Episode 15: Seminary OR Church-Based Education OR BOTH!

Matt Wireman00:00:23 - 00:01:00


Welcome to another episode of Off the Wire. This is Matt Wireman
and I am so thankful to have with me Dr. Brian Arnold, who is
currently serving as the president of Phoenix Seminary. And that
is really fun to say. I met Brian while he and I were students at
Southern Seminary together. And I believe we had an early church
history class on Augustine together, if I'm not mistaken. And I
had no idea that guys that I was going to school with were going
to be president. So here you go. So I'm really thankful to have
you, Brian, on this podcast. And I just wanted to thank you for
your time.


Brian Arnold00:01:01 - 00:01:03


Well, it's great to be with you, Matt. Thanks for asking me on.


Matt Wireman00:01:03 - 00:01:24


Yeah, so you, we were chatting before we hit the record button
and you've been at Phoenix Seminary for five years you say and
then just recently have taken the post as present. Can you kind
of walk us through what that transition has been like and what
you find yourself busying yourself with as opposed to what you
found yourself busying yourself with?


Brian Arnold00:01:25 - 00:02:55


Absolutely. So in 2014, actually, I got a call from a friend of
mine, Dr. John Meade, who was also at Southern with us. He was
doing his PhD in Old Testament and said, hey, are you looking for
a job in academia? And I was pastoring at the time, and I'd love
to tell more and more about that if you'd like. And he said,
there's a position open to Phoenix. So I applied for it and got
the position. We moved across the country in May of 2015, which
is not the time to come to Phoenix to get the brunt of the brutal
summers. See if you're really committed. That's why you went to
Phoenix. Absolutely. And taught in church history and systematic
theology for those first couple of years. What I recognized
pretty quickly about myself is as much as I love scholarship and
I enjoy writing and lecturing, I also noticed, one I've noticed
this my entire adult life, even before, is a mentorship and a
desire to help make things better. So some of my colleagues are
exceptionally gifted scholars, but I always found myself drifting
into more meetings and thinking through curricular issues and
just noticing, especially at Phoenix Seminary, how much potential
I saw here and wanted to maximize that as much as possible. And
part of it was I never thought I'd actually get a job even
teaching at a seminary. And I wanted to make sure the Phoenix
Seminary had every chance it had in this kind of environment to
be successful in the long haul. So that's what kind of led me to
administration.


Matt Wireman00:02:55 - 00:03:10


Yeah, so your goal was not to be in higher education. It sounds
like you were a pastor when you got that phone call from John. So
like, what were you thinking? For one, why did you get the PhD if
you knew you were going to be a pastor?


Brian Arnold00:03:11 - 00:03:28


So I almost had to go all the way back to college when I first
got a taste for theology,late high school, early into college and
started devouring just different books as I found them. I
remember even I was a paramedic major in college and so I was in
fire and EMS and.


Matt Wireman00:03:28 - 00:03:30


Eastern Kentucky, right? Is that where you were at?


Brian Arnold00:03:30 - 00:05:43


I like to say Harvard of the South, nobody else does. But I had a
500-hour internship program that I had to do over the course of a
summer in the back of an ambulance and I was doing for a long
time, 24 hours on, 24 hours off. And I wanted something
substantive to read and my director for Campus Crusade said, why
don't you read this book? It's a big fat systematic theology by a
guy named Wayne Grudem. And so I went to Barnes and Noble, bought
it. And I remember walking in the parking lot looking and seeing
like, wow, Harvard and Westminster and Cambridge. And he teaches
at this place called Phoenix Seminary and I've never heard of
that before. But I read that that summer and fell in love with
even academic theology as well as a couple of my roommates in
college. And everyone I knew had gone to Southern Seminary. So
that was a no-brainer. I was an hour and a half down the road and
went to Southern. And really from my first day there, I remember
a guy named Scott Davis was in admissionsat the time. And I said,
you know, I'm going to go through the MDiv and get my PhD and I
would love to teach someday. And he was like, easy there. He
hears that from a lot of people. And he said, you haven't even
started the MDiv yet. You don't know how hard that is. And also
over that same kind of weekend, the New Student Orientation kind
of things, Russ Moore, I was sitting next to him for lunch. And
he said, you know, one of the founders of Southern Seminary said,
if your greatest desire is not to go into the pastorate, then you
probably shouldn't be teaching at a seminary. And I thought, you
know, I do have a passion for the local church and I would love
to pastor. So I kept those two ideas in my mind of what I kind of
wanted to do. And then I was realistic. I knew how many guys go
and get a PhD and never get a job in higher education. So I
thought the chances of me actually teaching at a seminary are
very slim, but I love the study of theology. And I knew that even
doing that level of work would improve my communication skills,
my ability to read better and to write clearly. And so I was
really passionate about getting the PhD and either adjuncting
somewhere while I was pastoring or writing or any kind of
combination of those things. And there was a school near me where
I was pastoring in western Kentucky that actually went out of
business the day after I went there to talk to them about
teaching, potentially.


Matt Wireman00:05:43 - 00:05:46


Where were you pastoring at in western Kentucky?


Brian Arnold00:05:46 - 00:05:50


So it was a little town called Smithland, Kentucky, just outside
of Paducah.


Matt Wireman00:05:50 - 00:05:51


Okay, awesome.


Brian Arnold00:05:51 - 00:05:54


The school that was down there was called Mid-Continent
University.


Matt Wireman00:05:54 - 00:05:56


Okay, okay. Very familiar with it. Yeah.


Brian Arnold00:05:56 - 00:06:24


They went out and I had been looking for higher ed jobs the whole
time. And I told my wife, if I don't hear anything at this ETS,
it was going to be ETS in 2014, I'm not going to pursue higher ed
anymore. Well, that's when John Mead reached out and said, hey,
are you interested? So I always wanted to go into higher ed. I
just, in some ways it was hedging saying, I know that it's
unrealistic that I'll actually get a position in higher ed.


Matt Wireman00:06:24 - 00:06:27


Just because it's such a saturation of PhDs, is that why?


Brian Arnold00:06:27 - 00:06:52


huge saturation of PhDs, less people are going to seminaries,
there's a scaling down.There was just all the confluence of
issues that make it that much harder to get into the market. I
felt like we're happening. So, I'm a pastor, the Lord is really
blessing our work there and it was exciting and I could have done
that for an entire career and been really satisfied doing it.


Matt Wireman00:06:52 - 00:07:12


Mm-hmm. So what was it about Phoenix that you would make a move?
I mean, because that's not just, you know, right down the street
kind of seminary that like you alluded to.I mean, that's a
substantial climate change, but also a substantial cultural
change. And so what was it about Phoenix particularly that drew
you to even apply?


