by Brice Bigham | Mar 29, 2024 | Graduate Testimony, Student Profiles
My name is John Zacchio Jr., and I am married to my wonderful wife Faith Zacchio. Together, we are raising 2 beautiful children (Josiah & Maeve) while we await the arrival of our third child, Owen. We live in Southern California, in San Diego County, where I serve as a pastor of Faith Community Church, Carlsbad. This summer I am graduating with my M.A. in Theological Studies and I want to express how thankful I am for my education at CBTS.
I have the privilege of Pastoring alongside other elders in our church through leading the music ministry, facilitating discipleship (which includes conducting/organizing membership interviews and assimilating new members), and preaching regularly.
It has been an incredible privilege to study at CBTS. God has used this experience to:
- Grow me in my knowledge of and delight in the person of Jesus Christ. I was encouraged from day one to take in the information I received from professors and process it devotionally. Thus, processing what I learned with God Himself through prayer has caused me to respond to the Lord in worship. “Christ-focused” is a core value of the school, and that was not an empty promise. Christ is magnified in each class. Growing my affection for Christ has caused me to desire His law and preach Christ more passionately and confidently than ever before. I attribute this to the content of each class and the accessibility and pastoral heart of each professor who graciously dealt with me as I peppered them with questions.
- Grow me in my exegetical and theological acumen. I believe I have been equipped with not only the best resources and books that supply me with sufficient answers to pressing questions in theology, but I have been equipped with the skills necessary to do theology and study scripture well within a confessional framework. After learning under Dr. Decker and Dr. Emadi, I can go to my study of scripture with my Greek New Testament in one hand and the 1689 confession in the other and be confident that I will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, interpret well and feed the sheep the Word of God without having to be overly dependent on commentaries. After learning under Dr. Barcellos, I can look at the whole of scripture and remember that “Subsequent revelation often makes explicit what is only implicit in antecedent revelation” and thereby, lay hold of the revelation of Christ and His promise which unfolds from the Old to the New Testament. After learning under Dr. Waldron, I can make proper distinctions between theological categories, which aids me in exegesis and protects me and fellow church members from old and contemporary errors.
- Establish Godly friendships and partnerships in the gospel. The in-person modular class resulted in me having an ongoing text thread (representative of our ongoing friendship) with two friends I met at the seminary. These brothers mean so much to me. We call/pray for one another often from our respective states, and I will never be able to separate my seminary experience from the relationships formed with these two men. Grant and Ian, thank you for challenging me and pointing me to Christ— I love and am thankful for you brothers.
This merely scratches the surface of what I learned and took away from my experience.
The most beneficial class had to be Eschatology with Dr. Waldron. It helped me rethink so many things that I was taught growing up in dispensationalism, and I think I truly understand the unfolding story of scripture for the first time in my life.
I would simply recommend CBTS because of what is offered in the mission statement: Informed Scholarship, Pastoral Heart. This isn’t just a clever marketing slogan used to generate leads for the school. This is a promise upheld by each professor and embodied in each assignment. If you desire to receive an informed scholarship and develop a robust understanding of God and His Word, and if you desire to develop a pastoral heart, learning from practitioners caring for souls in their local churches, then CBTS is for you.
Did you know that you can help us in the training of pastors like John? If you would like to learn more about how you can partner with CBTS to train the next generation of gospel ministers, visit us at CBTSeminary.org/monthlygiving.
Brice Bigham serves as the Director of Development & Marketing at CBTS. He is an M.Div. Student at CBTS and serves as a Deacon at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Owensboro, KY. He lives with his wife Alina and their four children. Brice particularly enjoys church history, homesteading, and spending time with his family.
by Tom Nettles | Mar 26, 2024 | Old Testament, Practical Theology
Here in the finale of Job’s last appeal for a hearing with God, he lays out his case that he is willing to plead with this all-powerful being that seems to be his adversary. He laments the loss of former days of favor with God and man (Job 29:1-11) He was an oracle of wisdom and a power for righteousness and justice (29:12-17). He sensed that all his days would be filled with renewed and increasing security, prosperity, health, and strength (29:18-20). The regard given him by people was of implicit trust and virtually self-evident truthfulness of insight. “After my words they did not speak again, and my speech dropped on them” (22).
