North Carolina preaching, Tom Nettles' lecturing

Today I am traveling to North Carolina with my wife, Donna. Tomorrow I will preach in chapel at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Tonight I will speak at the Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Mebane. I also hope to connect with those in the seminary family who are interested in church planting. If you are in the area, be sure to say hello. I will be the one dressed like a Floridian who has wandered into the frozen tundra with a beautiful lady at my side.

Tom Nettles will be delivering the faculty lecture today at 10 AM Eastern time at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's chapel service. I think Dr. Nettles' lecture will be livestreamed.

Founders Podcast, Tom Nettles, pt. 3

The the third and final installment of my interview with Dr. Tom Nettles of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In it he addresses the issue of what constitutes genuine baptism. He also discusses the examples of Benjamin Keach and Abraham Booth as well-known Baptists from earlier generations who were baptized in Arminian churches and later moved to Particular Baptist convictions.

Dr. Nettles also provides an outline for defining true Baptist identity and gives his assessment of the last 30 years of Southern Baptist life, including the conservative resurgence and the more recent debates over Calvinism.

The first two parts of this interview have been posted previously (part 1) (part 2).

Founders Podcast, Tom Nettles, pt. 2

The new Founders podcast has been posted online. It's about 20 minutes long.

The second part of my interview with Tom Nettles delves further into the question of Baptist identity. I ask him about Landmarkism, and learned one very good thing that J.R. Graves and the Landmarkers did for the annual meetings of the SBC. Dr. Nettles also gives a very interesting--some might even call it ironic--geographical delineation of early Landmarkism within Southern Baptist life.

The identity crisis that provoked the Landmark movement and the outcome of it are incredibly relevant to modern SBC life. Anyone who is interested in the contemporary discussions about Baptist identity should listen to Dr. Nettles' insights. He, more than any other living Baptist scholar, has explored and written about Baptist identity in helpful, historical and theological ways. His 3 volume work, The Baptists, is unparalled in our day.

Toward this end of this part of the interview, Dr. Nettles gives a wonderful argument for Baptists to stay in Baptist churches rather than joining Presbyterian churches, even when the latter may have a much healthier ministry than the former.

Tom Nettles interviewed on Founders Podcast

A few weeks ago I interviewed Tom Nettles, professor of historical theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, for the Founders Podcast. The first part of that interview is available here. In it Dr. Nettles talks about how he became a seminary professor and the book, Baptists and the Bible, which he co-authored with the late Russ Bush just as the inerrancy controversy was beginning in the SBC. Part 1 is 13 minutes.

Tom Nettles will stay at Southern

On April 23 I announced that the elders of Grace Baptist Church were recommending Dr. Tom Nettles to the church as a candidate for Associate Pastor. After months of serious prayer and consideration, we and Dr. Nettles believed that the Lord had led us to this point and could well be leading us to unite in pastoral ministry in Grace. Tom and his wife, Margaret, visited with the Grace family over the past weekend and Lord's Day. Just prior to last night's final worship service, He informed me that the Lord had convinced him that he should withdraw his name from consideration and should return to his teaching responsibilities at Southern Seminary.

I informed our church during the evening service and Dr. Nettles spoke with heartwarming humility and transparency about how he had come to this unexpected and abrupt change of heart. He spoke of a renewed sense of call and a burden of stewardship to the opportunities the Lord has given him in teaching seminary students. Needless to say, we were all deeply saddened as we considered that the future we had anticipated was not to be. Nevertheless, we could not help but rejoice in the Lord's goodness in leading in such a clear way. That has been our prayer from the beginning--that the Lord would direct us to do His will. Though He has done so in a way that we did not expect and which we would not have chosen, He has unmistakably done so, and He is to be praised.

There are many lessons to be learned through all of this and we hope not to miss any of them. We will keep our time of congregational meeting on Wednesday night, but will now turn that into a season of biblical reflection and prayer. We will also keep the appointed day of prayer and fasting on Friday, but now, instead of seeking the Lord's guidance about issuing a call to Tom Nettles, we will be seeking His guidance and spiritual provision for our immediate future. We plan to end that day with a baptism at the beach.

James clearly instructs us that we should only make our plans with a humility that remembers, "if the Lord wills" (James 4:15). The last 4 days have provided a very poignant reminder of that truth. The Lord is good in all His ways. The cross of Jesus Christ stands as an eternal testimony to that fact. He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

On behalf of Grace Baptist Church and the Nettles, thank you for your prayers. We believe that the Lord has heard and answered. I am excited about Tom's future ministry at Southern. If the Lord grants him life and strength, I believe that his best, most productive days are in front of him. The counsel that I have given to students at Southern for the last 10 years remains the same: take every course that you can from Tom Nettles. He will help you understand the Gospel both in its nature and in the way that it works.

On a lighter note, this announcement will hopefully regain me some friends and slow down the "dislike mail" (it really didn't rise to the level of "hate," but some of them flirted with the edges of "perturbed") from students and others who were lamenting the thought of Tom not being around to teach at the seminary any longer. I fully understood their sentiments and rejoice with them at the Lord's leading. The kingdom of God is certainly far greater than any single church or school. The events that have transpired will, I believe, serve the cause of that kingdom very well for years to come.

Grace Baptist considers Tom Nettles for Associate Pastor

Dr. Tom Nettles, Professor of Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky will visit Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral on May 4-6 in view of a call to become the Associate Pastor. While this news may come as a shock to many people, those who know Tom well will not be surprised. He represents what is best in our seminaries and has consistently carried out his classroom responsibilities with a sense that he is a servant of the local church.

The best seminary professors are those who teach with a pastor's heart. That is the way that Dr. Nettles teaches. It was a great blessing from God when I first stepped on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 28 years ago to have Dr. Nettles for my first professor. He taught me that all of history takes its significance in relationship to the person and work of Jesus Christ. He taught me that loving the brethren includes caring about those servants whom God gave to the Church in generations past. He convinced me that my theological understanding of the Gospel and how it works was too superficial to sustain authentic ministry in a local church. And he patiently helped me to come to a more accurate understanding of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

What many of his friends and students may not know is that Tom never intended to be a classroom professor. He believed that God called him to be a pastor and fully intended to pursue that calling in a local church. God providentially directed him along a different path. For the last 32 years he has fulfilled his calling by training pastors, missionaries and church leaders whose ministries span the globe. And he has done so as a churchman with a pastor's heart. Only a few days ago I spoke to a recent former student of Tom's. His testimony echoed what I have from countless others and personally experienced during the years that I studied under him. This new pastor described how Dr. Nettles sought to shepherd him during his days as a student, caring not only for his knowledge of history, but more particularly for the health of his soul.

The journey by which the Lord has led both Tom and Grace Baptist Church to this path is a testimony to divine wisdom and grace. Though there are still some very important, final steps in the process of his being called to serve as a pastor at Grace, the elders of our church are recommending him to the congregation and he and his wife, Margaret, sense the Lord leading them thus far to entertain that possibility.

I know that many of the readers of this blog love Dr. Nettles and praise the Lord for his life and ministry. Please pray for him and Margaret, and for the Grace family over the next three weeks. We all want the Lord's will to be done and are very consciously depending on Him to speak through His church in guiding us and the Nettles in this important matter. By God's grace, we hope to have a confident understanding of the Lord's will by the middle of May.

For the formal announcement by our church, go here.