Dr Adam Greenway Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

The Seminary’s History and Doctrinal Drift

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm your host. Every day of the week, we try to do something a little bit differently. Mondays, we have an exposition from 1 Corinthians that I preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Tuesdays, I talk with Pastor Steve regarding issues in the church. Wednesdays, we talk about books, books that you should read and books that you shouldn't read. And then on Thursdays, we talk about evangelicalism in general, sometimes getting very particular and sometimes just broadly looking at what we call evangelicalism.

And so today being Thursday, it's a great privilege and pleasure to have Dr. Adam Greenway interviewed and live on the air. And Adam is an Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Applied Apologetics. He's Associate Vice President for Extension Education and Applied Ministries and the Director of Research and Doctoral Studies for the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

That's a mouthful.

Welcome, Adam. It is, although that won't even fit on the business card, Mike, but you're very kind in your introduction and it's great to be with you this afternoon.

Well, I love Southern Seminary because she loves Christ Jesus and his gospel. And so I wanted to have Adam on the air today because Adam, like I gave in his introduction, runs the Extension Program for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Northborough, right here in Central Massachusetts.

And I love the school so much. I wanted to talk about, A, the school and B, a little bit about the story behind the school so people here in New England know about a great theological seminary right in Central Massachusetts.

So Adam, how about this to start? Before we get talking about the Extension Center per se, can you give us the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary story, especially in light of the last 15 years with Dr. Mohler, so people understand what's going on in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary?

Sure, Mike.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was founded in 1859, just 14 years after the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. It was the first seminary to serve the Southern Baptist Convention, founded by four faculty members, including James Pettigrew Boyce, the founder and first president, John Albert Broadus, who was a legend in preaching, Basil Manley Jr., who wrote the seminary's Confession of Faith, the Abstract of Principles, which is the oldest confession of faith produced by Southern Baptists, and William Williams.

Founded originally in Greenville, South Carolina. Of course, the Civil War closed the seminary down. After the Civil War, the seminary relocated to Louisville, Kentucky in 1877, where we continue to exist with our main campus today.

The seminary was founded upon a solid foundation of orthodoxy, the gospel, commitment to the church, commitment to sound theology, commitment to evangelism and missions. Yet for much of the 20th century, the seminary drifted from that sure foundation through lax leadership, through the rise of higher criticism and neo-orthodoxy, liberal theology that began to infiltrate the seminary through faculty hirings and general directions in liberalism and much of what was happening in Europe.

It was affecting what was happening here in terms of people going overseas to study. That was not unique. The seminary had first dealt with these issues back in the 1800s when a professor named Crawford Toy had been hired on the faculty.

He had gone to Germany to study. And when he came back and returned to the faculty, he taught that Genesis was not entirely true, that it was clear that his theology had moved away. And actually, he was forced to resign from the seminary because he was teaching contrary to, not in accordance with the seminary's confession of faith.

Yet for much of the 20th century, there were people who signed the seminary's doctrinal statement, but did so with their fingers crossed or did so in a way that was really lacking in integrity. That was a microcosm of what was happening in the larger Southern Baptist Convention with a denominational leadership that was moving away from the gospel, moving away from sound theology, and really much following the trend lines of what was happening in mainline evangelicalism and mainline Protestantism as well.

In 1979, conservative grassroots Southern Baptists began to change direction through the processes of the SBC. In the Southern Baptist Convention, you can affect change through elections. The churches would elect messengers to go to Southern Baptist Convention annual meetings.

There, they would elect a president. The president, in turn, would use his appointive powers to eventually change the composition of the boards of trustees of the various convention agencies. And so in the late 1980s, the Board of Trustees of Southern Seminary moved from being dominated by a more moderate to liberal leadership to solidly conservative leadership.

That began a process that culminated with the election of Dr. R. Albert Moeller, Jr. in 1993 as the ninth president of Southern Seminary. In his presidency, Dr. Moeller has returned the seminary to the faith of the fathers, that the faculty that he has hired and the course that he has set is firmly committed to the absolute truthfulness and inerrancy of the scripture, of the necessity of repentance and faith for salvation, the exclusivity of Christ, and the fact that there is no other way to be saved except for a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, the necessity of evangelism and missions to the nations.