All has changed! None of the former awe-stricken trust and reliance survives. The human rubbish of the land now mock him and taunt him in his putrid situation. “I have become their taunt, …they abhor me and stand aloof from me.” None will come to Job’s defense—“No one restrains them” (30:13). Now replacing the placid confidence and satisfaction of the past, his soul is poured out within him because God has cast him into the mire and is manifesting his strength in a step-by-step systematic destruction (30:16-23). Contrary to the compassionate response he gave to those who cried for help, his cries and mourning receive no comfort from God or man (30:24-31). “I go about mourning without comfort; I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help” (28). Existentially, he has no sense of the blessing Jesus pronounced, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
Job resumes his defense against the false pronouncements made by his accusers (31). He points to the determined way in which he has pursued purity in his moral life, the punctilious care he has given to showing mercy to the needy, and the purposeful detachment he has maintained regarding earthly wealth. Neither his enemies, nor strangers, nor his land, nor his tenants can accuse him of cruelty or a covetous presumptuousness about his possessions. Job wants to bring all these things before the Almighty so that he might see exactly what the charges are against him.
Job described his determined pursuit of moral purity (31:1-12). This involved purposeful strategy to avoid any opportunity for lust toward younger women (1-4). When Jesus pointed out that to look on a woman in lust was to commit adultery (Matthew 5:27-29), he pointed to the connections that all of our senses have with our depraved affections. Sight is particularly susceptible to those connections, and for this reason John mentioned the first two elements of the “world” were “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.” (1 John 2:18). Job knew this intuitively and had been given a heightened sense of righteousness by divine grace so that he had made a covenant with his eyes to avoid any gaze that could induce lust.
Even though he might not act upon this lust, Job is aware that God on high knows all his thoughts and will discipline for those internal acts of unrighteousness (2, 3). Workers of iniquity will at last come to destruction. As surely as we are justified by faith through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, condemnation comes from the conglomeration of unrighteousness that flows from the unrenewed heart (Revelation 21:8). Job knows that neither thought nor action can pass unknown and uncounted by God (4).
Job continued his earnest defense of a commitment to sexual virtue in verses 9-12 – As with younger women, so with married women, Job knows that adultery is a heinous moral perversion worthy of every level of punishment. He sets up a scenario that was a well-known and justly reprobated violation of moral life. He called adultery “a lustful crime,” not only a blemish on one’s personal life but something so destabilizing to society that it was an iniquity even before judges. This violation of the home had far-reaching implications into the stability of personal and social life and was peculiarly abominable to God. He puts forth a situation in which he has conceived a lust for another man’s wife and fondled it and planned for an execution of his lust at a time of the least possibility of detection (9).
In verses 10-12, he agrees that should he have done such a thing, the most severe manifestation of judgment from God would be expected and just. God’s own providence would provoke a like violation of Job’s domestic safety and integrity. Such a judgment fell on Daivd because of his violation of the wife of Uriah (2 Samuel 12:11). So it was with the false prophets in Jeremiah 8:10. This sin would tend toward condemnation from human courts and for the ultimate ruin of his life both in time and eternity (12). Jesus gave clear teaching that sins against persons in human society were to be material for judgment in eternity. See Jesus’ employment of this evaluation of a crime from its susceptibility to human judgment to its condemnation before God in Matthew 5:21-26.
Adultery strikes at the very root of the happiness and stability of society and should be subject to severe human laws. It also violates God’s intention for the demonstration of faithfulness in the abstract for those made in his image. It profanes the image of God and his commitment to his people and will be judged with commensurate penalty at the bar of eternal justice. The invincible commitment of Christ to his bride, the church composed of the people given him in eternity by the Father, is mocked by the committing of adultery. No church should tolerate it among its membership but should insist on repentance and the sincere detestation of such a sin. Job’s abhorrence of this sin is a condemnation of our licentious age and our lax churches.
Dr. Tom Nettles is widely regarded as one of the foremost Baptist historians in America. He joined the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he was professor of Church History and chairman of that department. Previously, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. He received a B.A. from Mississippi College and an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southwestern. In addition to writing numerous journal articles and scholarly papers, Dr. Nettles has authored or edited nine books including By His Grace and For His Glory, Baptists and the Bible, and Why I Am a Baptist.
