Address given in Shawnee Baptist College chapel, April 15, 2014
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” Mat
22:37-38
As I look over our movement, I recall the words of Tolkien:
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in
the meadows.
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into
shadow.
There is a terrible cry in our
churches for biblically-centered Christians, equally committed to loving God
with their heart and mind. That
call could be answered here. This school
will move forward with two great goals in mind: to train students to study the
Word of God, and to train them to proclaim it to the world. We will do this by aggressively engaging the
mind, to teach you to understand complex ideas, to evaluate truth claims, to
apply the Scriptures to every thought, activity, and tradition. We will train you for the dark and angry
world who seeks to overcome the light, both in themselves and in you. We will teach you apologetics, so that you’ll
have confidence in the Scriptures to quench the attacks of the sceptics. We will train you to preach and teach, to
overcome the darkness with the knowledge of the Gospel. We will teach you to understand the
Scriptures, the anvil upon which the Holy Spirit will break the will of
men. No great work for Christ was ever
done apart from the ministry of the Word, so we will strive to give you the
tools to dig into the Bible, to understand the deep things of God, to unearth
the gold in his revelation. The world,
the flesh, and the devil will employ friends and enemies to undermine you,
pastors and family. We will offer you the tools to understand these attacks, to
meet them in battle, and to defeat them, with the grace of God and the Bible. The calling of this school is to equip you
for the greatest calling in the world: the ministry of the Word, the
proclamation of the Gospel. We will push
back the cloud of anti-intellectualism that has hung over our movement for too
long. There is no virtue in ignorance. Chesterton warns us
“Ideas are dangerous, but the man
to whom they are least dangerous is the man of
ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas
are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no
ideas.”
ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas
are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no
ideas.”
Your calling is a dangerous
one. You are to stand between the church
and world, between your students and the false teacher, between truth and
error. To do this you must be
equipped. You must be grounded in the
inerrant, inspired Word of God. No other
foundation will suffice. No other
philosophy, education, or authority will be adequate. We hope to give you both the tools and the
training to grasp that foundation. When
secular humanism beats at your door, you must answer with authority of God. When false teachers speak deceit, you must
counter with the voice of truth. When
preachers fail the church in life and leadership, you must offer the Lordship
of Christ. When you are drained by the
attack of the devil, you must drink at the pure fountain of Scripture. And drink deeply. As Moore urges, Shawnee Baptist College “must
ever struggle to retain intellectual rigor. This academic prowess is an act of
love, equipping these brilliant students to push back the arguments behind
which guilty consciences hide, in order that they may hear the voice that calls
“Adam, where are you?”
We are not perfect, but we are
committed. We are not entirely qualified
yet, but we are dedicated. I can’t
promise you that we will give you everything you need, but I can tell you
this: We are serious about preparing
students for the ministry. Some of you
may not return, some of you are not sure.
I don’t know entirely what next year holds, but if you join us we can give
you something real. I offer you not
tradition, but theology; not rules, but holiness; not information, but
Scripture, not control, but Christ. We
have a chance to do something here that no one else is doing: to study C.S.
Lewis and John R. Rice. To read Spurgeon
and Augustine. To study apologetics and
evangelism. To love people and teach the whole counsel of God. Our movement desperately needs young people
who are equipped, not afraid to ask questions, to search the Scriptures, to
defy tradition, to proclaim Christ in all his glory, both to the heart and
the mind. I believe that we can help you
be those leaders. “…that in all things
Christ might have the preeminence”