And basically just reaffirming that what the scripture teaches is what we are bound to teach, what we are called to obey. And in his tenure, he has put together a world-class faculty of conservative evangelical Baptist scholars, men who have written widely, published widely, who Dr. Moeller's fond of saying that students at the other seminaries are reading the books written by the professors at Southern Seminary.

And having done my PhD here and then having the opportunity to join the faculty and now to serve in administration as well, I'm convinced that the Lord has done a marvelous work here at Southern Seminary and truly only God could bring about a turnaround in such a way to where a seminary that for much of the 20th century was headed in the wrong direction and in many ways was denying the very truth of God that supposedly had bought them and redeemed them now is being used to defend the gospel, being used to plant churches in North America and across the world.

It is an exciting place to be. And by the grace of God, Southern Seminary is now the largest Southern Baptist seminary. And by extension, the largest theological seminary probably in the world.

It is such a great story. And I just got done preaching 1 Corinthians 1 .30 -31 about, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. Let the boasty one boast, the text says. And to think about the greatness of God, who could do this at any time, at any place, but for his own good pleasure has let the Harvard slide and the Yale slide and the Princeton slide.

It must be fascinating, Dr. Greenway, to be really at the hub of a place where God is doing such a great work. You're living in history, but you don't have to read about it. You're right there as you watch the Lord build his church through building this theological institution.

That's right, Mike. I mean, first of all, only God could do this. And while God chose to use men, messengers from the churches, men who served as SBC president, trustees of Southern Seminary, and of course, Dr. Moeller and the leadership team that he has assembled, ultimately, Dr. Moeller and all of us recognize this was a sovereign work of God.

Only God could bring this about. And for his pleasure, we recognize that we exist not for ourselves. We're not simply a graduate school of religion. We're not simply looking to function in the same way as a secular university, but we exist for the truth.

We exist for the church. We exist for the world. And ultimately, we exist for the glory of God. That's our purpose. Our calling and commission is to train pastors, to train men for ministry that God will use to equip the saints, to evangelize the lost, and ultimately to glorify himself.

And it really is striking. My friend and colleague, Dr. Greg Wills, wrote the history of the seminary that was published last year, published by Oxford University Press. It is a fascinating read, but all throughout, even as you're reading about places and personalities and such, all throughout, there's the clear reminder that even in some of the darkest days, God was at work and God was not allowing Southern to go as far out as he could have chosen to allow her to go, but because of the sure foundation of orthodoxy that the founders put in, the confession of faith and the requirement that all professors teach in accordance with and not contrary to the abstract of principles, God used that as a way to be able to return the seminary to biblical fidelity, to confessional orthodoxy, when the trustees elected a president who was committed to that robust vision.

The Boston Extension Campus and Weekend Classes

Well, this is Mike Abendroth talking to Dr. Adam Greenway from Southern Seminary. One of the reasons why I had Adam on the show today is I'm very excited about the Extension Campus here in Northboro. From the studio, it's probably a 15-minute drive.

There are many young men, maybe older men as well, who can't sell everything and move to Louisville, but can attend classes on Friday nights and Saturday for their credit towards their ministry degree.

Now, before we talk a little bit more about that, it just popped in my mind, Adam, it'd be interesting for the readers, or the listeners, rather, to watch that PBS documentary of the quote-unquote hostile takeover of Southern Seminary produced by Stephen Lipscomb, called The Battle for the Minds.

Have you seen that show? Yes, it was done in the mid -90s by Stephen Lipscomb, whose mother, I believe, was graduating from Southern Seminary with a degree, and was quite disenchanted with some of the reformation that was taking place here.

It's a fascinating film because all of the more moderate to liberal faculty members are shown in color, and the conservators are shown in black and white. I mean, it's very clear that the cinematography is used to convey a definite message, definite point of view concerning what was happening here.

And frankly, there were many who liked the direction in terms of accommodation to culture, in terms of capitulation, and abandonment in many cases of the word of God. Truth is heavy, and few there are who will carry it.

And I'm grateful to God that God raised up a man like Dr. Moeller in his earliest days here. He was consistently receiving death threats in one of his early chapel services. Students of the time stood up and turned their backs to him.

There's other things that even just of, are completely un-Christlike in character, even if you disagree with somebody, you would hope that there'd be enough charity not to do such things. It really is a remarkable testimony of God's sustaining grace and providence that those days, those difficult, God brought Dr. Moeller and others through faculty, but a rebuilding of a faculty and a renewing and recommitment to a vision.

