Donors’ generosity allows Southwestern to reach the world

Southwestern Seminary’s vast reach is possible only as God’s generosity reaches us through the generosity of God’s people, Interim President D. Jeffrey Bingham told friends of the seminary at the annual President’s Club dinner, Dec. 6.

On his many trips to Italy, Bingham has admired the noted sculpture Michelangelo’s David, which depicts David preparing to take on Goliath, his right hand powerful and larger than life. The hand of the sculpture sends a message, Bingham said. 

“It’s saying, ‘Look at my hands. Do you see what I am able to do with them, what humanity is capable of?’” Unlike Michelangelo, our faith as Southwesterners is not ultimately in humanity, Bingham said, nor is our confidence fundamentally humanistic. Rather, our faith is in God’s provision, in God’s hands, as He generously provides our needs through donors’ hands. 

“Every day, Southwestern’s message is based on biblical truth,” Bingham said. “We are devoted to one thing here—making disciples. Every lecture, every book assigned, is devoted to one thing. We are devoted to making disciples. But we cannot do it alone.”

“We need a miracle,” he said. “We require the work of the hands of God’s people. We desperately need your hands.”

Throughout its history and through recent events, Southwestern has remained steadfast in its devotion to its mission, Bingham told the group in his address. “We have put our hands to the plow, and we are not looking back,” he said. “We are Southwestern, and we are looking forward.” 

He added, “Were you visiting us this year, you would not have known we were undergoing a period of transition. Our faculty and our staff carried on, without skipping a beat.”

Bingham also related the story of how he came to know Christ. As a boy, he was in a hotel in Tunisia, waiting for his parents’ return, and left with nothing to read except a Bible—a gift from his sister. “I was disinterested in the mercies of God,” he recalled. “I kept reading. Then, all of a sudden, everything that Matthew was saying about the Lord, I believed.” 

Because he was given the gift of God’s Word, then believed, he became a devotee of the words of Paul: “faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17). Southwestern strives to make the Word of God heard throughout the world, he said.

This fall, 644 additional students joined the ranks of Southwestern enrollment, “from 45 nations, speaking 13 different languages,” Bingham said, “with the belief that they will receive a trustworthy training based on the Word of God.” Many of them will return to their countries of origin and pass on what they have learned here.

“Would you join us in this divine calling to make disciples?” he asked. “We ask you to join us on this journey where we are only spectators of the things God is doing here on earth.”