Tom J Nettles

With the promise of numerical growth, pastors are annually bombarded with new leadership techniques and paradigms for ministry. Many of these are influenced more by secular business philosophy, pragmatic thinking, and homespun advice than the Bible. The church is left spiritually impoverished and ill-equipped to face the challenges of secularization for want of a biblical-theological vision for ministry. This book fills a gap in the literature by being exegetically vigorous and obviously informed by biblical, historical, and systematic theology. The result is a robust work of pastoral theology able to meet the ministry challenges of the twenty-first century. There is no more important institution in the world than the church. And the best way to strengthen the church is to strengthen her shepherds. This is the aim of The Resolutions of a Pastor.

South Carolina Baptist Richard Furman (1755-1825) personified a host of seeming contradictions. As a Regular Baptist baptized by a Separate Baptist, an ardent patriot with puritan sensibilities, a Federalist who zealously defended religious liberty, and a slave-owning aristocrat who associated with backwoods revivalists, Furman is a complex figure in American history. His doctrine of atonement exhibited this same complexity, as he uniquely held to both a penal substitutionary theory of the atonement as well as to a moral governmental view, models of the atonement that were often conceived as mutually exclusive in the nineteenth century. Furman was the first of his American Baptist kind to attempt to integrate these two models. As a Baptist standing at the political, cultural, and theological crossroads of America, Furman blended Edwardsean and confessional Calvinism, Regular and Separate Baptist traditions, and a host of other elements into his theology, laying the groundwork for an entire generation of Southern Baptists who followed in his theological footsteps.

South Carolina Baptist Richard Furman (1755-1825) personified a host of seeming contradictions. As a Regular Baptist baptized by a Separate Baptist, an ardent patriot with puritan sensibilities, a Federalist who zealously defended religious liberty, and a slave-owning aristocrat who associated with backwoods revivalists, Furman is a complex figure in American history. His doctrine of atonement exhibited this same complexity, as he uniquely held to both a penal substitutionary theory of the atonement as well as to a moral governmental view, models of the atonement that were often conceived as mutually exclusive in the nineteenth century. Furman was the first of his American Baptist kind to attempt to integrate these two models. As a Baptist standing at the political, cultural, and theological crossroads of America, Furman blended Edwardsean and confessional Calvinism, Regular and Separate Baptist traditions, and a host of other elements into his theology, laying the groundwork for an entire generation of Southern Baptists who followed in his theological footsteps.

Are we living in the last days?Church history is divided on this important Christian doctrine.The existing prophetic models for the last days and second coming of Christ do not provide adequate explanations for biblical passages stating Jesus would return within the first century. This inadequacy results from the piecemeal development of these models. This sporadic development has created models that demand erroneous assumptions and unbiblical corrective devices in their interpretation of key passages and terms. Michael A. Rogers corrects these assumptions and systematically develops a comprehensive prophetic model capable of explaining these problematic passages, resulting in a model that respects both the Bible's teaching and the orthodox doctrine of the historical Church.

Are we living in the last days?Church history is divided on this important Christian doctrine.The existing prophetic models for the last days and second coming of Christ do not provide adequate explanations for biblical passages stating Jesus would return within the first century. This inadequacy results from the piecemeal development of these models. This sporadic development has created models that demand erroneous assumptions and unbiblical corrective devices in their interpretation of key passages and terms.Michael A. Rogers consults volumes of Scripture, literature, historical sources, and lines of reasoning to develop a new, better model of biblical prophecy. The end result is a prophetic model capable of explaining these problematic passages while respecting both the Bible's teaching and the orthodox doctrine of the historical Church.FINALIST: 2021 Southern Christian Writers' Conference (SCWC) Notable Book Award- Nonfiction

American Baptists emerged from the Civil War as a divided group. Slavery, landmarkism, and other issues sundered Baptists into regional clusters who held more or less to the same larger doctrinal sentiments. As the century progressed, influences from Europe further altered the landscape. A new way to view the Bible--more human, less divine--began to shape Baptist thought. Moreover, Darwinian evolutionism altered the way religion was studied. Religion, like humanity itself, was progressing. Conservative Baptists--proto fundamentalists--objected to these alterations. Baptist bodies had a new enemy--theological liberalism. The schools were at the center of the story in the earliest days as professors, many of whom studied abroad, returned to the United States with progressive ideas that were passed on to their students. Soon these ideas were being presented at denominational gatherings or published in denomination papers and books. Baptists agitated over the new views, with some professors losing their jobs when they strayed too far from historic Baptists commitments. By 1920, the Northern Baptists, in particular, broke out into an all-out war over theology that came to be called ""The Fundamentalist-Modernist"" controversy. This is the fifty-year history behind that controversy. ""In the period between the Civil War and World War I, Northern Baptist theology drifted increasingly to the left. This transition provoked the fundamentalist-modernist controversies among Northern Baptists in the 1920s and 1930s and ultimately inspired the rise of Baptist fundamentalism. In this helpful study, Jeff Straub examines the trends, personalities, and rivalries that led to the ascendancy of theological liberalism in the Baptist North."" --Nathan A. Finn, School of Theology and Missions, Union University ""The historiography of religious liberalism and that of American fundamentalism have until now been kept in separate compartments. Straub brings the two together, explaining how liberals gained control of a previously-orthodox Baptist denomination. This story sets the stage for understanding how and why fundamentalism burst onto the scene. Those who wish to understand fundamentalism must begin by understanding liberalism. Straub's book provides a significant contribution to this understanding."" --Kevin T. Bauder, Central Baptist Seminary of Minneapolis ""In The Making of a Battle Royal, Jeff Straub addresses a serious gap in the study of North American Baptist history. Until now, with a few notable exceptions, historians have tended to focus on the rise of fundamentalism while our understanding of the emerging thought and theology of Northern Baptist liberal/progressive academics has remained fragmented and in relative obscurity. With deftness, depth, and diligence, Straub takes his reader on a journey through the events and exchanges that established a liberal Baptist identity and facilitated the emergence of liberal Baptist hegemony. We owe Professor Straub our gratitude for bringing this history to light."" --Paul R. Wilson, President, the Canadian Baptist Historical Society ""Nineteenth-century liberal theology claimed to be about life and freedom. In reality, it brought spiritual death and bondage to the then-current mentalite. The story of this devastation among Baptists in the northern United States, one that especially involved the seminaries, is now definitively told by Professor Straub with both a depth of scholarship and verve that are truly admirable. A profoundly insightful work and must reading for all concerned with handing on our most precious faith."" --Michael A. G. Haykin, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ""This is an excellent addition to the literature on American Baptist history. Well researched and well written, it offers a fine-grained treatment of the rise of liberalism in the country's Baptist seminaries, especially. It is written by a Baptist in defense of conservative Baptists for a series aimed pri