Beeson Podcast, Episode #620 Dr. Timothy George Sept. 20, 2022 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. We are thrilled to continue our series on faculty publications with the founder of this podcast and of Beeson Divinity School, Dr. Timothy George, who has a number of new projects to share with us today. Before Kristen introduces him, let me take just a minute to invite you back to campus this fall. We would love to have you with us for community worship on Tuesdays at 11:00, or at any of our events. Check us out at www.BeesonDivinity.com/events. And sign up for our email newsletter called Happenings at www.BeesonDivinity.com/media. All right, Kristen, might there be someone out there who needs an introduction from you of Dr. Timothy George? >>Kristen Padilla: Well, in case there is that one person, Doug, I will introduce him. His name is Dr. Timothy George, as you’ve already said. He is distinguished professor of Divinity and the Founding Dean of Beeson Divinity School and as you’ve said, the founding podcast host of the Beeson Podcast. He’s a prolific writer, author of many books, especially in the area of church history. He’s a church historian and theologian. Has also recently revised a commentary on Galatians, which we recommend to you all. So, welcome, Dr. George back to the Beeson Podcast! >>Dr. George: Thank you, Kristen. I’m honored to be here with you and with Dean Sweeney today. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, we are honored to have you with us. As I said, you began the podcast in 2010 and the last time you were on the show was with your dear friend, Dr. Robert Smith, Jr. for our faculty friendship series. But we haven’t had a chance to talk to you one on one since you retired, if I can say that. Retired as the Beeson Podcast host. And so I wonder if we can begin by hearing what you’ve been up to these last two to three years? >>Dr. George: When I retired I thought I would have nothing to do but read and relax and if anything I think my plate is fuller now than it was. It’s different! But I have speaking places ... I love to speak where our students are serving. I’m doing that several times this fall. And traveling, I’m also working with the Evangelical Theological Society as the incoming president after our fall meeting. So, my plate is pretty full of things to do. And more important I have the privilege of teaching our wonderful students. The Lord called me to be a teacher and I am just as happy as I could be teaching our students. I have great students. They love to learn. They’re eager. I have an 8:00 class. I don’t know who gave me that, but anyway, they come with bright eyes. They’re awake. They’ve had their coffee and they want to engage this material. No teacher could ask for more than that. >>Doug Sweeney: And I know they’re thrilled to have you as their teacher. We’re thrilled to have you in the classroom regularly. Well, we want to talk about a number of things with you today. Dr. George, you are keeping very busy. The first thing we want to ask you about is this new series for B&H Academic called, “The Theological Foundations Series.” You have a couple of new books in that series that are hot off the press. You’re also the editor of the entire series. One of the books we want to let people know about today is Augustine’s, “On Christian Doctrine: And Selected Introductory Works,” and the other is John Calvin’s Commentary on Romans. These are both classic texts. People like you and me who teach church history teach these texts all the time. Tell our listeners a little bit about this new series before we get into Augustine and Calvin in particular. >>Dr. George: Well, it wasn’t my idea to do this series, but I think it’s a good idea. I was 100% for it. I was honored when they asked me if I would kind of hit it up and help edit the entire series. So, the idea of this is to put in the hands of students readable, affordable, classic texts of the Christian tradition. We call it the “great tradition,” maybe. And to do it in a way that is attractive to them. And so that’s what we’ve tried to do with these first two volumes that are just as Dean Sweeney says, “hot off the press.” Augustine and John Calvin. There will be others. We’re working on volumes three and four now. They will be John Wesley, that’s volume three. Volume four will be Baptist missionary texts. A lot of those aren’t even known well to Baptists. So, we’re going to bring those back out and put them in the hands of students. The idea is that students could buy these, teachers could use them in classrooms, you can mark them up. But it’s a very, don’t you think, nice attractive addition? >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, they look great. >>Dr. George: Anyway, that’s what I’m doing. I’m glad to be a part of it. