I Will Build My Church
Faculty Interview: Jonathan Gibson This Winter, Westminster Magazine had the chance to sit down with Dr. Jonathan Gibson and reflect on his first five years at Westminster and his recent publications. The following interview has been lightly edited and compressed for clarity and concision. Westminster Magazine (WM): You recently crossed the five-year mark of teaching at Westminster. What feels different to you at this point? What’s changed at the seminary culturally or even institutionally in those five years? Jonathan Gibson (JG): Well, I think the infrastructure of Westminster has really improved in the last five years. The lecture rooms are better equipped. . . certainly from a technological point of view there’s been some great advancements. I think at the seminary overall, I would say I’ve seen an increased focus on training people for pastoral ministry. More guys are coming in wanting to be pastors and more are leaving feeling called to the pastoral ministry. I think that’s really down to Dr. Oliphint when he was Dean, and Dr. Kent Hughes—they really helped rebuild the PT department and did a lot of ground work. And then the appointment of Drs. Currie, Poirier, and Edwards has really helped us solidify and strengthen that. WM: Is there a conscious effort to make other programs, apart from pastoral theology, more pastorally oriented? How does that work out for you in the Old Testament department? JG: I can’t speak for other classes, but for the Old Testament department—myself, Iain, Stephen—we’ve all been pastors at different points, and came with experiences of ministry in different settings, e.g., the mission field. And I know each of us teaches very much from that perspective. . . we’re always trying to show how the text leads to certain pastoral applications, asking “How would you preach from this text?” WM: What are you excited to see happen at the seminary over the next five years? What would you like to accomplish?
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JG: Staying focused on the main thing. Keeping the main thing the main thing. And that is training men for ministry and training women for ministry in appropriate female contexts. But staying focused on the main thing, not trying to become too big or broad, but basically staying narrow and focused on what Westminster was founded as. And that is to train people to be faithful ministers of the gospel, not just in America, but across the world. The other thing I would say that’s really encouraged me in the last five years is that I think there’s been a renewed interest and focus on orthopraxy as much as orthodoxy. We’ve been known as a seminary for fighting battles that have to do with doctrine and the truth of the Scriptures, which were all good and necessary. But there are also battles to fight on personal piety and godliness, integrity and faithfulness in ministry and marriage. And I think those are just as important. In 1 Timothy 4:16, Paul says to Timothy, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” And I’ve certainly seen that become a greater focus among faculty and the student body and in our classes in my time here. WM: Do you see that as a larger area of focus now in the Presbyterian church? Has that been neglected perhaps, in Reformed churches and seminaries? JG: I think so, yes. In evangelical and Reformed seminaries and churches I think there has been a disconnect between orthopraxy and orthodoxy at times. Charles Spurgeon famously said during the Downgrade Controversy that doctrine was the coal to fuel the fires of Christian piety. . . But I would also put it the other way around as well—the coals of Christian piety are needed to stoke the fires of orthodoxy. If you read the Pastoral Epistles, that relationship between godliness and
