Since the early days of his pastorate, C.H. Spurgeon tutored and trained up gifted young men for the ministry. Over the first seven years of his ministry, Spurgeon would send out seven ministers, and yet more men were approaching him for training...
Part 1: Academic Teaching with Support Raising One of the closest parallels to a traditional academic job is teaching in a position that requires raising financial support. These positions are generally available in schools outside North America...
Introduction Research papers are one of the best ways to learn in seminary—which is why so many teachers assign them. A research paper trains you in how to gather information, interpret it, and present an informed opinion persuasively. And yet...
Exegesis is the most comprehensive form of Bible study. It gathers together nearly every Bible study task—word studies, translation comparison, research, and more—for a thorough examination of a biblical passage. While there is no singular process...
Whether you’re writing a paper for a class, gathering resources for your doctoral thesis, or compiling a list of resources to share with a small group, building a clear, easy-to-read bibliography is mandatory. But what information do you need to...
"Bernard’s brilliance is not his use of so-called critical methods but in the fact that, as a monk, he had prayed, read and studied the Sacred Scriptures so intently that his vocabulary is literally a biblical vocabulary."
One of my warmest memories with Professor Hurtado occurred in 2014 at SBL in San Diego over a meal. We went to lunch at a French café and before we began eating, he paused and said: “Let’s pray over our meal.” He thanked God for the meal, closing...
Scot Miller reviews Emma Wasserman’s Apocalypse as Holy War: Divine Politics and Polemics in the Letters of Paul Emma Wasserman, Yale University Press, 2018. 352 pp. This present era of binary perspectives and hyperbolic representations of...
by Chris Porter Coming to biblical studies from prior research in the social sciences I am often asked what makes for good interdisciplinary research. While a valid question, I think the more interesting question is what makes a good...
Book Review Paula Gooder, IVP Academic, 2018. 316 pp. Review by Reta Finger. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you my welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she...
Tom Holland, Tom Wright and the Search for Truth: A Theological Evaluation (London: Apiary Publishing), 2017. Pp. 495. by Don Garlington This full-sized volume consists of thirteen chapters: (1) “Probing the Contours of Recent Research;” (2)...
When I was invited to contribute to the series, What makes a good Biblical Scholar or Theologian?, I decided to do something a bit different. While I have my opinions on exegetical method, there are a multitude of scholars who can provide more...
Editor’s note: Crispin Fletcher-Louis has disrupted our normal series on “What makes a good Biblica Scholar or Theologian?” with a title of his own making. We’ll let it slide, because his advice is just that good. Enjoy the...
Book Review David B. Capes, Rodney Reeves, and E. Randolph Richards, editors, IVP Academic, 2017. According to the Introduction, the work is intended as a student textbook that covers, in a manageable size, several aspects of Paul: his background...
Book Review Paula Fredriksen, Yale University Press, 2017, 336 pp. Widely recognized for her works on Augustine and Christian origins, in her latest book Paula Fredriksen turns her full attention to the apostle Paul. She impressively develops a...
Robert J. Cara, Cracking the Foundation of The New Perspective on Paul: Covenantal Nomism Versus Reformed Theology. Reformed, Exegetical and Doctrinal Studies. London: Mentor (Christian Focus Publications), 2017. by Don Garlington This book is the...
5 Resources You Need to Succeed in Seminary When I began seminary 7 years ago, I was ignorant of the tools that would help me succeed in the classroom, the pulpit, and now postgraduate studies. Logos’ Back-to-School Sale includes dozens of...
Book Review Garwood P. Anderson (IVP Academic), 2016, 457 pp. What began as a promising breakthrough in Pauline studies just three decades ago — “the new perspective on Paul,” as James D.G. Dunn famously dubbed it in 1982 — seems in...
Most of what we learn in life is determined by the questions we bring to it. As a young seminarian, fresh out of college, I don’t have significant pastoral experience. In my classrooms are older men and women, several of them in their sixties...
When I first arrived at seminary, they sat us all down and gave us lecture after lecture about all the rules and guidelines for graduating with our degrees. They told us the required courses, the available concentrations, and gave us tips on...
You have so many books to read, who can afford to read any more? That’s an excellent question, and a justification I used for burying my head in theology text after theology text. But I’ve starting asking a different question: “I...
I do not enjoy details. I do not enjoy rigidly structured environments. I do not enjoy tedium. And as a child, I loved the open window more than I loved the chalkboard. So why then, do I enjoy taking biblical Greek? Going into my first Greek class...
Imagine a very little boy sitting on his father’s lap, watching a basketball game. The father talks with the boy about the game as they watch, telling him all sorts of things about the players and the rules and things like that. Most of these things...
Is it worth it? The time? The money? The sacrifices? Those were just a few of the questions running through my head and heart as I stood over the washing machine a number of years ago moving a load into the dryer. It was not a good season in many...
Learning the biblical languages can be very discouraging and frustrating. Studies and experience have shown that this is the most difficult aspect of theological training for students over the centuries. Many theologians have come to believe that a...
In the beginning of seminary, I felt like more of a distraction than a priority. If I needed to talk to my sem hub (seminary husband) about something, I tried to wait until his mind was not occupied with his work, but found those moments few and far...
There is a common misconception among Christians about Seminaries and seminarians in general. The misconception is that going to the Seminary gives one an automatic guarantee to be spiritual. In other words, people feel that by just being in the...
During seminary, you’ll develop a unique set of skills. You’ll be able to parse every Greek verb in the New Testament, list the minor prophets in canonical and chronological order, create Turabian or APA style footnotes in a flash, and...
Before arriving to seminary, sem hub (seminary husband) and I served in ministry for about 8 years. The thing that amazed me was how many times people talked to me expecting me to know everything my sem hub knows. The further we progressed in our...
One of my course mates shared an interesting lesson he learned early enough during orientation in the Seminary by one of the Professors. It was a word of caution about the danger of neglecting the family as a result of the academic demands. The...










