pastors who used to call themselves emerging, and Calvinist pastors, when they choose to affirm our BFM confession and engage in mission cooperation. But the drums of war are sounding again, and Calvinists are the newest bogeymen.

We don’t need another SBC purge—we’ve already preached out a big part of a generation of contemporary churches.  Now, we have to decide if we want to do the same to the Calvinist ones who want to cooperate.

As I said at this blog a few years ago:

The Baptist Faith and Message is our confessional consensus. Formulated and approved by the convention, it should fix the boundary for churches and entities that call themselves Southern Baptist. Those who would want to impose their own more narrow parameters of cooperation place others in the unenviable position, to use a football metaphor, of having the goalposts moved while the field goal attempt is in flight. If indeed we have a consensus, and we do, let that be the center point of our working together.

Preaching against bogeymen gets the big amen at some meetings and in some publications, but we should take notice– those meetings are getting older and smaller every year.

Ed Stetzer, VP of LifeWay Christian Resources

In the last installment, we defined theology as “disciplined reflection on God’s self-revelation, for the purposes of knowing and loving God, and participating in his mission in this world.” In future installments, we will talk about the audience of theology, the tools of theology, and the relationship of theology to other disciplines such as theology and philosophy. But first, I want to take a moment to speak about the relationship of theology to the four concepts mentioned above: Scripture and its grand narrative, as well as worship, obedience, and mission.[1] First, theology arises out of the biblical narrative. The Bible is composed of sixty six books with multiple genres, and is written by numerous authors in a diversity of historical and cultural contexts. However, this diversity is part of a beautiful unity which can be seen in the Bible’s overarching story. This story begins with God’s creation and humanity’s rebellion, and then proceeds with God’s unfolding plan of redemption. The biblical narrative is the true story of the whole world. Furthermore, it is dramatic in nature, inviting us into the story so that the story will shape our lives. Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen write, “[The biblical narrative] functions as the authoritative Word of God for us when it becomes the one basic story through which we understand our own experience and thought, and the foundation upon which we base our decisions and our actions.”[2] Finally, this narrative is un-substitutable: it should not be discarded in favor of alliterated moralisms, philosophical syllogisms, devotional truisms, or any other substitute.

Second, theology arises from and issues forth in worship and obedience. On the one hand, theology arises from worship as we seek to understand, conceptualize, and articulate the God whom we cherish. Likewise, theology arises from obedience; if we want to know and love God more truly, will allow ourselves to be conformed to the image of Christ, in order that we will be able to see him and hear him more clearly. On the other hand, theology issues forth in worship and obedience. Michael Horton writes, “When the doctrine is understood in the context of its dramatic narrative, we find ourselves dumbfounded by God’s grace in Jesus Christ, surrendering to doxology (praise). Far from masters, we are mastered; instead of seizing the truth, we are seized by it, captivated by God’s gift, to which we can only say, ‘Amen!’ and ‘Praise the Lord’.”[3] Without close attention to the biblical narrative and its attendant evangelical doctrine, our worship and obedience are at best unfocused and at worst idolatrous. However, when we consciously submit to the biblical narrative and its teaching, the flame of our worship and obedience is fueled by the oxygen of Word and Spirit.

Third, theology arises from, and issues forth in mission. The early church is a prime example. On the one hand their theology arose in the midst of their God-given mission. Paul’s epistles, for example, were written as he proclaimed the gospel, planted churches, and suffered for the sake of his faith. But on the other hand, their robust and powerful theology caused their mission to flourish.[4] This mutually beneficial relationship arises from the fact that God’s Triune nature is the foundation of mission and his Triune life provides the pattern for mission.[5] God is missional, therefore theology is missional. Mission is based upon God, therefore mission is theological.[6] The biblical narrative, from which Christian theology arises, is nothing if not a missional narrative.[7] Any theology that purports to be Christian but does not arise from mission and issue forth in mission is not a truly Christian theology at all.

[2] Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 21.

[3] Horton, The Christian Faith, 22.

[4] See I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), 34-37, 717-726.  Marshall argues that mission is the core of the New Testament.

[5] For further reading on the Triune God as the foundation and pattern of mission, see Keith Whitfield, “The Triune God: The God of Mission,” in Theology and Practice of Mission, ed. Bruce Riley Ashford (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2011), 17-34.

