Derek Brown

Brothers, Read ‘The Christian Ministry’ by Charles Bridges

Our Chief Shepherd gives his servants fellow under-shepherds to come alongside and provide much-needed encouragement and instruction in the pastoral ministry.

Scripture is a Practical Theology: A Vision for Theological Education

Whenever I teach a class on systematic theology—Bibliology, Soteriology, Pneumatology—I begin with an hour-long lecture on theological method. I want our students to see that doing theology isn’t simply a matter of collecting relevant Bible texts and expositing each passage in its original context. That step is essential and foundational, but for our theological formulations…

Pride and the Pastor-Theologian

Scripture warns us repeatedly that the pursuit of man's praise disables us from rightly understanding and interpreting Scripture.

Charles Spurgeon: Pastor-Professor

If you’re a gospel preacher, you’ve heard of Charles Spurgeon. His ministry was unparalleled during his life, and his ongoing influence through his books and written sermons is amazing by any standard. His unique ability to illustrate biblical truth and portray the love of Jesus Christ to sinners has captured readers—fellow preachers and laymen—for generations.…

Brothers, Kill Distractions

Many are telling us today that we must limit the distractions in our lives in order to be more productive. While the temptation to be diverted from our work existed prior to the twenty-first century, our contemporary setting—with the development of personal technology and ease-of-access to the internet—poses a unique challenge to our ability to…

The Privilege of Training Pastors

In this installment of The Pastor-Professor, I am not going to focus on syllabus construction, educational philosophy, or classroom management. I want to step back and consider the grand privilege and strategic opportunity of training pastors.  If we’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that time is short. From Covid-19 deaths, to the sudden departure of famous…

Keep Reading

If you’ve been teaching your particular class or set of classes for several years, you may already have a substantial amount of lecture material prepared for each quarter. If you are just starting in your work as a college or seminary professor and still in the early years of course development, you may find that your material…

Crafting Your Learning Objectives

We’ve all heard the old adage, “Aim at nothing and you’ll hit it every time.” This statement may sound a little cliché by now, but it actually contains some time-worn wisdom. Without clear, well-stated goals, we can never really measure if we’ve accomplished anything. In the classroom, it’s not enough to disseminate information for eleven…

The Well-Rounded Professor

Theological education is unique. While there may be parallels between what we do at TCBS and what occurs in other institutions of higher education—we meet in classrooms, we provide our students a syllabus at the beginning of each quarter, we test learning progress through the means of quizzes, tests, and papers—there should be a distinctive…