NEW ORLEANS (BP) — Jamie Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) and Leavell College, exhorted new and returning NOBTS students to “live wisely” during the schools’ fall convocation service. 

The service, held Tuesday (Aug. 20) in Leavell Chapel, marked the official start of the 2024-25 academic year. Dew began by reminding students that the journey they are taking is no ordinary endeavor. 

“There’s a lot of different kinds of schools, but there’s not a lot of schools like this one,” Dew said. 

“We’re not doing higher education just for the sake of doing higher education, the kind of education we are pursuing is holy and it is serious. The work that you and I give ourselves to is the work of shining light into darkness, taking the gospel of Jesus Christ into the hardest, darkest places on planet Earth. That’s a holy thing. That’s a sobering thing.”

Dew preached from Ecclesiastes 12 and asked students to ponder the question, “What does it mean to live wisely?”

“I think this is an important question for anybody,” he said. “I’ve known lots of really intelligent people in my life … people who were brilliant academically speaking, but they lived like fools.

“Wisdom is not intelligence. By contrast, I have also known people that were not that intelligent, at least not academically. The Dew family, for instance, these were tobacco farmers. These were not educated people. These were not people who held degrees or fancy positions or any of those types of things, and yet I could sit there and listen to my uneducated grandfather for hours because he was wise. 

“It’s an important question to know what it means to live wisely for anybody, but it is especially true for those of us who are called by God to serve Him in these vocational capacities that you came here to study and prepare for.” 

Dew went on to give a biblical definition of wisdom, as outlined in Ecclesiastes. 

“Wisdom is indeed a kind of understanding,” he said. “It’s like intellectual stuff in that sense. Wisdom is indeed a kind of knowledge, a kind of understanding, but it’s not, per se, an intellectual kind of knowledge or understanding. Wisdom is the kind of understanding that enables you to make the right kinds of decisions in life. 

“What does it mean to make a right decision? It’s a right decision if it does two things — No. 1, it glorifies and honors the God who made you, and No. 2, it allows you and the people that swim in your wake to flourish and thrive because of the way you live your life.

“The person who can make those kinds of decisions is a wise person.” 

Dew went on give three points about what it means to live wisely:

• Be faithful to the Word of God and teach it well.
• Fear God and be obedient.
• Live with the end in mind.

In addition to Dew’s address, the service also included a welcome to new faculty and a celebration of several faculty service anniversaries. 

Nate Jernigan, assistant professor of music and worship, signed the NOBTS Articles of Religious Belief and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, signifying his official appointment as a trustee-elected faculty member. 

The articles were written by NOBTS’ founding faculty in 1917 to serve as a document outlining their theological beliefs before the penning of the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message.

Faculty members recognized for service anniversaries were:

• Ken Ellis, professor of Christian ministry (10 years)
• Greg Woodward, professor of conducting and worship (15 years)
• Jeff Griffin, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew and dean of libraries (20 years)
• Jeff Nave, professor of counseling and director of the Leeke Magee Christian Counseling Center (20 years)

Dew closed the service with a call for the students to seek biblical wisdom along their academic journey. 

“There’s going to be a lot of water under the bridge between this moment and your graduation,” Dew said. 

“May you and I live with wisdom. May we commit our lives to it right here, right now, that God Himself would help us to live a life of wisdom.”

The full convocation service can be viewed on YouTube and Facebook.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Timothy Cockes is a writer in Nashville.)