I Peter answers the question: How do we live as Christians in a non-Christian world? The ‘we’ is an important part of the question because the nature of Christian existence and witness is essentially corporate. The book is about a chosen people and their struggle with the growing alienation they are experiencing. Continue reading “ELECT EXILES OF THE DISPERSION”
It is decisively gospel-centered, where the exaltation of the person, work, and words of Jesus Christ holds priority over everything and is the sieve through which everything else is tested.[1]
If in a church setting, it is one where the above principle is modeled.
If in a church setting, it is one which is missional and shows a commitment to urban church planting and world-wide church planting, especially in the allocation of its resources.
It practices a gospel-centered collegiality and sharing of resources with other evangelical seminaries, especially those in the same locality.
It has professors who are discerning and generous enough to glean from and teach from the best of evangelical theologies which contribute to being gospel-centered.[2]
It has professors who are gospel-centered enough to respect a diversity of evangelical views in the classroom.
It has professors who are practitioners with a heart for urban church planting and for church planting world-wide and who spend part of their tenure working in urban churches and all of their tenure in pastoral work.
It requires first year students to do at least a one-year internship in an urban gospel-centered church[3] that is either a church plant or a church planting church.
It has a student body that reflects a theological, ethnic, and economic diversity.
It has urban church planting and world missions as part of its core curriculum.[4]
It has a curriculum that never loses sight of the big story of the Bible of what God accomplishes for humankind and the cosmos through the person, work, and words of Jesus Christ.
It garners the support of gospel-centered churches regardless of their denominational affiliation or differences in second-tier theological commitments or their differences on second-tier moral issues. [5]
[1] This gospel-centeredness would be reflected in its hermeneutic, its theology and exegesis, its practical theology, its fellowship, etc.
[2] Teaching their own distinctives and systems, yet with a generosity to other evangelical systems.
[4] Regardless of where one ends up in ministry, cities are the cultural centers in the world and World Missions is a non-negotiable; therefore, everyone in ministry should be well-informed of both.
[5] First-tier theological commitments are those Scriptural beliefs which are essential to the gospel, i.e. the essence of what it means to be a Christian in all times and in all places. First-tier moral issues are those unequivocal Scriptural precepts that are held in consensus by Christians in all times and in all places.