[6] This is a central thread in Christopher Wright’s grand treatment of mission as a hermeneutical key for the biblical narrative. Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006).

[7] For a brief exposition of the biblical narrative in relation to the concept of mission, see Bruce Riley Ashford, “The Story of Mission: The Grand Biblical Narrative,” in Theology and Practice of Mission, ed. Bruce Riley Ashford (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2011), 6-16.

Who knew? Noteworthy conservative critics such as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, Allan Bloom, and Roger Kimball no longer stand alone in their critique of American higher education (for dismantling core curricula that stand at the headstream of Western tradition, desperately seeking to be politically correct, emphasizing the trendy over the proven, and allowing liberal thought to have a stranglehold over the academy). James Pierson’s recent article, “What’s wrong with our universities?” (The New Criterion) examines three recent liberal assessments of the state of the American University, and prospects for the future.[1] The liberal critique is interesting, according to Pierson, precisely because it joins critiques long-held by conservatives.

Pierson first discusses Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Money and Failing Our Kids­­–and What We Can Do About It (Henry Holt & Co., 2011).  This book is written with “the premise that higher education has lost its internal compass and can no longer fulfill its basic obligations to the rising generation of Americans” (19). Writing from the standpoint of the pre-1960s view (old-school liberalism) that democratic education and liberal arts should operate in tandem, the authors observe several ills in American higher education: emphasis on faculty research rather than on teaching, the multiplication of superfluous administrative posts, and the depreciation of the liberal arts. Although the authors’ observations are helpful, Pierson argues, the authors do not offer much evidence to substantiate their claims (20). Nonetheless, the book provides an interesting indictment of American higher education and offers some controversial proposals for remedying the ills.

Second, Pierson treats Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (U. of Chicago Press, 2011). Arum and Roksa claim, in the light of a good deal of complex data, that “college students are studying and writing less and learning far less than their peers of a generation ago, while our competitors are passing us by in measures of achievement and rates of college graduation” (22). As Pierson states, “though burdened by the social science excess of data and methodology, Academically Adrift is a serious effort to find out if colleges and universities are delivering on their promise to educate all students” (22). Although the authors’ diagnosis of higher education is nothing new, their proposals for improvement are focused and helpful.

Third, Pierson discusses Mark C. Taylor, Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, 2010). Taylor published this work as an expansion of his 2009 op-ed in The New York Times. In line with other critics, Taylor is troubled by the emphasis on faculty research at the expense of classroom instruction. The primary distinction of Taylor’s book is his analysis of the impact of the “Great Recession” on America’s universities (25). The negative of the book, according to Pierson, is that it does not provide a robust constructive proposal.

[Editor’s Note: This post is the first installment of a new series at BtT. “Briefly Noted” will consist of brief notes about ideas, literature, and events that might be of interest to our readers.]

What is theology? If we are going to reflect upon theology, we must first define it. There exist as many definitions of theology as there are theologians, and the various ways of defining it are not necessarily opposed to one another, but one way to put it is to say that it is “disciplined reflection on God’s self-revelation, for the purposes of knowing and loving God, and participating in his mission in this world.”[1] Theology is disciplined reflection on God’s self-revelation, because the God we know, love, and obey has revealed himself in times past through his mighty acts, through his prophets and apostles, and through the incarnation of his Son, and now reveals himself through his written Word (cf. Heb. 1:1-2). This written Word is the primary source upon which a theologian draws, and is the norm by which we measure any other theological source (e.g. church tradition).

Further, theology is done for the purpose of knowing and loving God, and participating in his mission in this world. The task of theology is cognitive, affective, and dispositional. It aims at the head, the heart, and the hands. J. L. Dagg writes, “The study of religious truth ought to be undertaken and prosecuted from a sense of duty, and with a view to the improvement of the heart. When learned, it ought not to be laid on the shelf, as an object of speculation; but it should be deposited deep in the heart, where its sanctifying power ought to be felt.”[2] Theology entails more than merely acquiring information about God; it entails affection for God and submission to God. When the theologian properly attends to the cognitive, affective, and dispositional dimensions of the task, he is able to glorify God’s name. Herman Bavinck writes, “… a theologian, a true theologian, is one who speaks out of God, through God, about God, and does this always to the glorification of His name.”[3] The task of theology, therefore, is to glorify God by knowing, loving, and serving him.