Brian Arnold00:07:13 - 00:07:45


Yeah, if I'm just being frank, it was a job. I kept telling my
wife, you know, we could be,and I always pick cold places, and we
almost went to a school in Montreal, actually.That's a bit of
another story, but I was like, it could be Alaska, it could be
Maine, it could be Canada, and I never even thought about warmer
places, and it ended up being Phoenix, and so it was an
opportunity to get my foot in the door and begin teaching. So I
knew to find a job in higher education, in seminary education
specifically, I was gonna have to be open to moving anywhere.


Matt Wireman00:07:45 - 00:07:55


Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So you were teaching systematic theology and
church history.Well, your major was systematic theology, was it,
or was it church history?


Brian Arnold00:07:55 - 00:08:00


I'm Church History, so I study under Michael Haken and
particularly Church Fathers.


Matt Wireman00:08:00 - 00:08:23


Okay, and then you moved to Phoenix in 2014, became the
president. Can you walk us through that process? Like, I mean,
that's a big jump. So you found yourself more in administrative
type meetings. But what was it, I mean, to go from that to, you
know, to go from just being in meetings to being a president is a
pretty significant change. So walk us through.


Brian Arnold00:08:23 - 00:08:45


When I was dean for about two months. Does that count? Say what?
That I was dean for about two months before I became president.
So yeah, it's a bit of a convoluted story. Our president, who'd
been here for 23 years, had even been one of the founders of it
back in 1988.


Matt Wireman00:08:45 - 00:08:47


Dr. Del Husey, is that right? That's right.


Brian Arnold00:08:46 - 00:12:05


That's right. You have Dr. Darolda who say he had been pastor of
Scottsdale Bible Church, which is probably one of the first big
mega church churches in America. And so his background was more
in church ministry, but he recognized even back in 1988, Phoenix
is growing. Most people would be surprised, but it's the fifth
largest city in the United States. And so here you have a city
that's booming and there's no place to get a seminary education.
So all of our best and brightest, most talented pastor candidates
are leaving to go to seminary and they don't come back. So we
need something here. And we were actually a branch campus of
Western Seminary in our founding and they were independent from
them around 1994 or so. So I was following a pretty long
presidency of Dr. Del Jose, which is already a challenge in and
of itself for somebody who's that deeply ingrained here. Now he
serves as the chancellor and we've got a great relationship,
really thankful for him. But he even recognized that they needed
somebody who had more of an academic background to take it to the
next level. And hesaid, I'm just waiting for somebody to come in
and say they want my job. This is my first six months at Phoenix
Seminary. And I walked down to his office, I said, I love your
job. And I was just kidding. And I said, I'm kidding about that.
I just, I know myself, I see myself more gifted and bent towards
administration and leadership. So I would love to be mentored by
you and really get to understand what higher education looks like
from a leadership position. And so early on in my tenure here, I
was really getting involved in the leadership aspects. I helped
lead us through a major curriculum change. We had a bunch of two
hour classes, we moved to three hour class system. So that gave
me a lot of understanding in our workings. And through all that,
I was coming up under Bing Hunter, our previous provost and dean,
and was kind of gearing up for that position. Well, at the same
time, the presidency was coming open. And I wanted to throw my
hat in the ring because I see so much potential here. I'm very
thankful for where Dr. Del Jose brought us. But I also recognize
we really can get to the next level here and establish ourselves
as one of the major theological institutions in the West,
especially the Southwest. And when you think about where Phoenix
is located, we're pretty good distance away from a lot of other
seminaries. We're back east, they kind of seem to pile up on top
of each other. So there's a lot of even geographically speaking,
room here to grow. And to really, I tell all of our team all the
time, I'm asking people just to grab some basket and pick the low
hanging fruit. I mean, we're here with Arizona State University,
which is the largest undergrad, GCU, which is now the largest
Christian undergrad,we've got a great relationship with Arizona
Christian University. So I saw all these things, I kept thinking,
how can we grow this potential? And as the inside guy, I knew
where our challenges were, I knew where our threats and our
opportunities were. And so I just wanted to make a case to the
board and say, as the inside guy, I know how to tweak some dials
right now, they can get us moving in the right direction. And I
think it was a long shot. I was a long shot, I think, from the
very beginning of the whole process. And from what I understand,
just kept kind of making it through to the next level to the next
level to the next level until especially I got to be able to
present


Matt Wireman00:12:05 - 00:12:08


Survive in advance, right?


Brian Arnold00:12:08 - 00:13:53


It really is exactly what it felt like. But we used Carter
Baldwin, which is an executive search firm. When the rep, you get
to the round of eight or nine or so, he flies around the country
to meet with you wherever you're at. So we flew back out to
Phoenix and we sat down to meet for our interview. His very first
question, at the time I was 35, he said, you're 35, you don't
have much higher education experience. Why now? You're coming
into Dean's role. Why not just learn that and climb the ranks
that way? I said to him, honestly, for me, it's an issue of
gifting. The gifting and skill set, you need to be a really
accomplished dean. A lot of times, it's a very different skill
set to be a successful president. Deans are a lot of times,
they're the ones that are keeping the trains moving and they're
really keeping you within the lanes of accreditation and
assessment and all those different pieces with the DOE and ATS
and ensuring that the institution is healthy from that vantage
point. I see myself more as the big picture visionary. I want to
be out there preaching. I want to be casting vision. I want to be
meeting with donors. Because for me, donor relationships are not
only a great opportunity for pastoral ministry, but it's also a
chance to just explain what my heart is and vision is for the
seminary, and see if they want to partner with us. When I just
look at skill set wise, I saw myself having a better skill set
for the presidency. I said, that may come across arrogant, I
don't mean it to. It really is just about finding the right seat
on the bus for each person. I think I could sit in the presidency
and do okay. Here we are.


Matt Wireman00:13:53 - 00:14:46


So here we are. Yeah, well, I know it's very exciting, very
exciting. I'm really thankful that you're in that presidency.
Because one of the things that I love about your story is that
you said you could be totally content serving at a local church.
You know, and a lot of times, even within higher education,
Christian higher education, even, that there can be this sense of
climbing the corporate ladder, you know, paying your dues and
then being entitled to being a successor and all these things.
But I love that you framed it and saying, I would have been
content and happy and would have lived a fruitful life being a
pastor in a town that people hadn't heard of, because that's
valuable. Because one of the things that's unique about Phoenix
Seminary, what's the tagline or the mission statement for
Phoenix? This is a quiz. This is a quiz.


