This Fall we are excited to offer a course on Tim Keller’s bestselling new book Center Church – Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City.

This class will be taught by Dr. Tuck Bartholomew and will focus on teaching students to translate the gospel into the life and culture of the city. Dr. Bartholomew served on staff at Redeemer NYC with Tim Keller for eight years prior to planting City Church in Philadelphia in the Redeemer City to City Network.

At the conclusion of the course there will be a special visit by Tim Keller in January 2014.

Registration is now open for Center Church Class. The course will be offered on four full Wednesdays this Fall. Dates are TBD.

This class may be audited for free by local pastors and ministry leaders.

If you are interested or have questions please contact Jason Bobo at jbobo@redeemerseminary.org.

At Redeemer the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the heart of the seminary’s mission. Giving our students an opportunity to serve the global church by learning to translate the gospel into new cultures is a powerful and transformative opportunity. This summer we will be going back to Senegal with the opportunity to experience the growing local ecclesiology within its Western African context.

By partnering with the already flourishing church planting network in Senegal, students are able to experience the work of the Spirit with both the Senegalese people and within themselves through this opportunity to exercise and strengthen their particular gifting in ministry. The purpose of this trip is to assist the Senegalese church in both the teaching, training, and assisting of its leadership as we continue to build relationships with our brothers and sisters in West Africa.

WHEN:

June 29th – July 9th

TEAM CONTACT:

Derek Laughlin | dereklaughlin1@gmail.com

Team meetings will begin soon so if you are interested in this exciting opportunity please contact Derek to express your interest or to answer your questions.

Hear from last year’s team that served in Senegal:

After introductory remarks by seminary President Steve Vanderhill, Mowrey spoke about the Center’s vision, and the crucial need for musical training within the context of a seminary. “There is a 100% guarantee that every single pastor and church leader will be asked to address issues of music within the context of corporate worship, and it is absolutely vital to the life of the church that its leaders know how to think critically about music,” Mowrey said. She discussed the importance of the church’s song, arguing that the sounds of worship—whether word, song, or instrument—communicate to God, the body of Christ, and the watching world. “The music of a church is often the most audible and immediate sign of how a church worships—how the church approaches and comes before God. The church’s music is a powerful witness to the watching world about how we view and worship our Savior. Seminaries must train students in the area of music with the same care and diligence as with theology,” Mowrey said. RCWM Council member Stephen Nielson closed the evening by asking the audience to consider the significance of RCWM’s mission and vision, particularly in a culture that often devalues music.

The Redeemer Center for Worship and Music exists to advance worship of the triune God by providing training, resources, research, and edification in the principles, history, and practice of worship and music, all in accordance with Scripture. RCWM desires to train and equip seminarians, musicians, music directors, pastors, church leaders, and congregants to develop skill, wisdom, and discernment about music’s role in corporate worship. Through RCWM, students will eventually be able to earn a Certificate in Worship and Music (either independently of a degree program or concurrently with a Redeemer degree). In addition to classes, the Center will sponsor conferences, concerts, and other events for all who wish to grow in their understanding of the church’s music.

Redeemer professors Paul Tripp and Jeremy Lelek will be speaking at this year’s conference along with Matt Chandler, Ed Welch, Garrett Higbee, Justin Holcomb, Margaret Ashmore, Greg Love, and John Henderson.

REGISTER HERE

#ABC13 Solace Conference Promo Pt 1: Responding to Sexual Abuse from Assoc. of Biblical Counselors on Vimeo.

Redeemer Seminary stands in the tradition of those who came to this continent to protest what our Founding Fathers unwaveringly called tyranny —- the denial of civil and religious freedom by the British monarch. So it is appropriate that, as a community, we give thanks for Dr. King, the leader of the non-violent activism which strikingly advanced Lincoln’s intent in 1863. It is also a time to affirm that, as individuals and as a community, we will continue to seek Lincoln’s purpose when he said in his Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in…” Surely the Gospel of our Lord, calls us to nothing less, as we would seek in small and large ways the implications in all our social and spiritual settings, of what Lincoln proclaimed and Martin Luther King, Jr., with his Bible in one hand and his copy of Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers From Prison in the other, so bravely and meaningfully sought.

In our day, there may be new fronts, which President Lincoln and Dr. King could never have foreseen, where Christians will have to fight institutionalized tyranny. May the Lord give us thanks for past examples of leadership and courage for future challenges.

Yours in Christ,

Joseph (Skip) Ryan

Chancellor

Want to learn more about your faith and grow in knowledge and understanding, but don’t want to go to seminary full-time? Or maybe you don’t think you are the “seminary type.” Well you don’t have to enroll full-time to attend and we certainly don’t believe in seminary being right for only a certain type of people. We welcome all who want to grow in their walk and want to learn and understand new areas of their faith in Jesus. Whether it’s Church History, Biblical Counseling, or Apologetics you are interested in, consider taking a class in whatever you care about most.

Take a look at a few of the course offerings and see if you would like to sign up for a class this year and see what it’s all about. All are welcome to audit a class or stop by and sit in on a class to see what it’s like before you commit. At Redeemer we are a learning community made up of people that want to learn more about their savior Jesus Christ and how he has called us to live in fulfilling his Great Mission. We would love to have you join the Redeemer family this year.

Here are a few classes this Spring:

DOCTRINE OF SALVATION 1

This class is taught by Dr. David McWilliams and focuses on the person and work of Jesus Christ. From his deity and sonship to resurrection and victory, this classes takes a close look at Christ’s work in rescuing his people.

HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHURCH

Dr. Carl Ellis explains the story of the African-American church in the United States by discussing its origins, culture, and where it is today.