And a vision is, as you mentioned, Mike, of not just providing sound biblical theological education here in Louisville, but also through our network of extension sites to bring Southern Seminary to our major cities, particularly like Boston.

We have 16 extension campuses of Southern, one of which is in the greater Boston area. They're in Northborough. And we recognize that not everybody can physically come to Louisville, can relocate here.

So we wanna try to bring Southern Seminary to you.

Well, what I like, Dr. Greenway, is the professors from Southern, nine classes out of 10 will fly up from Louisville, spend the night teaching Friday, then Saturday. And so it's not like you have some kind of strictly online, you don't get to deal with the professors.

No, Southern does come out here. And I'm thinking about Dr. Moeller like I think about Dr. MacArthur. First Corinthians chapter 16, act like men, Paul says to the church. And probably if the church of Corinth had acted like men, they wouldn't have gotten so much trouble.

But there's something that drew me to MacArthur when I went to master's for my MDiv that drew me to Southern when I got my DMin there and actually went to teach at Southern and got to teach a class there.

Those kind of men, as they imitate Christ, draw other godly men. Maybe I should ask you the question. Do you think those kind of men draw out men of God who want to stand up and say, it is Christ alone, through grace alone, we will teach the full counsel of God and we want to be trained by men, chosen by the Moellers, chosen by the MacArthur's, and so fortify our call so we can equip the local church.

That's why we have this Extension Center, right? That's right, yep.

Training Pastors and Laypeople for Ministry

Mike, you're exactly right. In any education, it is not simply the transmission of content, but hopefully it is also the molding and shaping of one's character. We believe that that process happens when students are surrounded by, not simply great books, not simply great ideas, but men called by God to teach, to model, to mentor, and to disciple students, and to raise up the next generation of pastors and church leaders and missionaries and evangelists and professors.

And so, Dr. Moeller has placed a premium upon bringing a world-class faculty of conservative, evangelical Baptists together, all of which gladly affirm the abstract of principles and the Baptist faith and message, the Confession of the Southern Baptist Convention, and yet men who are widely published, men who are committed to the church, many of our faculty serve as senior pastor or teaching pastor or interim pastor in churches in Louisville and throughout.

And so it's not just merely that, you know, I'm in the classroom teaching, but I'm not connected to the realities of church life, that we have faculty who are very much committed to excelling not only in scholarship, but also in their ministry and service in their local church.

I think that is key, because the reality is, again, we're not simply wanting to train individuals to study religion. We're looking to train people who walk with God, people who know how to lead people to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, people who know how to pastor a church, men who are capable of giving spiritual leadership, men who've been called by God.

And we believe that there is a definite significance to putting together a faculty. And Dr. Moeller has even said he wishes, and others who studied here under a different ethos, he wishes that he could have studied with the faculty that he has been able to build here today.

And so with the Extension Centers, we are committed that our residential faculty at Southern Seminary, of their own choice, choose to travel to our extension sites like Boston and to teach courses there.

And so students in Boston have the same access to the SBTS faculty that they would have if they were in Louisville, that you can take church history with Dr. Tom Nettles, you can take New Testament with Dr. Tom Schreiner, you can take Christian theology with Dr. Bruce Ware, among others, some of our more noted faculty.

And that's significant. I'm convinced many of our students come to Southern Seminary because they want to study with this faculty.

How the Extension Program Works

Well, when someone is considering going to Northboro, give us a website, Dr. Greenway, I'm sure it's sbts .edu, maybe there's another link, and then walk the listeners through what they would do, how long the program would be, do they have to travel to Louisville, and maybe how many men are taking the classes that work full-time and how we can work that into a full-time schedule.

Sure.

At SBTS, you mentioned our main website. For our extension centers, we have a link, sbts .edu slash extension. And there you can find information about all of our off-campus sites, including our site in Boston in Northboro.

At our extension sites, we offer what we call our core curriculum. As part of all of our degree programs, there's a body of courses that every student has to take, Old Testament, New Testament, theology, philosophy, ethics, personal evangelism, introduction to missiology, biblical counseling, leadership and family ministry, among others.

And so those are the courses that we offer at our extension sites because it services the broadest possible number of students regardless of whether one is pursuing a master divinity degree, wants to be a pastor, for example, or if it's a master of arts degree, perhaps somebody wants to serve as a youth pastor or a family pastor, a discipleship pastor, work in women's ministry, children's ministry, something like that.