Brian Arnold00:14:45 - 00:14:48


No problem. Scholarship at the Shepherd's Heart.


Matt Wireman00:14:48 - 00:15:36


Yeah, so I would love for you to reflect on, not only as the
president, but as a formerpastor, as someone who has a pastor's
heart, a shepherd's heart, what is that relationship that you
view, and you could view it in both sides, because you've had
both hats on, of what that relationship is between a seminary and
the church. So much of the theological fighting that took place
in many of the seminaries took place because there was a
divorcing of, or a assuming of, roles as opposed to a tight
relationship between the seminary and the church. So I'd love for
you to just reflect on why the seminary is valuable to the local
church, and why then the local church is valuable to a seminary.


Brian Arnold00:15:36 - 00:18:31


Absolutely. I think we have to begin with what is God's plan for
humanity? And a big part of that is the church. Jesus died for
his bride. It is the church. That's his plan for the world.
That's his mission for the world. And so I think it's important
for people in my position now to always remember that we are
really the quartermasters. We're the ones behind, we're off the
front lines. We're equipping, we're preparing, we're training,
we're sending out. But really the battlefield's out there in the
mission field of the church. And so I'm very happy to be
recognizing my backseat role as a parachurch ministry, helping
undergird God's plan for the world. And what helped me with that
is that I've been in both worlds. So I realized very quickly in
my pastorate that had I not had a seminary education, I would
have been in a tough spot. So why is that? Like, yeah. Yeah. So
we moved to Smithland in June of 2012. And we already had a
vacation that was going to be planned. So we went on that and I'm
on the beach on the East Coast. And I get this phone call from
one of my deacons and he was a deacon and his dad was a deacon.
And he said, Hey, I just want you to know, my father's kidneys
are failing. And we don't know what that's going to mean for him.
My wife was just diagnosed with breast cancer and my daughter's
best friend just committed suicide. And I remember sitting there
on the beach thinking, okay, that was the shortest ministry
honeymoon in the history of humanity. I haven't even like really
landed there yet. And this is already, I'm already recognizing
how messy ministry is and you're really entering into broken
lives of people. Well, I was going to be preaching through
Philippians first off. And here I am at a local small Southern
Baptist church in Western Kentucky preaching three times a week,
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. And I'd probably
preached 10 times total before I took that position. So in my
first month, I'm going to be preaching more than I've preached my
entire life. And I'm going through Philippians, all of a sudden
you get to Philippians two pretty quickly and you get this issue
of kenosis. What does it mean that Jesus emptied himself? If I
had a seminary training, the background, understanding my
Christology, you can get to a text like that. It's going to take
you forever to walk through the challenges that present you in
that text. But I was so thankful because the seminary education
put me that much further ahead, even to my own preparation and
study that I was used to exegeting the text when I came
totheological challenges. It wasn't the first time I'd seen them
or thought through them before. So that actually freed me up to
do more ministry in the church because I had a deeper
understanding of the text already. Does that make sense? So,
yeah.


Matt Wireman00:18:29 - 00:19:32


Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you're not having to try to figure out
like so many times I talk to guys who, you know, are in the
middle of seminary training or haven't had seminary training and
then they, yeah, great, great example, Philippians 2, and they're
like, I didn'tknow this was an issue. And then they read one guy
and they're like, I think I agree with that. And then they read
another guy and they're like, I think I agree with that too. And
they're like diametrically opposed to each other. And you're
like, well, that will make a dramatic effect on how you for one
read all of Philippians and then the entire New Testament and
those kinds of things. So yeah, I hear you. And along with that,
just a little side note, a lot of times people ask, well, how
long does it take you to prepare a sermon? It's like, well, you
know, each sermon has got, you know, 20 years of teaching behind
it, you know, 20 years of education behind it. It's not something
that I just kind of whip up over, you know, in a week. It's
something that there is a lot of training that's going behind
every single sermon. So it's kind of a misnomer to say, well, how
long is your sermon prep? It's like, well, it's a couple decades.
That's right.


Brian Arnold00:19:31 - 00:20:06


That's right. Exactly. David Allen Black says the pastor should
be like an iceberg. People see the top 10% above the water, but
they know that there's 90% below it as well. But I don't know
that we've really helped people in the church see just how
important that is or they're not connecting those dots. You know,
this is not a knock on where I was coming from and I pastor it.
But a lot of the pastors in Western Kentucky did not have a
theological education. And I knew some of them who'd show up to
church on Sunday morning, do like a flip open method of sermon
prep, wherever they open the Bible. It's like, Hey, that's.


Matt Wireman00:20:05 - 00:20:12


like, Hey, that's, you're not, you're not exaggerating. Right? I
mean, this is like, cause people joke about that, but there were
people actually doing it.


Brian Arnold00:20:12 - 00:20:54


who did that down the road from where I was a pastor. And just to
show you this, this is not to pat myself on the back, it's to pat
seminary education on the back. That's right, that's right,
that's right. Is I had a guy who my very first Sunday was my
sermon I was preaching to get hired at the church. He's about 75,
he graduated by the army. And this guy could have taken me. He's
a strong, tough guy. And he pulls me to the side and he goes, we
don't need a preacher. Those are a dime a dozen. We need a
pastor. Do you understand what I'm telling you? And I was like,
yes, sir, I know exactly what you mean. And he wanted to know
that as I was coming into my late 20s, that I was going to love
people, be there with them, to walk through suffering.
Absolutely. I mean, that's my heart. I want to do that.


Matt Wireman00:20:22 - 00:20:23


That's right, that's right, that's right.


Brian Arnold00:20:54 - 00:22:52


Same guy, we have a great relationship, but he's not much of a
talker over the next three years while I'm pastoring. My very
last Sunday, he grabs me again and pulls me to the side. I doubt
he even remembered that initial conversation. And he said to me,
I've been in the church for 50 years, and I've never learned as
much or gone deeper in my walk with Christ or understood the
Bible as much as I have these last three years. I only tell that
story to say, and I'll tell this to my students, is don't
underestimate the power of opening God's Word and preaching
through it in an expository way. God will change lives doing
that. But it was my seminary education that helped me do that.
And even if my church couldn't articulate it, it's like, why is
our church... We were growing in a really healthy way. Other
churches, you could tell people were like, okay, these people at
Smith and First are really getting fed. And I wasn't sitting
there drawing the lines all the time for them. But when I left, I
tried to help encourage the deacon saying, think about what you
said about the preaching ministry here is because I was seminary
trained. So go back to that pond and fish again. Because I knew
quite literally, there's a couple thousand people just down the
road who love the Lord, are committed to the gospel, and have the
right type of training to do it. So now on my side of things,
that makes me even more passionate, having been a pastor for a
couple years, knowing what I needed in the pastorate. And now I
can help deliver and train that for other people who are now...
You're starting to see students come back and say, oh my
goodness, you're right.This is having a significant impact on my
ministry. I see guys here, Matt, who have been in ministry for 20
years who are now coming back and getting seminary education, who
are lamenting that. And they're saying, I put the cart before the
horse. I really wish I had known 20 years ago what I know now. My
ministry would have been different.


