Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 27:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: From The Editor’s Desk
Author: Anonymous

JMAT 27:1 (Spring 2023) p. 1

From The Editor’s Desk

Dear Readers,

I would like to thank my colleague and friend Dr. Mark McGinniss for his years of excellent work as the lead editor of the Journal of Ministry and Theology. Dr. McGinniss took the helm in Fall 2017, and he has done a phenomenal job these past five years guiding the journal with a steady hand and keen editorial instincts. As a longtime reader of JMAT, I have deeply appreciated his work. Thanks and honor are due, too, to Daniel Wiley, who has served faithfully as the journal’s book review editor since Spring 2019.

With this issue, it is my privilege to introduce Thomas Overmiller, who will serve as the journal’s new book review editor. Thomas is an M.Div. graduate of Baptist Bible Seminary and the pastor of Brookdale Baptist Church in Moorhead, Minnesota. He is also a gifted writer and administrator, and I count it an honor to work alongside him. If you would like to contribute a book review, Thomas can be reached at [email protected].

The articles in this issue of JMAT were originally presented as papers at the 2022 meeting of the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics, held at Southern California Seminary in El Cajon, California. The theme of this year’s council meeting was a question: Does dispensationalism matter? (It is the kind of question we should probably ask regularly about the various doctrinal positions we hold: Do these convictions really matter? Do they make any demonstrable difference to Christian faith and practice? And if they do not, then some degree of theological reexamination or reordering is probably in order.)

In answering that question, we at Baptist Bible Seminary would contend that dispensationalism does indeed matter. It is not merely a set of peripheral doctrinal observations that can be tacked onto (or scraped off of) one’s theological system without consequence. Rather, a dispensational viewpoint makes a significant impact on how we understand both the character and promises of God and the church’s identity and function in the present age. Such far-ranging issues as the meaning and mode of baptism; church membership; church offices and worship practices; tithing; the believer’s relationship to the Mosaic Law; the church’s relationship to the Kingdom; and the parameters for Christian social engagement are directly affected by the degree to which one holds a dispensational approach to Scripture and theology.

Furthermore, as many of the articles in this issue demonstrate, a dispensational approach to Scripture is able to make much better sense of the Biblical text than do non-dispensational approaches. For that reason alone, if for no others, we would be inclined to hold dispensationalism in high esteem. ...