“This is a graduation ceremony. These are commencement exercises. But first and foremost, this is a service of Christian worship,” said President Adam W. Greenway during Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s spring commencement service, May 10.
He explained, “We have gathered together to sing hymns of praise, to hear an address from God’s Word, and to do something that is exceptionally significant: to commission nearly 300 graduates from undergraduate degrees through Ph.D.’s — people who will go forth and touch the world and impact eternity.”
The commencement service saw 208 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral students walk across the stage in the seminary’s MacGorman Chapel to receive their diplomas — with additional students from around the world graduating in absentia. Before doing so, they listened as Greenway delivered his first-ever commencement address as president of Southwestern Seminary.
“It is an awesome thing to have been entrusted with the giftings, with the calling, and now with the theological training to be used in Kingdom service. That is a weighty responsibility; it is a sacred obligation,” Greenway said.
Delivering an exhortation from 2 Timothy 2:1-13, Greenway provided three specific reminders for the graduates as they go forth from the Fort Worth campus. He reminded them of the importance of faithful teaching and sound doctrine; the fact that trials, suffering, and pain will come; and the importance of keeping their eyes, their hearts, and their minds on Jesus.
“In the day-to-day grind of the ministry and on mission, it can be so easy to become distracted and diverted with all of the busyness and the stuff and the meetings and the schedules and the problems and the calendar and everything else, that you neglect that rich personal communion in your relationship and your walk with Christ,” Greenway said. “May I just remind that you will never be before the people of God what you are not alone in the private prayer closet with God.”
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Source: Baptist Press
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