Matt Wireman00:22:52 - 00:24:16


Yeah. Well, I'd like to revisit this relationship between the
church and the seminary and just your diagnosis of why there is,
in some ways, you know, a dumbing down of the pastorate in some
ways of where people are like, we don't need all that education.
It's like, well, I don't know why the person has to have a
Southern accent. You know, Southerners, we get beat up on
sometimes. But, you know, you want to say you can preach, period.
Like there's a beauty in saying, you know, if God has called you
to preach, preach. And yet at the same time, we want to bridle
that horse up and be able to say there's a lot of good here. But
I just have found like a lot of times people are very quick, and
I'm sure medical doctors get this too and lawyers get this too,
where people are like, I know you studied for like 20 years, but
I read this. I've got a webMD. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of times
that happens at the church too, but in some ways, we havebeen the
cause of that problem by saying education is not important. So
I'd love for you to just kind of tease out a little bit more like
how you see the seminary serving the local church.


Brian Arnold00:24:16 - 00:27:36


Absolutely. And this argument is trotted out quite a bit, but I
think it's important. Andyou kind of said it there, people expect
their doctors and lawyers to have a certain levelof training
because what they're doing is of great importance. How much more
the careof souls, the shepherding of people's eternity, and for
people to know and understand things. Yeah, there's been a
historic challenge here, at least in the last couple of hundred
years between the seminary and the church. And when you think
back over time, a lot of the people who were most theologically
trained were week in and week out pastors. If you think about the
Reformation, you think about people like Martin Luther and John
Calvin, these guys were pastors who were also leaders in
theology. It's really not almost until the Enlightenment where
you begin to see a wedge put between the seminary and the church
as higher education because of its own kind of thing, where you
might have seminary professors who have not been pastors before.
And so I think that even then leads further to people seeing a
greater divide between them. I think it's everybody kind of
knowing those places. So as I mentioned before, recognizing, yes,
the church is God's purpose for the world, but there's
substantial training that a pastor must have in order to
faithfully execute that office. It's a high office that God has
called upon. When you think about somebody like Paul man, right,
he's converted. He's already well-trained and yet he secludes
himself kind of more training. Even think about the apostles
before they're sent off in Matthew 28. Jesus is with them for
three years. I mean, that's a pretty solid seminary education
that they're receiving. And Christian history for the last 2,000
years has been deeply invested in education and recognizing that
we are touching sacred things and people need to know those. And
so if seminaries recognize their parachurch status more and the
recognition that local churches simply cannot do what seminaries
can do. I know very few churches, maybe if any, where you have
somebody you could teach Greek, Hebrew, systematics, church
history, evangelism and discipleship, world missions, all the
different things that you kind of get from a seminary education,
local church can do this. So the idea is, right, there's a hub of
education that many churches can pour into and get trained from
and then they get sent back out to their churches. Working
together in tandem like that with the recognition that a seminary
should be chosen by a student if that seminary is deeply invested
in the work of the local church. I mean, if they're not and
they're just actually a think tank or an ivory tower, then don't
go there. But if a seminary is actually saying, look, our
heartbeat is for the local church, that is what God has given us.
All we want to do is give you those tools that you can't get from
the local church and let us equip you in those ways and then
we'll send you right back. Hopefully, we're on fire for God.
Hopefully, deeper in their ability to handle the text, more aware
of how to do actual practical ministry, all these different
pieces so that they don't get this divided. I mean, the saddest
stories are oh, Johnny was a great preacher before he went to
seminary or, you know, Bill was so in love with the Lord and then
he went to seminary.


Matt Wireman00:27:36 - 00:27:44


What happens to those guys? Why is that sometimes part of the
narrative, you think?


Brian Arnold00:27:45 - 00:28:43


It's a great question. Partly, I often wonder if it's a straw man
kind of argument. I mean, you and I were at Southern Together.
When I think back, whenever I'd hear people talk bad about
seminary, and I'm thinking, I'm with these guys who love the Lord
and are bringing their education to the pew week in and week out.
I never understood that. I never understood why people say those
things. And chances are, a lot of times it was going to be a
person who was going to be a bad fit for ministry anyway.
Seminary can't, if I can say this, maybe you'll have to edit this
part out later, I don't know. But seminary cannot take a weirdo
and make them not a weirdo. Right? Seminary can't take somebody
who has no actual gifting from the Lord in pastoral ministry and
somehow do that. I mean, there's spiritual gifts involved in this
as well. Sometimes I think seminaries unfairly bear the brunt of
criticism that we're not responsible for.


Matt Wireman00:28:43 - 00:29:53


Yeah, and in some ways, like people, you know, one of the things
at Southern, and I don't know if Phoenix does this or not, I'd
like to know, but you know, you have to get a reference from your
church that you're a member at. And I think, and I'm afraid that
many churches are not doing the hard work of saying, hey,
brother, you probably need to get some humility before you go to
seminary because there'll be some classes and I know you were in
these classes too, not you, you weren't doing this, but there
were guys in classes, I was like, I would never be a congregant
in that man's church because he is abrasive, he is proud and
everyone sees it. And then the seminary is supposed to
miraculously just say, hey, you shouldn't be a pastor. It's like,
that's not the seminary's job. It's just really frustrating that,
you know, the talking heads or the, you know, the heads on a
stick as it were, that gets to be the misnomer for seminaries
when in fact, it's taking, you know, what Paul said, a fan in the
flame, the gift that was given to you and how you do that, well,
you put more fodder on the fire and how you do that, you get more
training, you get more education to be able to do that.