One of the things I’m really driving at here is the fact that theology should not be an ivory-tower enterprise. When it becomes disconnected from God’s church and her mission, and when it becomes an endeavor undertaken by isolated “intellectuals” who are not actively serving God and hischurch, it ceases to be a truly Christian theology. When Paul did theology, he did it in the midst of ministry and mission. And his theology furthered the ministry and mission. So there is a mutually beneficial relationship between Christian theology and Christian ministry. We will talk more about this in a later installment.

[2] J. L. Dagg, A Manual of Theology (Harrisonburg, VA: Gano, 1982), 13.

[3] Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith (Grand Rapids: Michigan, 1956), 31.

In all seriousness, however, I loved Systematic Theology. There is nothing more satisfying, more unsettling, more helpful, and more practical than asking the really big questions about God, man, salvation, the church, and last things. First and foremost, we studied the text of Scripture, drawing upon the resources of the entire canon to answer each question. Along the way, however, we investigated what the church fathers and the Reformers had to say on any of these doctrines, and learned to defend and apply those same doctrines. I was forced to write my first bona fide research paper. I had never written a paper in Turabian style and had no idea how to argue a thesis. I chose to argue for the divine inspiration theory of Scripture (vs. human constructivist and human response models). After having mustered all of my bibliographic, analytic, and stylistic resources, I managed to complete my paper. I received it graded the next week. At the end of the paper, Dr. Patterson devoted several paragraphs of red ink to the shortcomings of my paper, gave me a few words of encouragement, and then ended with this sentence, which I will never forget: “Mr. Ashford, we will make a real scholar of you yet, if it kills us both in the process.” Hmmm. Even though I had just been informed that (1) I was not a real scholar, and (2) that to make me one might actually kill my professor in the process, I found myself encouraged, oddly enough, that I might one day make a decent theologian. There was light at the end of the tunnel.

Since that day, many things have changed. I lived and served in Central Asia for two years, came back to the States to work on a Ph.D. in Theology, worked in student ministry as an itinerant preacher, was hired to teach intellectual history at The College at Southeastern, transferred over to the mission department, got married to Lauren and had two little girls, became a pastor/elder at The Summit Church, and finally now split my time between the theology and missiology departments at Southeastern. Throughout all of these changes, however, one of the things that did not change was the desire to do theology—the desire to know and love God, and participate with him on his mission. There is nothing more important, more rewarding, more practical, or more exciting than “doing theology.” And, in fact, every Christian is called to be a theologian (although most will not be professional theologians or systematic theologians, per se) precisely because theology is all about knowing and loving God, and joining him in his mission.

Now, I find myself teaching theology at Southeastern, and trying to explain to first and second year students how one goes about the task of theology. I have not found this to be an easy endeavor (and I’ve got a long way to go until I can do it well) but it has been a rewarding journey and fruitful in many ways.

The present blog installment is the first in an ongoing series, “Doing Theology as a Servant of Jesus,” which will deal with the task of theology, including questions such as: What is the purpose of theology? What is the relationship of theology to worship, discipleship, and mission? Why do we have confidence that we can know anything at all about God? Should our theology be affected by such things as reason, culture, experience, and church tradition? What is the relationship between theology and philosophy? Between theology and science? Between faith and learning? Who is our primary audience when we do theology? These are deep and powerful questions and, unfortunately, our treatment of them will have to be concise and in most cases surface-level. But hopefully the series somehow will be helpful in sustaining an ongoing conversation on the most exciting endeavor in all of God’s good creation: doing theology as a servant of Jesus.

Student ministers know this term well, or at least they should. Christian Smith and Melinda Denton popularized this term out of their massive research called The National Study of Youth and Religion.

They argue the Western Church has done a phenomenal job of communicating to students. But what has been communicated has not been as biblically centered as we might hope. We have communicated Christianity as behavior modification too often and as the matchless work of a grace-bearing God who is the center of it all too little.

