Why So Much Emphasis on the Second “I” in TBC’s Mission?

An astute reader of The Baptist Courier’s monthly magazine recently asked me: “It seems like The Courier has really emphasized that second ‘I’ in your slogan on the front, ‘Instruct.’ Why?’”

Amazing question, and a vital one. I’m glad it was asked, and I will use this month’s G&T to take a stab at answering it. But before I give a direct answer, I want to present a disturbing survey that, in part, drives my answer. In its 2025 State of Theology survey, Ligonier Ministries uncovered some startling revelations among evangelical Christians, many of whom could — in theory, at least — be Southern Baptists. Their findings show a disturbing lack of biblical knowledge and wholesale confusion over the fundamentals of our faith among conservative Christians:

• 54 percent of evangelicals in the U.S. agree that “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”
• 53 percent think “The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.”
• 47 percent believe “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”
• 69 percent believe “Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.”
• 51 percent believe “Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.”

Ligonier’s revelations are deeply troubling. Biblical and theological illiteracy seems to have reached an all-time high among evangelical Christians. As for Baptists in South Carolina, I’m not certain of the situation, so please don’t take this as any assumption on my part. I imagine because of the long presence of hundreds of faithful churches, the numbers of biblically literate Christians would range higher across the Deep South than Ligonier’s findings — but perhaps not.

Whatever the reality, as editor and president of South Carolina’s Baptist newsmagazine, our fundamental task remains twofold: reporting on God’s work among SCBaptists (and thereby recording SCBaptist history for posterity), and upholding the central teachings of God’s Word.

I have the privilege of serving as a journalist, a professor, and a regular teacher in a faithful, nearly 200-year-old SCBaptist church, so I directly serve students, readers, and church members. I tell my church history students, no matter what I’m doing — whether I’m teaching college students on the early church, writing an article for The Courier or preaching in a local church — that the fundamental call of God as I understand it remains the same across all the disciplines: Proclaim His Word. It is fundamental because God has invested His transforming power in His Spirit working in human hearts through His Word, and that’s foundational to my own call to ministry.

Study of God

A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” At TBC, we want readers to think clear and biblically accurate thoughts about God. You may say, “But I have a right to my own interpretation and my own opinions, and I don’t need yours”; but, as Bernard Baruch put it, “Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” This is why “Instruct” has grown into a major part of what we do through our various ministries — from our podcast, Courier Conversations to our books at Courier Publishing 1821 — at TBC.

All this necessitates a beautiful word, a word that unnecessarily intimidates some: theology. The Bible is a book of theology — a theologically annotated story of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. Theology should not be a daunting word for Christians.

Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley, in their excellent new work, Essentials of Reformed Systematic Theology (Crossway, 2025 — see “New and Noteworthy Books” in this issue) writes, “Christian theology is a human description of the authoritative knowledge and wisdom that God has revealed in His Word so that we may know Him and live unto Him through Jesus Christ.” Puritan theologian William Ames penned my favorite definition of theology: “The art of living well,” because, in the words of Solomon, “as a man thinks (or believes), so is he” (Prov. 23:7). What we believe about God determines what we believe about man and everything else.

In his excellent systematic theology for laypeople, Everyone’s a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Ligonier, 2019), R.C. Sproul asserts that everyone is indeed a theologian; to say Jesus Christ is Lord, or there is no God, or God is good is to participate in theology. The question, Sproul says, comes down to this: Are we good theologians or bad ones? God has revealed Himself to us in the Bible, so we can know Him. So, at TBC, it comes down to our work seeking to answer the question of the Ethiopian eunuch: “How can I understand unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:26–33).

Theology Is Good for Health

Sound doctrine furnishes the raw materials that build faithful, healthy churches, the good seed that grows strong, godly Christians. It’s powerful and has an effect on everyone who studies it. J.I. Packer wrote, “All theology is also spirituality. If our theology does not quicken the conscience and soften the heart, it actually hardens both; if it does not encourage the commitment of faith, it reinforces the detachment of unbelief; if it fails to promote humility, it inevitably feeds pride.” But I’ve heard all the popular objections to the necessity of studying theology:

• “Don’t give me theology, just give me Jesus.” Yes, but which Jesus? The Jesus of LDS doctrine or Jehovah’s Witness teaching? They believe in a Jesus, but not the Jesus of orthodox Christianity. For that, we need the theology of Chalcedon, the four Gospels and the epistles.
• “Don’t give me theology, just give me the Bible.” Impossible. See my words above.
• “God is too great for us to know.” Nope. That’s false humility and sub-Christian. He inspired a book about Himself and bade us study it to show ourselves approved, able to rightly understand and teach it (2 Tim. 2:15).
• “Theology is too dogmatic, is unloving, and divides Christians.” Yet Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, wrote, “Love rejoices with the truth” and Jude 3 commands us to “earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We only know Jesus and God’s commands through Scripture, and that involves us in theology. God has spoken. We must hear and obey Him. As for it disrupting unity, sound doctrine unites, Beeke rightly argues, but false doctrine divides (Acts 20:30). “A church without good theology is more vulnerable to division, not less,” he writes.
• “Theology is for the head, but Christianity is for the heart.” Writes Beeke: “It is a grave mistake to set the knowledge of the heart against that of the head. We should not despise the careful and rigorous study of theology.” Theology, rightly understood and applied, does not bifurcate head and heart.

Where to Start?

Studying the Bible and theology is for every Christian. Therefore, TBC will devote space to teaching and encouraging the study of the Bible, theology, and all things related to the life and godliness of readers, with an aim at encouraging individual and church health. Beeke and Smalley offer nine lines of sage advice as to how we should go about this important task:

1. Read the Bible completely and repeatedly.
2. Study particular books of the Bible.
3. Interpret Scripture with Scripture. Learn to see Christ as the center of the entire Bible.
4. Ask questions about the text’s meaning and application. Pray and petition God as the psalmist did: “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18).
5. Become familiar with good confessions of faith and catechisms.
6. Read good books, especially older ones, about theology and church history.
7. Take notes on what you learn.
8. Discuss doctrine with thoughtful Christians.
9. Receive correction and criticism humbly, always going back to God’s Word.

Take Up and Read

Theology is not just for pastors, scholars, or seminary students. The Bible is a book of theology, so it is an enterprise for all believers. It needs to be well-taught. Paul’s words to the church at Thessalonica encourage us: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess. 2:13).