Brian Arnold00:29:54 - 00:31:24


Absolutely. Yeah, they should be people that the church is
already saying, we see the call of God on your life. And, you
know, one of the ways this does go sideways sometimes, Matt, and
this is a sad situation is where people are deeply involved and
invested in their local church. People do recognize the gift that
God has given them. They want them to fan it into flame. They
recognize their need for education. They go to seminary and they
stop being that involved in their local church. That happens, I
think that's a record for disaster, right? So, one of the things
that I'm passionate about as a president here is even mentoring.
So, one of the things that I did love about Phoenix Seminary as
soon as I came here is that every student has a mentor. And I've
not really seen that in other seminaries before. And that's one
of the areas we're going to be investing in a lot more in the
next year or two. But I think about even these books on pastoral
calling. The one that always sticks out to me is Paul David
Tripp's, Dangerous Calling. And on the original cover, there's
five endorsements on the back. Three of them aren't in ministry
anymore. On a book on how dangerous pastoral ministry is. So, why
are we seeing all these ministries implode? And everybody looks
to me as though we're the sole solution. Now, we're going to do
everything we can to help bridge that, to remind people that as
deep as they go, or maybe as high as they go in academic
theology, they need to go deeper into the roots of their
spirituality.


Matt Wireman00:31:24 - 00:32:01


Trust me, just seminaries are not giving people passes. They're
not rubber stamping people. They're trying to do their due
diligence, teaching students humility by giving them
accommodating grades. So, this is actually average or below
average, go do work.So, the seminaries are...the ones who are,
like you said, embedded within and see theirmission as a
parachurch ministry are hugely...are very successful in what they
do, but people can't start imputing upon the seminary what they
ought to be doing, which is not part of their charter, right?
Absolutely.


Brian Arnold00:32:01 - 00:33:08


That's right. But this is a big fight out there right now and
debate between some theologians of what's the seminary's role in
these things. And I just see a vicious cycle of churches that are
not doing a good job of discipleship because a lot of their
pastors were never personally discipled. I was and it changed my
life. A lot of people have never had that. And then they go to
seminary and they don't really learn that because the seminary
says, well, it's not my job. And then we wonder why the local
church isn't doing it. And they're producing people who've never
seen it. And we're in this pattern.And so I want to just say,
what can we do at Phoenix Seminary to just help break someof this
pattern to say, look at how powerful and impactful personal
mentoring can be.Now, in your church, now that you have this
theological education, you've been mentored, how do you start
almost like a master's plan of evangelism? I'm going to disciple
my elders and deacons. And now they're going to take two or three
people and they're going to disciple them. Where would our
churches be? That was true. And then even thinking, you know,
some people want to use the seminary like it's a Sundayschool
class or something, right? Like I want to know more about
theology, so I'm going to go to the seminary.


Matt Wireman00:32:02 - 00:32:03


That's right. That's right. But this is a big.


Brian Arnold00:33:09 - 00:33:34


I'm fine to train those people. That's great. Come, we'll give
you a great education. But what I'm hoping is I'm putting out
pastors who can take that to their church and equip the saints
for the work of the ministry. So we just have this, you know, I
think you used this term earlier, this dumbing down all over the
place of where pastors think that what people need is something
other than doctrine and theology.


Matt Wireman00:33:34 - 00:35:33


And other than a good kick in the pants. Yeah, at times. In that,
you know, no, you did not exegete this passage appropriately. No,
that word does not mean that. And no, you cannot do that. You
know, like being able to help push people to say, no, no, no, we
are, like you said, I thought so well put that we are shepherding
souls. And there is a lot at stake. Most of the people that I
have heard of and have met that have been hurt by people are by
those who have not gone through the rigors of some kind of
training ground. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be a
seminary. It could be a church-based training ground, but some
kind of training ground as opposed to like, hey, you know, this
is, you know, Johnny Preacher that feels called. And I think in
so many ways, people, there are many wounded Christians because
they haven't, folks haven't done the hard work of being
challenged and having to come up with a biblical explanation of
why they believe exe regarding this practice that they believe.
That's right. You know, and I do wonder too, if in some ways the
seminary is inundated with Christians who love Jesus, but who are
not called to ministry because the particularly evangelical
church, since that's our context, has not done a good job of
heralding vocation. And what I mean by that is, you know, being
able to say, hey, what are you passionate about? Did you know
that you can serve Jesus faithfully as an electrician, faithfully
as a plumber, faithfully as a doctor and a lawyer? Because I
remember when I was in college, if you were really sold out for
Jesus, you went into full-time ministry. So, you know, I've
interfaced with several folks who are like, I don't know if
you're called to preaching. Well, I don't think you're called to
preaching ministry, but I think you're called to ministry, but
your bread and butter may be from somewhere else.


Brian Arnold00:35:34 - 00:37:35


Absolutely. Yeah. And there's been a lot of confusion. There's
been some good work recently, I think, that's overcoming some of
those kind of stereotypical type of pieces that we felt when we
were coming up through the ranks. It was one of the issues,
though, the Phoenix Seminary, I would say, if there was a little
bit of mission drift, it was more towards training people who
just felt the lack of solid theological teaching in their local
churches. One of the things we have in Phoenix is you will have
the hour-long worship service, and a lot of times, that's it.
There's no Sunday night. Wednesday night, I might have kids and
youth kind of ministry things, but nothing for the adults, and
then small group ministry. And we've all been helped by small
groups. I think those kinds of communities are really great for
developing deep relationships with people. But what's missing in
the churches now is that educational element where people just
don't knowthe basics of the Christian faith anymore. So, even
when a person says, I've been really involved in this church, I
feel called to ministry, and then they come to seminary, they
don't know anything because their churches have never really
invested in that. It's one of the interesting trends I think we
need to keep an eye on is how many churches are kind of returning
to a Sunday school type of model, recognizing the vacuum that's
been left when people don't know what the Trinity is and don't
know who Jesus is and don't understand salvation. We go down the
list, and we have a very illiterate church population today. And
this is the wrong time to have that. With the challenges that are
happening in society, we need people to know the faith better
than ever because there's no cultural assumptions anymore. And in
that kind of hostile environment,Christians are gonna have to
either know the word deeply or they're gonna be swept away in the
time. And that would be really concerned for the kids. And so,
yeah, we all know these issues, right?


Matt Wireman00:37:34 - 00:38:47


Yeah, no, it bears explicating because I think a lot of people
know that there's something in the water that's not tasting
right, and to be able to call it and say, no, that's arsenic. Or,
you know, that will kill you if you drink it because that's...I
mean, evenpart of my own story when I was serving overseas, I
could smell heresy when I was talking to different pastors at
different churches, but I couldn't articulate, oh, that's a
heresy because that is the kenotic theory. You know, I couldn't
do that, whereas, you know, seminary helped to do that for me.
You know, I'd love to, as a seminary president, you're sitting
down with someone who loves Jesus and is in a vocation other than
being a pastor or a missionary or going into seminary. And
they're like, I just want to grow in my faith. My church doesn't
have, you know, Sunday school. My church doesn't...like, what you
just articulated. So how would you counsel someone who doesn't
feel called to pastoral or missionary work but wants to grow in
their faith? Are there any books or are there different avenues
that they could go down that you would encourage them to get
better trained?