Courses taught: Historical Theology of the Baptists, Historical Theology Overview, Jonathan Edwards & Andrew Fuller.
by Timothy Decker | Mar 26, 2024 | Systematic Theology
Either have enough theological-political debates or read enough modern, scholarly treatments on Romans 13:3–4, and you will inevitably encounter the argument that the divinely inspired text does not teach what the civil magistrate ought to do but only a description by Paul of the Roman government of Paul’s day (AD 56–58). In other words, some teach that Rom 13:3–4 is not prescriptive apostolic teaching for the civil magistrate but rather descriptive teaching of Paul’s day. Consider Robert Jewett’s words from his Romans commentary, “Romans 13:1-7 was not intended to create the foundation of a political ethic for all times and places in succeeding generations—a task for which it has proven to be singularly ill-suited. … Paul had no interest in the concerns that would later burden Christian ethics [e.g. political theology], and which continue to dominate the exegetical discussion. His goal was to appeal to the Roman audience as he conceived it, addressing their concerns in a manner that fit the occasion of his forthcoming visit.”[1]
An easy argument for this interpretation is that the language and grammar of command/imperative is not used in vv. 3–4. On the other hand, when Paul wants to give prescriptive statements toward a Christian’s duty to the civil magistrate, he uses many imperatives. Wouldn’t this suggest that vv. 3–4 is merely a description of what is, based on the indicative verbs used and not what should be?
However, the common and prevailing view, especially among the Protestant and Reformed, was the prescriptive understanding toward the civil magistrate. That is, Paul was giving apostolic teaching as to the role, purpose, and function of the civil government. He was prescribing what the civil government ought to do in human society. In this article, we will explore multiple exegetical reasons for why this is so.
1) The Titles of the Civil Magistrate Imply Prescription
Just as the titles of “pastor” or “shepherd” imply a duty in the sphere of the local church, so also does the titles Paul gives to the civil magistrate in Rom 13:3–4. In fact, there are two different titles used of the magistrate, and one of them (a very lofty title) is used twice! The first and highly honorific title for civil government is “the servant of God” (θεοῦ διάκονός; theou diakonos). This exalted term is used twice in Rom 13:4. As many are apt to point out, we get the transliterated term “deacon” from the same word translated “servant” in v. 4. And it is this term especially that we infer a prescriptive role, in that to be a “servant” or “minister” is to actively serve or administer.
Not only is he called a “servant of God,” he is also called “an avenger” or “one who punishes” (ἔκδικος; ekdikos). Just as the title of the ecclesiastical office of “overseer” implies a prescriptive role of administration in the church, so also does the word “avenger” imply a prescriptive role for the civil magistrate. The term must have prescriptive connotations if it is to have any significant meaning.
2) Context from Romans 12 and Vengeance
In the previous chapter, Paul prohibits personal vengeance by saying in 12:19, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” While the chapter divisions may be a bit deceiving, there context between Rom 13:3–4 and 12:19 is only separated by four other verses! With that in mind, the language of “vengeance” (ἐκδίκησις; ekdikēsis) being God’s, or leaving it to “the wrath” (τῇ ὀργῇ; tē orgē), or “never avenge [ἐκδικοῦντες; ekdikountes] yourselves” from 12:19 is the same language used in 13:4 of God’s servant who is “an avenger [ἔκδικος; ekdikos] who carries out God’s wrath [εἰς ὀργὴν; eis orgēn].”
You don’t have to be a Greek expert to see the similar language used for vengeance and wrath. And what Paul declared in Rom 12:19 concerning God getting vengeance is fulfilled in the temporal sense by way of his “minister” or “servant” who administers that wrath upon evildoers. The close proximity of these passages would imply that they are referring to the same thing. And if Rom 12:19 is prescriptive for Christians, then we would also expect the fulfillment of God’s wrath administered by the civil magistrate as prescriptive also.
3) Paul’s Statements Match Peter’s Statements
Few times can I, as a NT teacher, demonstrate how important dates of writings are. Here, the epistle to the Romans written by Paul was likely written around AD 57 or 58. This was still well within the first five years of Nero’s reign, that has been described as a very good one. So, the argument goes, it is easy to see why Paul would tell Christians to submit to a good government in Rom 13:1–2, especially as vv. 3–4 would generally and historically describe Nero’s reign up to Paul’s present day.
