LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) — “Things once hidden are now the things we teach and learn,” President R. Albert Mohler Jr. declared to an Alumni Chapel teeming with students and faculty eager to start the 2024 fall term at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College. This convocation service inaugurated a new academic semester, celebrating the new and grounding all the work of the seminary and college in the old, unchanging Christian faith.
“This is an institution established in the year 1859 proudly upon a succession of faithful teaching going all the way back to the apostles and to Christ,” Mohler told those gathered. “There is new here, but it is an intersection of new and old.” Mohler said this day was a reminder of God’s promises in bringing new students from many different states and from many different countries.
Mohler’s convocation address was delivered with joyful confidence as he set the tone for the new term, emphasizing the institution’s mission to glorify God through teaching, learning and fellowship.
“I am thankful for the fact that we don’t have to gather together just to talk about what to teach … or just to remind ourselves why we teach,” he said. “Now, we do remind ourselves of these things, but we do so seeking the best we know to be in continuity with every faithful generation in the history of the Christian church.”
Preaching from Matthew 13:35, Mohler emphasized that the mysteries once hidden have now been revealed to us through Christ and His coming. It is on the basis of the authority and power revealed in Christ that those at Southern Seminary and Boyce College have a stewardship to truth revealed.
“It is about our faithful stewardship,” he said. “That’s what we are committing ourselves to in this service as teachers and learners together. The faithful stewardship. This means that what we’re about here is not just a Christian education as if ‘Christian’s’ a modifier. It’s a Christian education as in Christian truth is the whole point. Christian faithfulness is the entire point.”
You may watch the convocation services here.
During the service, four Southern Seminary and Boyce College professors signed the Abstract of Principles, the seminary’s founding confession of faith: Dustin Bruce, associate professor of Christian theology and church history and dean of Boyce College; Mattew Haste, associate professor of biblical spirituality and biblical counseling; Andrew Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology; and Matthew Westerholm, professor of church music and worship, becoming the 281, 282, 283 and 284 signers, respectively.
By signing the Abstract of Principles, professors pledge to teach its doctrines “without hesitation, mental reservation, or any private arrangement” with the seminary leadership. While all faculty members sign the abstract before they begin teaching, those elected by the Board of Trustees sign the original document with ink and quill, symbolizing their full commitment to this foundational confession.
Also during the service, Mohler introduced two new faculty members: Clint Armani, associate professor of mathematical sciences; and Colin McCulloch, assistant professor of biblical counseling and practical theology.
The opening convocation was also the occasion for the seminary to welcome three new members of its trustee board: Lucas Almeida of Palm Bay, Fla., David Beck of Louisville, Ky., and Clay Smith of Marietta, Ga.
Concluding the convocation service and sending faculty and students to their work for the semester, Mohler charged, “Our privilege is to turn together to learn dark sayings from old, things hidden from the foundation of the world. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that breathtaking? Don’t you want to get to it every day? Every class is joyful. We get to see them, to hear them, to learn them, to teach them, to live them, to pass them on to our children, to sing them as hymns, to exult in them. So, let’s get to it. Let’s get to it with joy. Let’s get to it to the glory of God.”