In her presentation of the findings of perhaps the most exhaustive study of recent youth culture, Kendra Creasy Dean observed:
“The National Study of Youth and Religion reveals a theological fault line running underneath American churches: an adherence to a do-good, feel-good spirituality that has little to do with the Triune God of Christian tradition and even less to do with loving Jesus Christ enough to follow him into the world.” (Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church, p. 4)

In other words, Dean argues that this study shows the very way many of us have raised children in our churches has worked against any sort of missional impulse we might otherwise hope to engage. This is no small charge. She adds: “American young people are unwittingly being formed into an imposter faith that poses as Christianity, but that in fact lacks the holy desire and missional clarity necessary for Christian discipleship.” (p. 6)

What has been taught, this thing they call therapeutic moralistic deism, offers a how-to faith based on the needs of the individual over the redemptive plan of the Creator God. How has this happened, often in churches which stand firmly on the Bible as the Word of God? I would argue part of this comes from our tendency to view students as “kids” who are more silly than serious. I wrote a whole book on that called Raising the Bar. In addition, we have fundamentally made a shift in much of our teaching and living of the Scripture from seeing the Bible through the lenses of the gospel and the mission of God to understanding the Bible primarily as a roadmap which will guide us via morality to the place of faithfully serving God.

Unfortunately, many churches have taught the Bible to children and youth not as a book with one central, redemptive message, but as a collection of stories and morals with the gospel as the key story. Therapeutic moralistic deism is “therapeutic,” for it focuses on surface change, turning the Bible into a counseling manual more than the revelation of God. It is “moralistic,” because its focus is behavior modification. Acting right subtly becomes more important than believing right. It is “deistic,” because it does not require a God who is intimately involved in all of Creation and in all aspects of our lives, but who generally exists to bring us happiness and most specifically in our spiritual lives.

I call it the Aesop’s Fable approach to the Bible. It is ironically a “moral failure,” for by focusing on morality too much we actually hinder students from seeing the lifelong, holistic implications of their faith. Motivation for serving God stems more from changing our behavior than from living a life of radical faith. Such extrinsic motivation will actually work on the short term: show students how sex before marriage will lead to guilt and disease, for instance, or show them how lying will cost them friendships, and they will abstain from these sins, at least for a season. But if moral change becomes the primary focus of our faith, the long-term obedience we seek may actually be the one thing we will not see.

It could well be that we are contributing to students’ dropping out of church with our short-term focus over eternal values. But the much-debated topic of dropout rates actually fails to emphasize a more critical point, because even those who remain in our churches lack the missional drive to make gospel impact in their daily lives. In other words, how many who stay “in church” still “drop out” of active, daily, missional faith?

All this of course is not to say that behavioral change is unimportant. Our morality marks a vital part of being conformed to the image of Christ. But, a growing sense of moral uprightness and a concomitant behavior reflecting this results from our faith; behavior change simply cannot be the prime motivator. We have confused the point (the indicative) with the result (the imperative), and this has not helped us in discipling students.

For instance, instead of seeing the story of David as all Scripture does, tied closely to the story of redemption and the coming of the Messiah, we take a story like David and Goliath and moralize it, and in so doing we actually marginalize it. We preach about how David killed Goliath, so we can now defeat those pesky enemies in our lives. Or, Joseph’s brothers victimized him and yet God used him, so Joseph’s story becomes a means of therapy for those who have been hurt. Yet when we read the story of Joseph from the perspective of all of Scripture and the message of redemption throughout, we see his vital role in the mission of God to save sinners. That is not to say we cannot learn practical advice from David’s defeat of a giant or Joseph’s determined faith; but it is to say that we can miss the greater point of these narratives by turning them into individual stories with a moral. These are not parables; they help us to connect with the plan of God in eternity.

The practical result of turning the Bible into a series of moral truths is to assume the gospel and to minimize its role in our lives. We move the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the category of “lost person only,” so that the gospel is for unbelievers, not believers. So we have our mega-youth events and we share the gospel (or often tack it on at the end) at these, but we do not teach the impact of the gospel for the believer and the redemptive story of God in all of the Bible and thus its impact on all of life. Thus, students grow up in church, learn a lot of stories, and are destroyed in one semester of Intro to Philosophy when they go off to college. They never got the border of the puzzle of life by understanding the mission of God; they simply got practical stories on how to deal with certain felt needs, and they got their eternal destiny taken care of, or so they think. Many become the dechurched—those who grow up in the church but walk away when away from the familiar (family, home church, etc). Others limp their way through life spiritually, never getting the great plan of God for creation and for their lives.

As a result too many students move into the adult world understanding their faith as something on the level of importance of music, sports, or other topics that matter but are, as Dean notes, “Unnecessary for an integrated life.” (Dean, 6). In other words, she adds, Christianity becomes nothing more than “a very nice thing.”

