Relaunching BJU Seminary’s Podcast and Blog as a Real-Life Resource for Pastors
TAKEAWAYS:
- As part of our 500x5x5 Strategic Vision, BJU Seminary is relaunching our Theologically Speaking podcast and Viewpoint blog as resources for pastors confronting massive drifts both in doctrine and practice in their congregations.
- The sources of this drift are an abandonment of commitment to the Authority of Scripture – the conviction that the Word of God must govern everything about the way we as Christians think, what we value, and how we respond and where we stand on every aspect of our lives and existence – and the Sufficiency of Scripture, the belief that the Word of God is sufficient to address all realms of life, even complex problem-solving.
- This podcast and blog will seek to provide answers or at least direction to the real-life challenges facing pastors, along with additional resources leaders can access, and today’s editions point to three such resources.
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The purpose of BJU Seminary’s 500 x 5 x 5 strategic vision – 500 pastors on the path to the pulpit in 5 years and every 5 years after that – is not just to equip a new generation of shepherds. It’s to offer new and existing ministers of the Gospel the knowledge, skills, resources and encouragement to stay the course at a time of daunting challenge.
We hear regularly from pastors and church leaders across our nation who are dealing with struggles arising not just from a broken culture but also doctrinal drift in your own congregations.
It’s disappointing – but not surprising – that research[1] reveals only 4% of Americans truly believe and practice what the Bible teaches.
But as pastors (Sam currently and Stuart previously), as well as professors, it’s much more alarming to find that only 13% of evangelicals do – and that many hold unbiblical views on issues ranging from salvation by faith to absolute truth to sin nature to God’s character and even to worship of other spirits.
The Christian community must recognize that this drift represents a frontal, Satanic attack on the first of our three core emphases at BJU Seminary: the absolute Authority of Scripture. Authority is more than just a belief in the inspiration – that God “breathed” every word of Scripture – and inerrancy, that in its original writing it is without error. Rather, it is the conviction that the Word of God must govern everything about the way we as Christians think, what we value, and how we respond and where we stand on every aspect of our lives and existence. The Personal Word, Christ, and the written Word must not just be prominent, but pre-eminent.
The departure from the Authority of Scripture in turn leads to compromise of a second emphasis: the Sufficiency of Scripture, the guiding principle of our biblical approach to counseling. As our colleague Bruce Meyer has elaborated in this space, “(W)e believe (the Scriptures) are sufficient in all realms of life, even in complex problem-solving.”
That drift and doubt together play out where the rubber meets the road: the continued Unfolding of Scripture – the “Big Story” of Creation→ Fall→ Redemption→ Restoration that is progressively revealed across the biblical narrative. It’s a Story that is to continue across the daily lives of the church and believers in our progressive sanctification as, guided by pastors and teachers, we as a unified Body “grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” (And P.S. the model for every biblical counseling intervention and pathway.)
Unfortunately, the tendency in too many churches that call themselves evangelical and even fundamental is to start with modern man calls “wisdom” and then attempt to determine how Scripture fits into that. They view Authority as a check on this wisdom instead of the source of all wisdom.
But the Scripture is either our total authority, or it’s not. And whenever we as Christians, and even leaders, sacrifice that total Authority by addressing issues related to the soul, the Christian walk and godliness based on human wisdom, then our view of Sufficiency will also be compromised. Pastors and churches will begin integrating or outsourcing their responsibilities to others offering worldly “therapies” – from false teachings to medications and even hypnosis. Not to mention compromising on matters such as so-called social “justice,” personal morality and interpretations of biblical truth.
This drift and its negative outcomes in the life of churches and their members are why, as part of our 500 x 5 x 5 commitment, BJU Seminary is reviving our weekly Theologically Speaking podcast and accompanying Viewpoint blog. Our goal is to offer a resource for you to offer real answers to the real issues and real-life challenges you are encountering as you guide, comfort and encourage your congregation in the Unfolding of Scripture.
We’ll be your hosts as together we examine guidance based on the Authority of Scripture for your public ministries of preaching and teaching, and the Sufficiency of Scripture for your private ministry of counseling, mentoring and training. We’ll walk and talk you through each subject in the course of podcast conversations between us and with guest experts, then provide written backup, takeaways and links here on the Viewpoint blog.
RESOURCES:
Specifically, this week we want to point you to some resources that will help guide your thinking and practice when it comes to the Authority, Sufficiency and Unfolding of Scripture in your churches:
- Spend some time in the following Psalms:
- Psalm 1, which describes the man whose entire life is shaped by his grounding in the Law of the Lord
- Psalm 119, telling the story of a man, progressing from his youth to his old age, whose walk demonstrates the Sufficiency of Scripture through the highs and lows of life
- Psalm 19, which attests to the Authority of Scripture as the very words of the Living God of Heaven and Earth.
- Dr. Layton Talbert (a Seminary colleague), Synonyms for Scripture: The Bible’s Multifaceted Content & Character, which presents the “thesaurus” of the Word of God. (email Esther Neal at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church or call 864-233-1684 to order this booklet at $2.25 each)
- Bob Jones University’s and BJU Seminary’s Philosophy of Biblical Counseling, a collaboration that brought together experts from every discipline of the University and Seminary to affirm the Authority and Sufficiency of the Word as the basis for counseling.
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We hope you will find your way to us here at www.seminary.bju.edu or via social media at www.x.com/BJUSeminary, www.facebook.com/BJUSeminary or www.instagram.com/stories/bjuseminary/. And that you’ll feel free to contact us at [email protected] with questions and issues you would like us to address.
[1] https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CRC-Release-AWVI-4-Aug-6-2024-Fourth-Draft.pdf