And so in Boston in particular, we offer classes on Friday and Saturday nights. We offer three classes in a semester and they're offered one at a time. And so the class meets beginning this fall for four weekends early in the semester, another class meets four weekends in the middle of the semester, another class meets four weekends toward the end of the semester.

So a student can take three classes in a semester all in Boston, all taught by SBTS faculty who travel there on the weekends to teach the classes. You can do everything as part of your degree at Southern Seminary, except for the equivalent of one year of study.

Our accrediting associations require that students at any site must complete one year of study physically at the campus in Louisville. Now that doesn't mean that you have to pack up your family and move here for a year.

That requirement can be satisfied through the taking of J term, Jan term courses or summer courses that usually are one week in duration. And so the rotation for the extension centers is a four year rotation.

And so normally during that four year time, students will make a couple of trips a year to Louisville to pick up J and summer term courses to get their required number of hours for residency here in order to graduate with their degree.

And in most cases, students will graduate in four years time having completed the full rotation at the extension site. Well, thank you for that, Dr. Greenaway.

Seminary Training for Laypeople and Ministry Candidates

I want to encourage all the listeners. If you are a lay person, or if you're a man who thinks you're called to the ministry, you would be so surprised, at least like I was surprised, that right down the street, almost literally, down the freeway, down the 290, we have Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Whether you're a Southern Baptist or not, you can go and glean from some of the best minds in evangelicalism to learn the truth of God. Some people put a premium on theological education, and some of those people would be Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Personally, Dr. Greenaway, I see far too many pastors who don't really know what they're talking about. And although we know it's not somehow sinful if you don't get a degree, and there are the exceptions like Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones who didn't go to seminary, I haven't met too many men in local churches who were like Spurgeon or Lloyd-Jones, so I encourage them to go to school.

Yeah, I do too, Mike.

And just in the sense of this, my understanding of scripture says that the call to the ministry is a call to prepare and a call to study. And from my own calling in the ministry at the age of 16, I knew that theological education was part of the calling, that for me to be the man and the minister of God that God had called me to be, I knew that there was a training process, that there was a submission process on my part to learning, to discipline, to study.

On my own part, I just consider that a matter of obedience, that I don't want to limit God in terms of where he may choose to use me in ministry because I was not willing to discipline myself into studying to prepare as a minister.

Now, I want to add, Mike, you mentioned about laypersons and others. We actually have a degree program here at Southern Seminary designed specifically for laypersons called our Master of Arts in Theological Studies.

It's a 48-hour, it's a two-year program where you take the basic courses in Old Testament, New Testament, theology, philosophy, et cetera. When I was pastoring before I came here, I recommended men in our church, men who might possibly serve in leadership, deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers, Bible teachers, individuals who just want to know more of the word of God and of theology.

I said, what a blessing we have to be just an hour away from Southern Seminary. And I would encourage you to take your weekends and take a class every now and then. I think the same thing is true in Boston with all of our extension sites.

If you're a layperson in this area, you can take classes with us. They're on Friday nights and Saturdays, so you don't have to miss work. You work Monday to Friday to pick up additional study. That will only enrich your own walk with God.

It will only enrich your study of the word of God, your own teaching ministry. If you're a Bible teacher or church leader or what have you, what an opportunity. I think we should take advantage of every opportunity God gives us to study His word, to know more about Him, that He will use all of these things to conform us more to the image of Christ.

Amen. Well, we've sent about at our church here, a smaller church, Bethlehem Bible Church, probably eight to 10 men to go there because I'm committed to send men to learn more about this, like you said, our great God.

And if we're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, it helps us to understand God and His decrees, His immutability in a seminary setting with expert teachers who have walked with the Lord and now want to equip other men.

And so if you're listening today and you'd like to know more about Southern Seminary, you can either email me at info at nocompromiseradio .com, or you can go onto the website, www .sbts .edu forward slash extension, and we would love to be able to help you.

Dr. Greenway, thank you for your work at the Extension Center. Thank you for your work equipping men to preach the gospel so the churches are edified, and I appreciate the time today a lot. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mike, and appreciate so much the chance to be with you and your radio audience. God bless you.

Station Sign-Off and Legal Disclaimer

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

If you're a member of the service, please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.