Pastor

Since my freshman year at Dallas Christian College (1982), I have continuously been involved in ministry.

This includes full-time ministry in the local church from 1987 – 2001, and part-time or volunteer ministry in the local church (while also serving in Christian colleges) from 2001 until the present.

In all of that time, I have never NOT been actively serving in the local church.

Teacher

From 2001 until the present, my primary vocation has been as a professor and administrator in Christian colleges.  My vocation is the center of my calling, my ministry; I am a pastor who happens to teach and lead, not a teacher who pastors on weekends.

Scholar

I earned a Ph.D. in Religion (New Testament Studies) from Baylor University in December 2002.

My dissertation was published by Sheffield Phoenix Press in 2008, and has been well-reviewed in the scholarly journals.

In 2009, I published a commentary on Philemon and the Pastoral Epistles in Smyth & Helwys’s Reading the New Testament series.  In the commentary, I strove to be useful for preachers of the biblical text by giving them two things: enough historical and linguistic information for them to understand what Paul wrote, AND a picture of the practical teaching of spiritual truths central to those letters.