However, the apostle Peter’s first epistle was written long after Nero’s reign of terror begun. In fact, the mention of “fiery trial” from 1 Pet 4:12 might be a subtle reference to the fire of Rome begun by Nero in July of 64 in which he blamed the Christians and led to their great persecution. If so, then Peter’s words concerning the civil government in 2:13–14, which nearly line up perfectly with Paul’s statements in Rom 13:3–4, came later than Paul. They would also imply that the general teaching from both apostles were prescriptive. That is, the same role for government was said during good times (Rom 13:3–4) or in tyrannical times (1 Pet 2:13–14). The implication is clear: the prescriptive teaching of Scripture for the civil magistrate is “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Pet 2:14).
4) Indicative Statements are Often Used for Prescriptive Truths
As mentioned above, one of the major objections to interpreting Rom 13:3–4 prescriptively is the grammar used, namely indicative verbs stating what is rather than imperative verbs command what ought to be. But what about occasions where prescription is inferred from the titles (point #1), implied from the context (point #2), and supported by the rest of the Bible (point #3)? Are there other parts of Scripture that use indicative statements and still teach prescriptive truths?
We might point to passages such as “the laborer is worthy of his wages” from both Luke 10:7 and 1 Tim 5:18, which is an implied indicative statement with a prescriptive title (“laborer”) and prescriptive context. In the case of 1 Tim 5:18, Paul used both the teaching from Deuteronomy and Luke to prescribe the church’s duty to pay her pastor. However, the context also used an imperative—“be counted worthy.” But then again, so does Rom 13:1–7. The sole imperative in 1 Tim 5:17 is for the elders, but it is fulfilled passively, that they might be counted worthy by their flock. The command is fulfilled by the church. But the duty of elders is to “labor in preaching and teaching” (not imperatives). To say in the indicative “the labor is worthy of his wages” is by implication a command to pay the laborer. Therefore, an indicative easily implies prescriptive truths.
Similarly, 1 Cor 9:8–14 also prescribes the church’s duty to remunerate her ministers. No imperatives were used in this passage, although appeals from the OT certainly were. And while an official title is not used, the Greek grammar does lend itself to such a use in 1 Cor 9:14 saying, “The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel [τοῖς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καταγγέλλουσιν; tois to euangelion katangellousin] should live from the gospel” [bold added]. The same kind of language is used in the previous verse (v. 13) of the priests as “those who are employed in the temple service,” implying an official capacity and labor.
The consensus from this one example is that the apostle Paul is more than capable to elicit prescriptive language from indicative statements, such as are found in Rom 13:3–4. Any objection to the switch from the imperative to the indicative is not a conclusive argument, for the context and lexical choices may also infer commands even if the grammar does not.
[1] Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 786–787.
Marcus Borg in the 1970’s made a similar argument. “When Paul wrote this passage to the Christians in Rome Judaism was on the brink of catstrophe as a result of its longstanding resistance to Roman imperialism. An emerging Christianity, founded by a Jew whom the Romans had crucified – regarded still by Rome as a Jewish sect, and inextricably implicated, by history and culture, by ideology and associational patterns, in the Jewish world – was inevitably caught up in the crisis of Jewish-Roman relations. What was the right posture to adopt toward Rome? This was a burning question for Diaspora and Palestinian communities alike, one certain to underlie any theoretical interest in the status of civil authorities. … Paul’s advice [from Rom 13] was not theoretical, nor vaguely general, and certainly not adulatory in its attitude toward Rome; that it advocated an immediate policy, based upon Paul’s understanding of the purpose for which Christ died, for negotiating a specifical political crisis.” See Marcus Bort, “A New Context for Romans xiii,” in New Testament Studies 19.2 (1973): 218.
For another recent and scholarly commentary arguing for a similar view, see Richard N. Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 961–965.
Dr. Timothy Decker is one of the pastors of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Roanoke, VA, having joined them in 2018. He holds a B.A. and M.A. biblical studies from Carolina University (formerly Piedmont International University), a Th.M. in New Testament from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Capital Seminary and Graduate School. In his dissertation research, he examined the style of biblical Hebrew poetry in the New Testament. He has presented various papers at academic society meetings and authored numerous articles in several different scholarly journals. He is a member of ETS and IBR. When he is not reading or researching, he enjoys spending time with his wife and four children.
Courses taught at CBTSeminary: Elementary Greek I, Elementary Greek II