Brian Arnold00:38:47 - 00:40:12


Dr. Seheult- That's a great question, Matt. We are living in a
time of great resources.When you think about what's being put out
all the time, either through technology oreven through book
medium, there's just a lot of helpful things out there. So I
would encourage this person in a number of ways. One, if they're
looking at any kind of leadership in the church, from deacon to
elder, any kind of position like that, I would say seminary
education would be really beneficial. You might not need the full
MDiv, but getting in and getting kind of a Master of Arts in
Ministry that gives you a lot of the groundwork would be really
helpful. But again, for the person who just says, I'm an
electrician, but I'm passionate about the Lord, I want to know
more. I would encourage them to start with one of my colleagues'
books, actually, and that's Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem.
He's got the second edition coming out in December. And so lots
more content. And I think that's where I cut my teeth
theologically. And I know there's places that people disagree
with Wayne on some things. I do too. But it's still, I think, the
most readable, helpful entree into theology. So I think starting
there to get the kind of the whole picture of theology through
the Bible is helpful. And then I would even encourage some intro
kind of books to the New Testament and to the Old Testament,
things like Carson and Moo on the New Testament to give them
those kinds of pieces.


Matt Wireman00:40:12 - 00:40:22


You're talking about their introduction to the New Testament,
right? Absolutely. Google it, Amazon or introduction to the Old
Testament. Those are just surveys of those different books.


Brian Arnold00:40:22 - 00:41:05


Yep, yep. The Faith of Israel by Dumbrell might be a great place
to start with the Old Testament. But as a Dominion of Dynasty by
Dempster would be another great place to start with the Old
Testament. So there's all these resources. And then whoever you
want to teach you today, you can find it on YouTube. You can go
there and get a lot of great content from some of the best
teachers in the world a click away. And so take advantage of
yourself those resources. What we can't say is there's not enough
resources. Like there's plenty of those. We might say there's not
enough time and then I'd ask about your Netflix, binging, you
know, we can certainly binge some other things as well that would
be more helpful and beneficial to the soul.


Matt Wireman00:41:05 - 00:41:34


And so some of it too is along with those resources, I've found
that there are a lot of folks that feel like they're swimming in
a sea of resources and they don't know which are the good ones to
be able to find a someone that you trust. And I'm going to avail
myself to anybody who's listening to this and I know you would
too, Brian, but like, you know, if you need help and direction,
just send me a message and happy to happy to direct you because
there are tons of resources and there's tons of really bad
resources to run.


Brian Arnold00:41:34 - 00:41:47


That's exactly right. One of the things, I'm happy you said that,
Matt. One of the things that, when I got the bug for theology in
college, my roommates and I, we'd always get the CBD catalog.
Maybe that dates me a little bit.


Matt Wireman00:41:46 - 00:41:51


Yeah, no, it's still going strong. I still need to get up on
there.


Brian Arnold00:41:51 - 00:41:57


Catalog, why I still use CBD for four. And then, by the way,
let's just tell the listeners that's not the oil.


Matt Wireman00:41:57 - 00:42:04


Yeah, that's not the oil. That's Christian Book Distributors.
CVD. That's right. Not O-R-D or something.


Brian Arnold00:42:05 - 00:42:51


Absolutely. When my wife said, you know what CBD is? I'm like,
I've been shopping there for years. Let's clarify that. But
that's a great place to get resources. But I can remember getting
that and seeing some Old Testament books, especially Gerhard von
Raad's Old Testament Theology. It was like six bucks. And I'm
thinking, I don't know much about the Old Testament. I really
would love a book to help with that. But I knew enough about that
name to say, I need to be suspicious. That might not be the best
resource. But I don't know what is. When there's almost too many
resources, you go to LifeWay, and if I can say this without
getting in trouble, a lot of the resources that are fronted there
are the last things I would encourage people to read. You got to
go back into the back into a small corner section to find the
real gems there.


Matt Wireman00:42:51 - 00:43:21


Well, you know what's been interesting even in the resources that
you mentioned is not10 ways to be a better husband or 10 steps to
be a more biblical wife. It's actually learn the Bible. That's
the dearth of information that we're having a problem with is
that people don't know where Malachi is in the Bible. And they
don't know that he was a prophet. And they don't know all these
things. It's like, get to know the Bible. That's the first place
you should start.


Brian Arnold00:43:20 - 00:44:21


Absolutely. Absolutely. And then, you know, so one of the things
that was great for mewith seminary education was I'm learning to
even know what the resources are. Like, that was a big part of it
for me is now I feel like I can pick things up, know where
theywent to school, know when they went to school there, and get
a pretty good picture already of where they may stand. And then
you get the grid, right, for being able to filtersome things out.
But also, I hope you're at a church, and this is another plug for
seminary education, where the pastor has a seminary education,
who can help provide those resources, who knows those things. So
I hope you're at a place where your staff is able to do that. In
the meantime, if not, find somebody who is that you trust, and
they would be happy. Any time that people come to me and they
say, can I get a resource on X, whatever that is, that is one of
the things that give me the greatest joy in answering, because
that tells me there's another Christian out there who really
wants to go deeper with the Lord, and I'm always happy to help
resource.


Matt Wireman00:44:21 - 00:44:41


Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. Now, so for the person who is at a
church and they feel like they want to go into full-time
ministry, can you just kind of walk through how does someone come
to that decision to where they're like, I think I should be a
pastor or a missionary?


Brian Arnold00:44:41 - 00:44:47


Absolutely. I mean, step one, ps.edu, you apply online.


Matt Wireman00:44:47 - 00:44:52


And he will waive your admission fee.


Brian Arnold00:44:52 - 00:44:57


Just mention Matt Wireman in the comments or something. No, it's
a great...


Matt Wireman00:44:56 - 00:44:58


No, it's a great. Yeah.


