Publications

As we celebrate Dr. Mohler’s thirtieth anniversary as President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it is fitting to recognize the incredible work that he does to ensure his dedicated listeners wake up to a new episode of The Briefing each weekday morning.

In Southern Baptist life, we now enjoy the benefit of conservative leadership in our boards and seminaries, but it has not always been that way.

I had heard that the seminary in Louisville was the most liberal Baptist school and some had advised me to mark and avoid it. But a family friend had a connection to the school and he urged me to take a trip to Kentucky to check it out for myself. On that visit, I met Al Mohler for the first time. That consequential meeting changed the course of my life and began a vital friendship that continues to this day.

As I reflect on the occasion of our three decades here, I do so first with gratitude to the Lord for what he has done and then with amazement that I am blessed to be part of the story. The backstory is familiar to some of how we were living in suburban Atlanta when the presidential search committee at Southern Seminary began their work to nominate a new president.

Thirty years of leadership is an accomplishment in any job, but when that job is to help thousands of ministers remain faithful to the Word of God and preach it, the reward is greater than anything we can celebrate here on earth.

Mohler’s commitment to the founding mission of the Seminary inevitably led to a greater emphasis and focus on God’s overarching mission to redeem and reconcile those created in his image from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

In February of 1997, Mary Mohler met with a few wives of Southern Seminary faculty members to share a burden and a vision that wives of seminary students needed to be encouraged and trained, and in the fall of that year, Seminary Wives Institute (SWI) was born.

I did a double-take when I read the sign in front of a small, white church beside a two-lane blacktop that snaked through the hills of western North Carolina. I stopped and backed up my SUV to get a second look. The weathered 12’-by-18’ sign read: “Welcome to Trinity Baptist Church. We are an Independent,…

“I agree with every word, but only Roman Catholics read creeds.” I was walking down the sidewalk with a member of our congregation, and we had just finished discussing why our church reads creeds and confessions during congregational worship. The issue was at once simple and decisive—our church should not read creeds during congregational worship…

Confessions pervaded the life of the early church. It used them catechetically, liturgically, and apologetically. The early church would not know how to disciple new believers, perform acts of worship, or defend the faith apart from the use of confessions.