“Study with the authors” remains one of the primary motivations for students worldwide to enroll at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS). Every year, the faculty at Southern Seminary publishes across a variety of disciplines, addressing scholars, pastors, and laypeople from confessional convictions. But an actively publishing faculty is nothing new for the institution. Since the seminary’s founding, students have benefitted from a faculty committed to writing what they teach and teaching what they write. This article provides a guided tour through some of the formidable works produced by faculty members at Southern Seminary, highlighting how their legacy continues into 2025 and beyond.

James P. Boyce: Theologian for Baptists

First published in 1887, Southern Seminary’s founding president produced his seminal Abstract of Systematic Theology based on his class lecture notes. The book was initially published for students as a textbook, but as the 1880s unfolded, he refined the book for a public audience.

Associate Librarian at Southern Seminary, Jake Stone, has focused his scholarly and popular work on understanding Boyce and his times.

“Boyce’s Abstract of Systematic Theology is really the last of its time for well over a century,” Stone said. “His Abstract is in many ways a baptized version of his teacher, Charles Hodge’s, Systematic Theology. Boyce taught theology with a scholastic and confessional approach. This is important because Boyce demonstrated that Baptist identity and theology in the late nineteenth century cared about the Protestant tradition of confessionalism and normal life in Baptist churches.”

Numerous authors, including B. B. Warfield, glowingly reviewed Boyce’s Abstract, and the work found its way into the curriculum at other Baptist seminaries.

“The work still holds up today,” Stone said. “The strongest part that is still applicable today is Boyce’s argument for theological method. It’s a three-legged stool: how we exegete, how we put systematics together, and then how to apply what he calls ‘ecclesiastical dogmatics,’ which are the creeds and confessions, and how the church has historically understood dogmatics. For Boyce, a good systematic theologian uses all three.”

The current Systematic Theology department at Southern Seminary stands in line with Boyce as they contribute to the field from a confessional Baptist perspective. Pastors and students alike read the works of authors such as Stephen Wellum and Gregg Allison. Wellum’s Systematic Theology, volume one, is soon to be complemented by the forthcoming volume two, and Allison’s Sojourners and Strangers (2012) remain accessible and rigorous academic achievements that continue to shape Baptist churches.[1]

John A. Broadus: Preacher for Preachers

If Boyce served as Southern’s premier contributor in theology, then John A. Broadus is the primary contributor to biblical interpretation and preaching, as evidenced by his commentary on Matthew and The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons.

Thousands of students learned to preach from Broadus’s The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. The book remained in the curriculum of Southern Baptist seminaries until the mid-twentieth century.

President of SBTS, R. Albert Mohler Jr., wrote the foreword for the newly reprinted first edition of Broadus’s work from Southern Seminary Press.

“Broadus was committed to the exposition of the Bible.” Mohler wrote. “He believed in the total truthfulness and authority of the Bible as the Word of God, and he sought to teach preachers to respect, love, study, and preach that Word.”

In centering the role of training preachers, professors Hershel York and Abraham Kuruvilla write for the church. York’s recent book, Pastor Well, faithfully navigates pastors and aspiring pastors through the most pressing questions church leaders encounter. Kuruvilla’s latest work, Glory to Glory, combines the technical and academic side of homiletics to equip preachers to understand the importance of sanctification in the life of believers.

A. T. Robertson: Scholar for Students

Timeless works of scholarship retain relevance through generations because the arguments are substantive and the communication clear, even though A. T. Robertson’s 1,454 words in work A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research first appeared in 1914; scholars still cite him regularly.

Robert L. Plummer is Chair of the Department of New Testament at Southern Seminary and dedicated his own intermediate Greek grammar to the legacy of Robertson.

“Our hope is that Robertson’s desire for capable preachers of God’s Word in his generation is facilitated through this volume for yet another generation of students and communicators of God’s Word,” Plummer wrote, alongside Andreas J. Köstenberger and Benjamin L. Merkle.

Robertson never dismissed the importance of seminary education. His notoriously difficult Greek exams sought not to discourage students, but to raise them up to understand the magnitude of their task as teachers of the Bible.

“Not only was Robertson a man zealous for Greek,” Plummer said. “More importantly, he was passionate about the significant difference that knowing Greek can make for those who preach and teach God’s word. . . . Robertson had a deep passion to equip gospel ministers whose hearts were impassioned and whose minds were enlightened.”

Plummer and Merkle’s latest book, Greek Word Studies for Everyone: An Easy Guide to Serious Study of the Bible, contains the same vision of the man whose shoulders he stands on.[5]

Tom J. Nettles: Historian for the Church

Amid theological controversy, the essential arguments that shape the conversation may include works of theology, biblical interpretation, and various philosophical studies. Occasionally, as was the case in 1980 and the conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention, historical arguments move the needle.

Before Tom J. Nettles joined the Southern Seminary faculty, his work with Russ L. Bush, Baptists and the Bible, laid the intellectual and historical foundation for the return to biblical fidelity in the SBC. Nettles and Bush demonstrated that the inerrancy of Scripture remained the historic norm among Baptists in history. By refuting the assertions of SBC moderates, Nettles paved his own way to teach at Southern Seminary, as his work shifted the scholarly conversation and renewed commitment to inerrancy in the life of Southern Baptist seminaries and churches.

This past year, church historians John D. Wilsey and Stephen Presley, from Southern Seminary, each wrote books to encourage Christians toward a more faithful witness. Wilsey’s Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer helps Christians navigate citizenship from a Christian worldview, while Presley’s Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church draws from ancient Christian wisdom to renew modern churches.[6]

Thomas R. Schreiner: Teacher for Teachers

Thomas R. Schreiner produces book after book and article after article so that his output and the clarity of his thinking stand at the forefront of evangelicalism. His 1998 commentary on Romans and his 2001 book, Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology, received second editions and have found their way into countless scholarly works, pastoral libraries, and hearts of Christians everywhere.[7]

In many ways, Schreiner represents the vision of the seminary’s founding in his commitment to teaching and training leaders for the church.

Drawing from Boyce’s Three Changes in Theological Education, Stone reflected on what it means to study with the authors.

“The works published by the faculty here have been hammered out and refined in two places—the classroom and the church,” Stone said. “These authors have their students in mind when they teach, but also their congregations. Studying with the authors reveals how the academy and the church work in tandem. The works published at this institution are for both spheres of influence.”

Study with the Authors

To study with the authors is never an excuse for lazy research. According to Boyce, the seminary was to be a place of great research, but that was never at the expense of remembering the average Baptist layman who is living their life out every day for the glory of God.

“The institution would not exist without the churches,” Stone said. “Teachers had to be able to communicate with the average churchgoer who had been entrusted to their care. That has always been the beauty of Southern Seminary’s vision.”

Broadus wrote for the “well-informed Sunday School teacher” who needed extra help. That’s what Southern Seminary has always been about—helping the well-informed Sunday School teacher through the output of its faculty.

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[1] Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology: From Canon to Concept, vol. 1 (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2024).

[2] R. Albert Mohler Jr., foreword to A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, by John A. Broadus (Louisville: Southern Seminary Press, 2025).

[3] Andreas J. Köstenberger, Benjamin L. Merkle, and Robert L. Plummer, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek: An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2020).

[4] Köstenberger, Merkle, and Plummer, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek.

[5] Benjamin L. Merkle and Robert L. Plummer, Greek Word Studies for Everyone: An Easy Guide to Serious Study of the Bible (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2025).

[6] John D. Wilsey, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2025); Stephen O. Presley, Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church: Recovering an Ancient Vision (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2025).

[7] Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed., Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018); Thomas R. Schreiner, Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015).