Brian Arnold00:44:58 - 00:47:11


I wrestled with that as well. I mean, here I was in fire EMS. My
dad had been a fire chief.That's the world I knew. And I didn't
even think I could have been satisfied in a career doing that. I
know CH Spurgeon is often used, if you could do anything else
besides ministry, do it. I don't really agree with Spurgeon on
that one. Because of why? Well, because I think that a lot of
people who do well in ministry are people of deep curiosity and
they love a lot of different things and they themselves given 10
lives doing 10 different things. Well put. Right. So I would say
that God calls people to ministry and it's not unique to me. It's
kind of the historic answer in two ways, the internal call and
the external call. The internal call is when you start to say,
Lord, is that you calling me to ministry? Like, I feel a passion
for this. I want to teach the Bible. When I was in seminary, or
I'm sorry, my undergrad, one of the biggest kind of moments in my
early life was sitting at a Bible study in Campus Crusade and my
campus director is there and he's leading us through Colossians.
And I remember thinking, you get paid to teach people the Bible.
That's amazing. Like, I would love to do that. That's what I'm so
interested and passionate about. So I had that internal call. And
then I started going to other people and saying, do you see this
gift in me? Could we give me some teaching opportunities where we
can actually see, is this there? And could God use me in this
way? And I had three or four people in my life who are still in
my life to this day that all affirmed that. And so I know that
question's more for, should I go into ministry? But even for me
with PhD work, I remember Dr. Russ Fuller sitting me down in his
office and saying, I think you should consider doing PhD work.
And that was a great confirmation to me that I should move on. So
I, when weighting these things, more often weigh the external
call higher than the internal call because I can be deceived. But
chances are, if I'm asking four or five other mature believers,
do you see this call of God in my life? And they're being honest,
you're going to get some really good answers to that.


Matt Wireman00:47:12 - 00:48:38


And I think for that person to start with a posture of, I don't
see clearly, and God has given other people to me in my life to
help me see clearly. Because a lot of times, you know, folks will
ask me like, I think I'm called the ministry. And I'm like, well,
that's awesome. Celebrate, first of all. And I don't want to
stiff arm anybody in that. No, that's right. We need more
laborers. But then secondly, listen to somebody that cares for
you and actually is in the work of that ministry to say, hey,
maybe instead of going to seminary right now, maybe you could
just be here for a couple years and get some relational tools in
your belt, you know, so that you can learn like, what is it
you're getting into? Because maybe in two years of volunteering
at a church, you know, and it's not just to get free labor for
people, it's actually in a service to them to be able to say,
hey, why don't you just serve here as a volunteer, because if you
don't want to do it as a volunteer, then you're probably not,
it's going to be even more tainted when you get paid for it. I
promise you that. If you're not willing to not be paid for this,
then it's going to get tainted really fast. I've seen tons of
people in full time ministry who depend upon full time ministry
for their salaries, and their lives become a shipwreck, because
they start to treat God and divine matters as a slot machine, you
know, and


Brian Arnold00:48:38 - 00:49:00


Absolutely. And there's not much in that slot machine. Let's just
say that as well. I mean,ministry, it was really hard. I mean, I
had breakfast with my wife this morning and we were just kind of
going over some different pieces and remembering back to my years
in pastoral ministry when things were exceptionally brutally
tight. And it was a challenge.


Matt Wireman00:49:00 - 00:49:07


As you're getting a call about a man who just, you know, has all
of those things going on in his life, right? Yeah, yeah.


Brian Arnold00:49:07 - 00:50:06


Yeah, exactly. And recognizing that there were times that I just
needed to keep going back to 1st Corinthians 9. Woe to me if I
don't preach the gospel. Like, it has to be so deep-seated in
you. And this is where I will tip the hat to Spurgeon a little
bit and say I get why he's saying that. Because there has to be
that fire in the belly. Even if I'm not getting paid for it, even
if I'm booted out of two or three churches, God has put such a
call in my life, I must preach the gospel. I want to see the
harvest field full of those kinds of laborers who just say, I'm
here because God has called me here. And even if I don't get
converts, and even if I run into wall after wall and obstacle
after obstacle, God has called me to preach and I'm going to do
it. And I think back about people like the Puritans as they were
getting kicked out of their ministries and then you have the Five
Mile Act. They couldn't be within five miles of their old
parishes. And yet they're still preachers of the gospel. We need
more of that in our day.


Matt Wireman00:50:07 - 00:50:20


Yeah, that's great. I'd love to ask what you see as a president
of a seminary, what you see are some of the challenges to higher
education right now, particularly as it relates to seminary
education?


Brian Arnold00:50:20 - 00:53:22


Sure. I think there's multiple, and there are internal threats
and there's external threats as well. The internal threats are a
lot of what you and I have been talking about today, Matt, and
that is back 20 or 30 years ago, if you were gonna go into
pastoral ministry, you would not find a position without having a
degree. A master of divinity degreewould have been the bare
requirement expected of somebody to go in. Well, now, churches
don't really seem to care about that or, you know, an undergrad
degree will suffice if it's in Bible. But let's be honest, a lot
of pastors don't even have that. They were in banking and felt a
call on their life. And so that's part of it from where I'm
sittingis how many people in churches I see who don't even care
about that minimal level of expertise in the field. So that's one
of those kinds of threats, I think. Another one, and these go
more to external than, is there's a higher ed bubble out there
anyway. And everybody kind of sees this out there as the next one
that could burst. And if it bursts, that's gonna be catastrophic
on undergraduate institutions. Well, I'm downstream of
undergraduate institutions. So if there's fewer and fewer people
going to undergrad institutions, then there's gonna be fewer
people going to graduate school as well. And so I think that
could be a place where we begin to take a bit of pressure and a
bit of a hit with enrollment that way. I think part of it is
gonna be the cultural piece. It's not getting any easier out
there. I think Christian institutions in particular that are
going to stay faithful on issues of gender and sexuality are
going to have a very difficult road ahead of them. And this is
where I hope that the Lord gives us the fulfillment of this. And
that is, I hope there's always a Phoenix Seminary. If we had to
lose our accreditation because of our stances on some of those
issues, then so be it. If we lose a lot of donor money because of
our stances, then so be it. If it's just us without walls, we're
going into a church basement somewhere and teaching theology, I
hope there's always something like that. I think about a guy like
Dietrich Bonhoeffer with Fingermann. He's, what do you do in the
midst of Nazi Germany oppression? You start a seminary, right?
It's amazing. The thing that people would think, well, that needs
to go. It's like, no, no, no, we need this now more than ever. So
all the threats that I see, those being some of the major ones, I
still believe that what we are called to do at a seminary is
vital for the health and vitality of the church. And as long as
the church is here, we're going to need places of theological
higher ed to help prepare those people in the word. So I don't
worry about the threats too much. I mean, we got to be wise and
anticipate some of those things that are coming and get ready.
But at the same time, I think our call is always going to be
there.


Matt Wireman00:53:23 - 00:53:39


That's great. I'd love to hear, I got two more questions for you.
Just as you explain some of the challenges to higher ed,
particularly Christian higher ed and seminaries, what do you see
as some of the greater challenges to the church, to the local
church now?


