Kevin T. Bauder For me, learning to read was like being initiated into the mysteries of a secret society. The ability to look at marks on a page and to register those marks in my brain as words, sentences, ideas, and stories—well, it seemed magical. It still does. People who did not enjoy reading perplexed… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Pastors work with people, so they need personal skills. Pastors work with churches as organizations, so they need administrative skills. More than anything else, however, pastors work with ideas. They do the work of the mind. At minimum, they seek to grasp the meaning of God’s Word and to communicate it to… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder The Sixth Commandment forbids murder. This commandment is one of God’s moral laws, grounded in His nature, and articulated across the dispensations. The first murderer, Cain, faced God’s judgment for his crime (Gen 4:8–12). After the Flood, God pronounced capital punishment to be the penalty for murder (Gen 9:5–6). Jesus expounded the… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder (With apologies to Wilbur Smith, who has already used this title, and to Murray Harris, who borrowed it from him before I could) I won’t sugar coat the news: I just turned sixty-five. I can remember when my mother’s father turned this age. He seemed ancient and used up. But then he… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder One of the blessings of living in the United States of America is freedom of speech. No American needs to ask permission to state his mind, whether in public or in private. This freedom is recognized as a fundamental right—the kind of right that the Declaration of Independence calls “inalienable.” What is… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder The summer has not gone as I intended. Of course, many folk can say the same, what with the restrictions imposed in the wake of COVID-19. That’s not what I mean, though. I saw those restrictions as an opportunity. Suddenly my entire summer schedule opened up. I didn’t have a single speaking… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Edmund Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, spoke of the “unbought grace of life.” What he meant was that we receive from our forebears a patrimony of ideas, perspectives, habits, attitudes, and sensibilities that together make life more humane. We pay nothing for this patrimony: it is given to… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder After two days of the rioting in Minneapolis, I had occasion to visit with a friend—I’ll call him Simon. Simon is nearly my age and has recently retired from two simultaneous careers: as a police detective and as a platoon sergeant in the National Guard, with whom he served multiple deployments in… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Robert G. Delnay arrived at Denver Baptist Theological Seminary when I was beginning my Middler year during the late summer of 1980. He came to the school both as dean and as a professor. In the latter capacity he taught Greek, homiletics, and church history. The Greek class met at 7:00 AM… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Whether American churches are really facing a new Dark Age is debatable. What cannot be doubted is that ministry has become more complicated. We live in an increasingly secular culture that confronts Christians with new challenges. Christianity will not be conserved in its integrity without pastors to provide conservative leadership. Consequently, schools… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Anybody who gets into the business of predicting the future is on hazardous ground. None of us can see even one second into our future. Only God can, and where He does not reveal it to us, we had better admit ignorance. What we can do, however, is to project trends and… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Twenty years ago almost no reputable college, university, or seminary offered distance education. In fact, “distance ed” was one of the marks of a diploma mill. Nevertheless, the new computer technologies, and especially the internet, were about to provide platforms that could be used for widespread experimentation in distance education. An early… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder By every indicator, historic, mainstream fundamentalism is a shrinking movement. Churches are shrinking. Fellowships are shrinking. Mission agencies are shrinking. Schools have closed and those that remain are scrambling for students. Furthermore, the churches are producing fewer young people who feel any sense of calling toward vocational ministry. From an educational perspective,… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder To get to work I have to drive south about five miles and then west about four miles. I can take a variety of routes to cover that distance. I can drive south through city traffic on either Douglas or Winnetka Avenues. Alternatively, I can take County Road 100 or US 169,… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder One of the reasons I went to seminary in Colorado was because of the mountains. The Rockies were not my only reason. They weren’t even the most important reason. Some might think that they were a carnal reason, though I disagree. Nevertheless, the natural beauty of those high peaks certainly entered into… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder “My faith has found a resting place not in device nor creed….” This line opens one of the hymns that used to be sung regularly in Baptist churches. It is still sung in some. It can be taken in two ways. One is to suggest that devices and creeds (or symbols or… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder How many recessions have I lived through? The first one I can remember was the “stagflation” triggered by the oil crisis and stock market crash in 1973-74. Then came the recession(s) of the later Carter regime: a double dip in 1980, which was then aggravated by the Iranian Revolution and its subsequent… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Can we talk? There’s a problem that I’d like to share with you. It’s not one that I can fix, but maybe you can. Since I’ve been at Central Seminary, the Lord has permitted me to occupy many pulpits. I’ve enjoyed visiting the churches, getting to know the people, and fellowshipping with… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Last week I published the first half of my “Most Interesting Reading of 2019” list. These books aren’t necessarily the best that I read. They’re not even necessarily the most commendable. Instead, they were the books that I found most interesting, for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the reason may… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Every year I try to publish a list of the books that I found most interesting during the preceding twelve months. Usually these are books that I have just read for the first time. Occasionally they are books that I’ve found either so important or so interesting as to merit a second… Continue Reading