WESTMINSTER STANDARDS

This Systematic Theology course goes through the history and content of the Westminster Confession of Faith. A detailed look at the entire Confession will result in a clear understanding of a document that was intended to unite the church during a period of intense persecution. This class is taught by Professor Bill Burns.

INTRODUCTION TO WORSHIP & MUSIC

Our new Center for Worship & Music will offer its first class that will examine the ways in which we use music in our worship of God and how the beauty of music reflects the created order. This class will be led by Dr. Hannah Mowrey.

If you are interested in any of these classes and want to learn more please feel free to contact our Registrar, Cynthia Hildebrand, to learn more. You can email her at childebrand@redeemerseminary.org or call at (214) 528-8600.

At one time or another most of us have stopped to consider the following question: When was Jesus born? Our minds typically run to the most familiar answer: December 25th of the year 0! The correct answer is that Jesus may have been born on December 25th but was definitely not born on the year 0. He was in fact born between 4-6 B.C. How was Jesus born before Christ? Let me explain. The idea of demarcating time as years before Christ (B.C.) and after Christ (A.D., from Latin: Anno Domini = in the year of the Lord), came from a sixth century monk named Dionysius Exiguus. Dionysius reasoned that if Jesus Christ is the Creator and Lord of history then there is no need to date our years according to the reign of temporal rulers like Roman Emperors or kings. So Dionysius invented the B.C./A.D. dating system, but it wouldn’t make its way into mainstream thought for another two centuries. In the year 731 the English scholar Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and in this work incorporated Dionysius’ dating system. Bede’s work was immensely popular throughout the Middle Ages and has remained the way of understanding years even to our own day. However, Dionysius made a mistake in his calculations, and so the years are off by about five, hence, 4-6 B.C.

The actual month and date of Jesus’ birth is more complicated and conjectural. According to the Roman calendar spring equinox fell on March 25th, and people felt this date carried a sense of re-creation and life. A prominent third century theologian named Hippolytus spoke of March 25th as the date on which the world was created by God. He even went a step further by arguing that it was also the date of Jesus’ death. By doing so he sought to join creation and redemption on the same date. Christians began to deduce that if Jesus died on March 25th, he must have been born on March 25th thirty three years previously, a deduction that was made because of what is called the “whole year theory.” This theory supposes that when someone’s death date is recorded, it is speaking to the whole year, not partial years. Several years later, in an ingenious move, a man named Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that we should understand March 25th as the Incarnation insofar as it was the day Jesus was conceived. He first took on flesh at his conception. So if Jesus was conceived on this date then he must have been born nine months later on December 25th.

The date of December 25th was further supported by biblical imagery related to light. Early Christians were reading the Old Testament with Christ in mind, and at least one theologian found Malachi 4:2 to apply nicely to the Son of God: “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.” Motifs like “light” and “rising” were applied easily to Christ. After all, light imagery plays a large role in Scripture, especially John’s gospel, and the resurrection (“rising”) has always been the hope of the church. But this dating in December gained even more traction with a popular feast in the Roman world. The third century Roman emperor Aurelian instituted the cult Sol Invictus, that is, the cult of the Unconquered Sun. This cult was celebrated on December 25th—winter solstice—because this was the day in which the sun began to grow stronger and stronger. A feast was celebrated to announce the sun’s strength and prominence in Roman religious life. Christians seized on this as they understood Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, as growing stronger and stronger after his birth at the time of the winter solstice. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Feast of John the Baptist is six months after that of Jesus. The summer solstice in June marks the diminishing of the sun and coincides nicely with John the Baptist’s own words in John 3:30: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” A document called the Chronography of 354 is our earliest piece of evidence for the date of Jesus’ birth as December 25th. It records how the church in Rome declared this date in the year 336.

It is true that to a certain extent the Feast of the Nativity, or Christ’s Mass, was an opportunity to counter a pagan feast. This provided Christians with a way of appeasing Roman converts who were accustomed to celebrating a religious festival on that day. But by redirecting this pagan holiday towards Christ they sought to capitalize on people’s religious yearnings and habits. As the liturgical theologian Laurence Hull Stookey states it, the “nature religions now could be seen as incomplete strivings after the truth made known fully in Christ.” Alongside the increasing popularity of ascribing Jesus as the “Sun of Righteousness,” December 25th became solidified in much of the Western ecclesiastical tradition.

Let me end by noting a great irony in all of this. The celebration of Christ’s Incarnation has become so important for us today, yet we have no record of any Christian formally celebrating the Incarnation prior to the year 336. However, prominent Christian theologians in these early centuries such as Melito of Sardis, Clement of Alexandria, and Athanasius, were men whose writings are characterized by the saving importance of the Incarnation! So whether or not we choose to celebrate Christmas let us not forget how the Father sent the Son to live, die, and rise for our salvation, and gave us the Spirit for new life and power. For that we rightly proclaim, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

This is Redeemer Seminary in Austin’s first lecture in what will become a quarterly series of lectures for the community. Please come on December 11th at 7:15 to Redeemer Seminary’s Austin Campus and hear adjunct faculty member, Steve Bagby, lecture on the history of the Church Calendar as it pertains to our annual worship at Christmas. This will be a 35 minute lecture followed by questions and a hymn sing.

Refreshments will be provided. We hope that you are able to attend.

Seating is limited and will be distributed on an RSVP basis, so please be sure to register for your free tickets at Eventbrite HERE.

If you are interested in being a part of Redeemer Seminary financially we would love to hear from you. Contact our Vice President of Ministry Partnerships here.