Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 180:718 (Apr 2023)
Article: The Table Briefing: The Demands Of Ministry
Author: Darrell L. Bock

BSac 180:718 (April-June 2023) p. 228

The Table Briefing: The Demands Of Ministry

Darrell L. Bock

and

Kymberli M. Cook

Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas.

Kymberli M. Cook is Assistant Director of the Hendricks Center and a PhD student in Theological Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.

The demands of Christian ministry have drastically changed in the last one hundred years. Perhaps what illustrates this most clearly is the shift we have seen in the last century’s communication methods and its subsequent impact on our societal and individual psyche. In 1924, most individual communication was carried out through letters and at times through the telephone, which could shockingly be wired to individual residences. When immediate communication was necessary, a telegraph was still the more economical option. Mass communication was largely through printed newspapers and radio. The only video available was in the newfangled moving picture industry, now called movies for short. Contrast that world with ours today, which permits a live video stream from an individual’s perspective on the other side of the world. This shift alone has resulted in a booming global pluralism, as each person and culture’s perspective can be widely demonstrated and represented.

We no longer have the luxury of ignorance or silence. The societal expectation, perhaps even growing ethic, is now that these perspectives each be elevated and supported lest we risk an affront to human dignity. Christian leaders, who encompass some but by no means the majority of these perspectives, must now decipher when and how to speak into this public sphere, with the potential that those statements might be broadcast on a wider platform than most Christian leaders have ever been given. There is little room for error and little public grace afforded. Christian ministers must be experts in a wide variety of areas to survive in this ecosystem.

BSac 180:718 (April-June 2023) p. 229

We are in a world where there are more of us, more tightly connected than we have ever been. The playing field for ideas has been leveled and access is everywhere.

Over the past ten years, the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary has used this “Table Briefing” space to highlight many of these specific areas, suggesting a biblically and theologically informed way forward in each of them. Some of those areas have included the skill of engagement itself—how Christians might courageously and compassionately increase their cultural intelligence, dialogue with world...