Preacher Exhorts Seminarians at New Orleans Baptist Seminary to "Preserve the Gospel"
Author, speaker, and Bible teacher, Voddie Baucham, delivered powerful exhortations to a crowd of seminarians during campus-wide revival at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) earlier this month.
During the 3-day event that began on March 1, Baucham explicated 2 Timothy, according to Baptist Press, noting "Every chapter of this letter, we see that two-pronged theme -- that theme of preserving and proclaiming the Gospel and, side by side with it, the idea of enduring the suffering that will inevitably come as a result of doing so."
Baucham, a former Rice University football player, reminded the crowd of God’s great command to the Christians, to "preserve and proclaim the Gospel and to endure the hardships that go along with it."
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"That's where we are this week," he said, "to ask God to revive us to that kind of calling, because there are times when, for whatever reason, one of those two things gets out of whack."
Many questions that Baucham presented called for self-examination and opened a new perspective on life for the seminary students, faculty, and staff gathered for the revival.
“Are you living life with an eternal perspective?” he asked. "Are you involved in ministry now or are you moving toward ministry now because somebody told you that you are gifted? Or are you moving toward ministry because you have a character that will serve as the foundation upon which God can build greatness for Himself and for His namesake?
"Are you developing godly character or are you just developing skills that will make you a good living someday?"
For the final message, Baucham delivered message on 2 Timothy 4:1-5, re-emphasizing on the call to proclaim the Gospel.
He also pointed out the message of unreliability of biblical exposition, which he referred to as a lie that is being spread preachers often encounter when they go out to world after receiving proper training to accurately preach the Word of God.
"If this isn't what you start with, it doesn't matter what you build with," Baucham exclaimed, holding up the Bible.
He then explained that the ultimate reason he believed in Biblical exposition is that it "promotes the spiritual growth of both the pastor and the people."
He concluded the sermon with a call to live biblically.
"People who sit under biblical exposition for a long time learn to handle the Word of God for themselves," Baucham said. "It will build into people's lives not a dependence on me or an awe of me, but a dependence on and an awe for the Word of God and for the Author of the Scriptures."