Brian Arnold00:53:41 - 00:55:19


Yeah, a lot of those would be the same kind of ones, right? Is
the pressure right now to conform to the world has probably not
been greater in American society since our founding, right? I
mean, this is a very new shift in Western civilization. And so I
can't imagine being a 12-year-old right now about ready to go to
junior high and high school, facing the kind of pressures that
these kids are facing from a worldview standpoint. And I think
churches have not been well equipped to speak into those. And so
they're getting a lot of it from culture, not from the church.
Well, pretty soon the churches are going to be far emptier than
they are now because of just attrition to the culture. So I think
that's a real serious, not existential threat because Jesus has
promised that the church will not be overcome by the gates of
hell. And I believe that promise and I'm not worried about the
church from that aspect, but I do think the harder times are
coming for the church. But a lot of that to me goes back and
maybe I sound like a one-trick pony on this, but I think the
deeper that a pastor is able to go and root people in, then it
doesn't matter how hard the winds blow, those people will stay
rooted. My fear is that we are seeing in the church these trends
coming. And so instead of raising the bar, we keep lowering the
bar and wondering why people don't hit it and wondering why
peopleare leaving, but we're not giving them a beautiful counter
narrative to it at all.


Matt Wireman00:55:19 - 00:55:22


Lowering the bar in what sense?


Brian Arnold00:55:21 - 00:55:55


Well, even kind of what we're talking about, right? Why is it
that the saints of God know so little about the Bible? Why do
they know so little about theology? Why is it when Ligonier comes
out with these surveys that they do, they had one question in
there, it was a couple of years ago now, maybe just a year or
two, it was something about Jesus's humanity was Jesus, like, you
know, basically was denying the divinity of Christ,almost like an
Aryan kind of response. And I don't know if it was the way the
question was worded or something, but it was like 75% of people
who took it look like they were Aryans. That should never be.


Matt Wireman00:55:55 - 00:56:21


And if you don't know what an Aryan is, that's A-R-I-A-N, go look
it up. That's one way to look it up. If you don't know what
something is, there are tons of resources to be able to just look
it up. So if you're hearing this and you're like, Aryan? No,
we're not talking about a nation or anything like that. We're
talking about the Aryanism. So look up Aryanism and you'll find
something. Even if it's on Wikipedia, that's better than nothing.


Brian Arnold00:56:21 - 00:56:24


That's right. That's right. Just don't become one.


Matt Wireman00:56:23 - 00:56:25


Yeah, exactly, exactly.


Brian Arnold00:56:25 - 00:57:34


So they're just not ready. And so we have this view in the church
that these concepts are so hard, so big, so difficult. We don't
want it to feel like school to people. So we would rather give
them 10 steps, like you said before, of healthy parenting and
marriage. And everybody wants these practical pieces without
understanding the substance of the Christian faith, which is the
greatest place for the practical piece of Christian ministry.
Like the deeper I know God, the better my marriage is gonna be.
The better I know the word, the better my parenting's gonna be. I
don't need these offshoots. I need people to take me deeper into
the things of God through his word so that I'm prepared to handle
anything that comes at us. But instead, we keep moving that
lower. And I'm always amazed when you have like an astrophysicist
in your church who's like, oh, I just don't really understand the
Bible. Look, one of the things that we believe is in the
perspicuity of scriptures. Now that's like one of the worst named
doctrines ever. It just means the Bible is clear and it should be
able to be understood by anyone who calls himself a Christian. So
I think oftentimes it's not for intellectual ability,it's lack of
trying.


Matt Wireman00:57:37 - 00:58:09


This has been awesome. I'd love to have our time closed by just a
final exhortation that you might give to those who are listening
as it relates to knowing the Bible. I think you already have done
that and I'm thankful for that, but I'd love to hear, like if you
were to sit down with someone who's listening to this podcast and
you were to exhort them towards greater love for Jesus, a greater
love for the Bible, what would you say to them over a cup of
coffee?


Brian Arnold00:58:09 - 00:59:55


Yeah, I think I would reiterate what I have just the last thing I
said is, if you really want to grow as a disciple of Christ, it's
by knowing Him. It's by loving His word. And so don't think that
I need something else outside, you know, the 10 lessons on this
or that to actually grow in the walk with the Lord. Get deeper
into those things. When I was in college, my life changed when I
got deeper into theology. When I got deeper into theology, my
walk got deeper. When suffering came in my life, it was the deep
rootedness of my knowledge of who God is that got me through, not
little trinkets on the side. And so as a theological educator and
as one who is pastored, be a person who seeks those deeper things
of God. Be a person who, if you're a pastor listening, take your
people deeper. If you're somebody who's at a church that they
just simply are not going to do that, find a new church. Life is
short. You've got to be at a place that is going to take these
things to the utmost seriousness. And I think by doing that,
Christianity itself will be able to present that beautiful
counter narrative to what's happening out there. As the saints of
God, know Him better, cherish His word, and recognize that true
human flourishing comes through loving God with all heart, mind,
soul, and strength, and loving neighbor as yourself.


Matt Wireman00:59:56 - 01:00:10


Amen. Great. Thank you so much, Brian. This has been really
refreshing and encouraging to be able to have this time with you.
I'd love to ask you if you could just end our time by praying and
thanking God for our time together and, and yeah, and then we'll
close.


Brian Arnold 01:00:10 - 01:01:11


I'd be happy to. Matt, thanks for having me. This is great. You
bet. God, I do thank you for moments like this when we get to
take an hour or so and just dwell on you and think about you. And
I thank you for Matt and this podcast that he's doing to help try
to equip these saints out there for anybody who's listening to
know you and your word better.And Lord, I do pray that there will
be an awakening in your church. An awakening begins with people
who are so full of the Spirit because they're so full of the Word
of God. And I pray for pastors in this labor field who will
really get the tools that they need and recognize that those are
not some additional thing. But these are actually the tools of
our trade to get people into this place where they can really
love you, heart, mind, soul, body, strength, and begin to love
their neighbor. And that people in this culture that is decaying
will see that the gospel is full of life and full of fruit.
Praise in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.


Matt Wireman01:01:11 - 01:01:13


Amen. Thank you, brother.


Brian Arnold01:01:13 - 01:01:14


Thanks again. I appreciate it.


Thank you for listening! If you want to find out more about Matt
and how you can get coached toward your better self, visit
www.matthewwireman.com and check out his LinkedIn and Instagram
accounts @matt.wireman.