Three months after his wife’s death, Michael Pohlman received a call from the man who performed the memorial service, encouraging Pohlman to return to Southern Seminary and join the faculty as assistant professor of Christian preaching. Robert Vogel, the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching, mentored Pohlman during his time in seminary, and the two remained in touch. Vogel and others at Southern who knew Pohlman agreed that he was the right man for the job.

Michael Pohlman was born in Buffalo, New York. His unbelieving parents divorced when Pohlman was 9, and the four children lived with their dad, who taught them “work ethic and standards of excellence.” Pohlman had no gospel influence until his senior year of high school when his younger brother Matt became a Christian. Matt urged Pohlman to read the Bible, and a classmate named Brad began telling him the same. In the fall of 1989, Pohlman moved to Seattle, Washington, to attend the University of Washington, where he read the Bible and attended a Presbyterian church. God used Romans in particular to show the young man his sin and his need for Jesus. At age 18, Michael Pohlman became a Christian.

After completing a degree in political science, he planned to attend the University of Oregon or another law school in the area, but an internship with his local pastor in Washington convinced him that he should go to seminary instead. Pohlman completed his M.Div. at Western Seminary, where he first met Vogel. During this time, he and his wife Julia had four children: Samuel, Anna, John, and Michael.

While planting a church in Portland, Oregon, Pohlman sensed holes in his pastoral training, particularly in church history. He considered where to go for more education.

“There was a migration of incredible professors going to Southern at that time,” he said. “It got my attention.”

In 2003, he moved his family to Louisville, Kentucky, to start a Ph.D. in Church History at Southern Seminary. At Southern, he worked as the first executive producer of the Albert Mohler Radio Program, broadcast by Salem Communications. Pohlman does not know where he learned more: his Ph.D. seminars or conversations with R. Albert Mohler Jr. after the program.While writing his dissertation, Pohlman moved to southern California for editorial work with Salem Communications, and the relationships he built led to his former role as executive editor for The Gospel Coalition.

For nearly two years, he regulated the content of TGC, which included meeting with possible conference speakers and investigating authors for books or the website. He says he loved this job because of his passion for great content and the chance to learn from men like Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and D.A. Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. In 2010, Pohlman left the work at TGC and returned to pastoring.

In 2009, his wife Julia was diagnosed with cancer. She battled the disease for five years before her death Feb. 2, 2014. Shepherding his children through their grief while dealing with his own was difficult, but Pohlman said he experienced many blessings during this trial.

“It’s really been an opportunity for us to be humbled and receive,” said Pohlman, “and for me to depend on others in ways I haven’t had to before.”

Since Julia also worked as Vogel’s assistant at Western, in addition to his mentoring of Pohlman, she and her husband decided they wanted Vogel to perform the memorial service. Vogel agreed immediately and after the service said he wanted to pray for Pohlman’s future. Three months later, Vogel called to encourage Pohlman to pray about accepting the job the seminary had offered him as assistant professor of Christian preaching.

Vogel said that Pohlman’s experience of his wife’s death “exposed the depth that’s there of character and of spiritual health and fruit. He knows how to depend on the Lord.”

As a man with deep appreciation for preaching, Pohlman was “thrilled and humbled by the call to come here and teach.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more important than preaching for the church and therefore for the world,” said Pohlman, echoing his preaching hero Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “It’s the primary means I think God uses to not only convert people but then transform them into Christlikeness.”

He wants to use his interdisciplinary background to bring “a sense of history and a sense of theology coming together in the pulpit.” The main thing he wants to characterize his teaching, however, is more personal.

“I want to tell my students that there’s things you’re going to learn about God in greater measure, maybe not new knowledge … but you’re going to learn those things in a deeper way when you’re having to depend on him through suffering,” he said. Pohlman said he hopes to bring not only academic expertise to Southern but also “the experience of walking with the Lord through difficult times and testifying to his sufficient grace.”