LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) – Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College consecrated the beginning of the Spring 2024 semester with spring convocation. Faculty, students and staff gathered in the Alumni Memorial Chapel to formally begin a semester that has already begun and to thank the Lord for his provision of another academic term.
President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. delivered the commencement address, saying that the gathering at the beginning of the term is a reminder of who we are and who we worship and serve. After welcoming and encouraging students, Mohler expressed his gratitude for the faithfulness of Southern Baptists, who generously support and pray for all that occurs at Southern Seminary and Boyce College. “We only exist to serve those churches,” he said.
Preaching from Matthew 7:24-27, Mohler invited those present to consider what can and cannot change, even as things change dramatically around us.
“To say that we are intentionally standing where believers stood 2,000 years ago is a perplexity to the world.” Mohler said. “We seek conscious, intentional continuity to the teaching of the apostles.”
Mohler emphasized that Christians today genuinely want to be faithful to the teachings of the New Testament. Answering the question of what cannot change, Mohler said: “Truth. Scripture. Faithful doctrine. Biblical morality. What cannot change is the deposit of faith, which is the truth of the Christian faith. What doesn’t change is the Great Commission. These things are absolutely continuous.”
Mohler clarified that while Christians throughout church history have been required to come up with better articulations of what they believe in response to challenges of the day, these changes are simply clarifications of the same truth. “Our academic task is not primarily to give attention to what changes, but to what doesn’t,” he said.
Even as the commitment to unchanging truth places Southern Seminary and Boyce College as distinct from trends in secular higher education, Mohler encouraged students and faculty to be energized by their task.
“It is energizing for us to think about these things and commit ourselves to the task that is reflected here, the task that is in our own confession of faith, that is confessed in the Nicene Creed,” he said. “When you think about why we are here and all that the Lord is doing here, who wouldn’t be happy and joyful to be doing this?”
Watch Mohler’s full remarks here.