Following Jesus into the world cannot simply be a “very nice thing.”

A focus on Christianity as therapeutic moralistic deism explains why so many believers today confuse biblical Christianity with civil religion and the spiritual war for the souls of men with the culture wars of winning political arguments. In recent months I have moved from speaking on a variety of diverse subjects to staying focused on the greatness of the gospel and the glory of Christ. I have seen more come to faith than any season of ministry in a long time. And I keep getting emails form students who tell me how their understanding of Christ has pushed them outside the walls of the church to caring for others through the gospel. In earlier seasons of revival we read of how young people played critical roles in those movements, and those movements had a searing hot devotion to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we will have a missional movement in our time, it may manifest itself in many ways practically, but it will be birthed out of gospel fervor — not moral failure.

The aim of this book is to pry inside the motivations of the man who gave us The Pilgrim’s Progress. As such, a 54-page biographical essay, which includes the main aspects of Bunyan’s piety, is followed by selections from Bunyan’s other writings. Thirty-one excerpts from works such as Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate, The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, The Acceptable Sacrifice, and his sermons and letters provide a rich sampling of Bunyan’s theological and devotional emphases. These excerpts are organized by seven sections: 1. Christ Our Advocate; 2. Christ Jesus the Merciful Savior; 3. Hope for Sinners; 4. True Humility; 5. Christian Ethics; 6. The Gospel Applied; and 7. Warnings.

Within these sections, the excerpts are given in short chapters which make excellent material for devotional reading. For example, chapter 3, “Things Related to the Promises of Christ Our Advocate” excerpted from The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate, begins:

There are many things relating to the promises, as to the largeness and narrowness of words, as to the freeness and conditionality of them, that we are not able so well to understand, and, therefore, when Satan deals with us about them, we quickly fall to the ground before him. We often conclude that the words of the promise are too narrow and rigid to comprehend; we also truly think that the conditions of some promises do utterly shut us out from hope of justification and life. But our Advocate, who is for us with the Father, He is better acquainted with and learned in this law than to be baffled out with a bold word or two or with a subtle piece of hellish sophistication (Isa. 50:4). He knows the true purport, intent, meaning, and sense of every promise and piece of promise that is in the whole Bible. He can tell how to plead it for advantage against our accuser, and He does so (p. 67).

Phil Newton is Senior Pastor of South Woods Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and a SEBTS Ph.D. student in Applied Theology, Christian Missions with a concentration in North American Missiology. He and Dr. Duke have done us a great service by brining Bunyan’s other writings to the attention of pastors, students, teachers and any Christian seeking to grow in the knowledge of grace and truth. This book is therefore recommended for those in any of these groups.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself, your family, and your ministry.

I’ve taught at Southeastern for 15 years and have directed our Ph.D. program for over a decade. My wife Marny and I have 4 children, 3 of whom are teenagers, which is at once a great joy and a serious God-given responsibility. I love teaching, writing, and, yes, administration! I also serve as Director of Acquisitions for B&H Academic and edit the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. If you want to know more, or simply keep up, please check out my new, updated website at http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/or follow me on Twitter @akostenberger.

2. What was the impetus for writing this book? And why did you feel the need to write it?

Interpreting the Bible accurately is one of the most important responsibilities every Christian has, and is especially important for those who teach and preach God’s Word to others. Ever since I became a Christian, God has given me a burden to excel in this area and to pass on what I’ve learned to others, especially to those entrusted with the preaching ministry in our local churches. Too often, I’ve sat in the pews and have seen preachers fall short in this area. In my years of teaching biblical interpretation at the college, graduate, and doctoral levels, I’ve had a hard time finding a book that’s fully congenial to the way I teach and students best learn in my experience. Invitation to Biblical Interpretation is the product of 10 years of work in collaboration with my contributor, Dick Patterson, who is a seasoned Old Testament scholar and one of the wisest, godliest, and most erudite men I know.

3. What is the primary argument of the book?

In the book, we teach that, no matter what the type of literature you’re dealing with, you should look at the passage’s historical background, literary context, and theological message. I call this the “hermeneutical triad”—history, literature, and theology. When exploring the “literature” aspect of the triad, I recommend that students look at the canonical, genre-related, and linguistic features of the passage.

