The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary graduated 275 students in its 230th commencement, with 180 graduates walking the stage to receive their diplomas, both record numbers for fall graduation.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If Jesus tarries, the latest graduates of The Southern Baptist Theological (SBTS) Seminary will have ministries that will impact this century but will also reverberate into the 22nd century, President Albert Mohler said Friday morning at the seminary’s fall commencement.
“These graduates graduating right now, if the Lord grants them a normal tenure of ministry, that will bring many of them right up to the brink of the 22nd century,” Moher said. “It’s a pretty amazing thing. We’re celebrating all of that today.
“We are celebrating these graduates, but we are worshiping the one, true, living God. He has done this.”
SBTS graduated 275 students in its 230th commencement, with 180 graduates walking the stage to receive their diplomas, both record numbers for fall graduation. Southern’s commencement presented a powerful picture of the global work of the gospel, with graduates from numerous countries including Colombia, Argentina, the People’s Republic of China, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Chile and South Africa, among others.
Drawing on Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1, particularly verse 48 (“for he who is mighty has done great things for me”), Mohler said it is important to see that the focus of the graduates’ work is the future. Today’s graduates will impact tomorrow and will carry out gospel work for decades into the future in local churches and on the mission fields of the world.
Though graduates have surrendered to the call of God, they have completed coursework and received degrees, their entire ministry future lies before them.
“(In the Magnificat) Mary was not declaring a fact past and done, but a promise made and fulfilled and continually fulfilled until the crucified, resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus Christ returns to claim His church,” Mohler said. “That will be the ultimate fulfillment of what it means that ‘He who is mighty has done great things.’
“There are people yet unborn who will come to know the Lord Jesus by the preaching and testimony and influence of these graduates. There are churches that will be fed by the men who are graduating from this institution to preach the Word. There are generations yet untaught who will be taught the Word of God.”
The work of faithful Gospel ministry is great work, Mohler said, thus the seminary is sending out graduates to do great things.
“Between then (the future) and now we send you out, graduates, to do great things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said.
“Even through simple acts of faithfulness and obedience, most simply the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, the taking of the Gospel to the nations, you are the realization of the hopes, of the prayers of so many Christians of so many generations. Those hopes go with you. He who is mighty has done great things for us.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Jeff Robinson is director of news and information at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.)