4. What, above all, do you wish for readers to know and/or do because of the book?

I would encourage them to adopt the hermeneutical triad as their basic method of study—looking at the history, literature, and theology found in a given passage. To that end, the final chapter of the book (thanks to my colleague and friend Scott Kellum) provides practical tips on how to preach from the different biblical genres and guidance on what the best biblical studies tools are and how to use them. On the Kregel website, there will also be chapter quizzes, a study chart, and a set of PowerPoints for teachers who will be using Invitation to Biblical Interpretation in the classroom.

Finally, we would like to point our readers to a sample reading of Invitation (including its endorsements) here, graciously made available by Westminster bookstore.

Unfortunately, every healthy trend sometimes includes unhealthy elements—such is to live in a fallen world. We gospel-centered types need to be reminded of our own shortcomings. In fact, there’s something profoundly gospel-centered about understanding the depths of your own sin so that you can rest anew in the good news of all that God has done through the person and work of King Jesus.

In his excellent book Gospel: Rediscovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary (B&H, 2010), pastor J.D. Greear includes a helpful appendix titled “A Gospel-Centered Warning to Young Zealous Theologians.” Like me, J.D. is a thirty-something Southern Baptist who talks about the gospel all the time. He’s also the pastor of a megachurch whose membership is largely comprised of gospel-centered collegians and young professionals. J.D. also teaches adjunctively at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a school blessed with a student body that, on the whole, very much wants to be gospel-centered. All this to say, his convicting words should be read and heeded by everyone who regularly visits the Gospel Coalition website, follows Tullian Tchividjian on Twitter, reads Jerry Bridges books, and soaks up Tim Keller sermons. You know, people like me and J.D.

J.D. and our friends at B&H Books have kindly granted me permission to make “A Gospel-Centered Warning to Young Zealous Theologians” available online. I’ve reprinted it below. I hope you find this material as helpful as I have. I also hope it encourages you to purchase a copy of Gospel and read the whole book. For those of you who are pastors or other ministry leaders, Gospel would make a great book for a church staff to read and discuss together.

“A Gospel-Centered Warning to Young Zealous Theologians”

By J.D. Greear

I’ve noticed that many of us who grasp this concept of “gospel-centeredness” can have a tendency to be more excited about the “theory” of gospel-centeredness than we are about the gospel itself. At least I’m that way. I have gotten pretty good at identifying non-gospel-centered preaching, and can pretty ably point out the shortcomings of certain ministries. The point of gospel-centeredness, however, is not the shrewd ability to critique others. The point of gospel-centeredness is to adore God and worship His grace.

Many of us who love to talk about gospel-centeredness seem to possess very little of the humility that should go along with it. You can see that in how self-promoting we are and how ungracious we are with others. It always amazes me that we can be proud because we understand the very things that should lead us to humility.

My mind has often burned hotter with the latest theological trend than it has passion for the God who gave Himself for me at the cross. Knowledge that does not lead, ultimately, to love and humility is “worthless,” Paul would say. What really counts, he says, is not knowledge by itself, but the love that our knowledge of the gospel should produce (1 Cor. 12:1–3).

One of my fears in writing this book is that it might contribute to a growing self-righteousness among younger theologians who feel like understanding gospel-centeredness makes them more special in the eyes of God (oh, the irony!) than those who can’t articulate it, and who judge everyone else by whether or not they use the same terms that they do.

Recently, I talked with a little old lady who had been my Sunday school teacher at the very traditional church in which I grew up. She said, “You know, as I lose more and more friends to heaven, I often wonder what it is really like up there and what I should be looking forward to. I know they say there are streets of gold, but that doesn’t seem to excite me very much. The one thing I really want to do is see Jesus.” This lady has never heard of John Piper and has no idea what the Gospel Coalition is, but she has been changed by the gospel. She loves Jesus, and that is the whole point of gospel-centeredness.

There are many little old ladies serving in church nurseries who may not understand how to articulate the theories of gospel-centeredness or have the ingenuity to dazzle our minds with psychological insights, cultural observations, and Christocentric interpretations of obscure Old Testament passages. Their hearts, however, burn with love for Jesus and overflow with gratefulness for His grace.

Their humble, gospel-rich love for God is worth more than all the books you or I can write on this subject.

So don’t be quick to judge them. Be humbled by them. Mastering the theory of gospel-centeredness is not the point. Loving the God of the gospel is.

See J.D. Greear, Gospel: Rediscovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2010), pp. 253–55.