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, for our listeners who are not familiar with these two people from church history or these texts, I wonder if you can give us a brief bio of them and lay out some of their theological contributions, including the text that you have chosen? So, I wonder if we can begin with St. Augustine? Who was he? What were some of his great theological contributions? Why did you choose these texts for this series? >>Dr. George: I’m going to go out on a limb and say something that might be controversial or it might be debatable. And that is between the Apostle Paul and today there’s no one more influential in Christian history than St. Augustine. He was not a perfect person. We shouldn’t make him into a haloed individual. He had his faults and he said things that a lot of people took the wrong way and disagreed with when they took the right way. But his work is filled with the warmth and the depth of God’s love and Christian faith. It builds you up in the faith to read Augustine. Another reason is he lived at a pivotal time in history. It was at the end of what we call the Patristic Era, the Early Church period. Christianity is now the legal religion of the Roman empire. And that brings blessings, but it also brings challenges. And Augustine is the person who sort of stands in the gap and helps the church to redirect its thinking to face a new age, a new culture. So, in some ways he’s the capstone of the Patristic Early Church and the Foundation Head of what we call the Middle Ages, the Medieval period leading into the Reformation. Of course, if you know the Reformation, you know there’s no one more important on either the Catholic or the Protestant side than St. Augustine. BB Warfield was a great Presbyterian theologian at Princeton in the 19th century and he has a very famous line, he says that, “St. Augustine is the one who stands at the headwaters of the doctrine of the Church for the Catholics and the doctrine of grace for the Protestants.” Well, we might argue about who gets what on those two, but there’s no doubt that Augustine had a huge impact on the Reformation, on all those who stand in the Reformation traditions. We all go back to Augustine. We stand on his shoulders. We learn from him. He’s known of course most famously for The Confessions. We didn’t do “The Confessions” here because there are a gazillion editions of them. Some of them very good. I have my favorite. But we did some of the still pretty well known and important treatises of Augustine. For example, “On Christian Doctrine,” a very influential statement on how to read the bible, how to interpret the bible. We included that in this. We have some of his sermons on the catechumen and the creed. And we have one of my favorite St. Augustine treatises, “On The Spirit and the Letter.” That’s also about hermeneutics, how to read the bible and the importance of the Spirit engaging every believer who comes to the text of scripture with an open heart and an open mind. So, I could go on and on about Augustine, but we want to get students into his writing and into his thoughts, into his heart and mind. And I think this volume helps do it. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay, and the other book from the series that’s out already is Calvin’s Commentary on Romans. Dr. George, what do our listeners need to know about John Calvin? And here’s a church history teacher’s question: why did you pick his commentary on Romans as the thing to use to introduce students to Calvin? >>Dr. George: Yeah. It was published first in 1539 at a moment in his life, he had already embraced the reform and he was at that time living in Strasbourg and working on this commentary and a few other things, a very pivotal time in his life. And so it’s a fairly early Calvin that we get here. But also fresh, rich, deep ... fresh from his humanist studies. Calvin was a humanist scholar. He studied language and took language very seriously. And Romans becomes kind of the paradigmatic way to understand the Christian life. Not just for Calvin but for many others who stand in the Reformation tradition. It’s interesting, we have a graduate of Beeson Divinity School, Chad Raith, who did a PhD dissertation on Calvin and Aquinas on Romans. And he compared their commentaries. I loved Paul’s commentary on Romans. I love Calvin’s commentary on Paul’s commentary on Romans. That’s what he does. Calvin, again, we’d have to say, a person who is not an absolutely spotless, sinless paragon of complete correctness on everything. Everybody has their bones to pick with Calvin. I stand in that tradition. Of the two, Luther and Calvin, I mean, you can’t think of the Reformation really without either one of them. I would say, I don’t know what Dean Sweeney would think about this, as he is a Lutheran, but I think Martin Luther is the great genius of the Reformation. >>Dean Sweeney: That sounds good to me. >>Dr. George: Yeah! And in some ways you couldn’t have the Reformation without Martin Luther. Calvin is the person who takes those tremendous insights of Luther and places them in an urban environment, in a new time, a new age, and therefore he in some ways is more our contemporary. You can’t do without either one of them. We all build on Luther. Frankly, if I might confess, I like Luther better than Calvin. I might agree with Calvin more than Luther on some things, but if I had my choice who you want to have lunch with, I’d go with Luther. >>Kristen Padilla: (laughs) I love that. So, that just leads right into my question for you, Dr. George. What impact have these two men in their writings had on you spiritually and theologically? >>Dr. George: Well, I was brought up in a tradition of learning to emphasize primary sources. Now, secondary sources, we all write them, that’s what we do, and it’s what we call scholarship. But to get back ad fontis, that’s one of the great themes of the renaissance, the reformation, to the sources. So, reading these and others, but these two preeminent theologians of the Reformation have anchored my own spirituality, I would say, as well as my intellectual interest in the Reformation. They saw something about the depth and the power of the grace of God at work in a human life. That’s compelling. And so when I read them I’m not just studying thoughts from the 16th century, here’s a fellow struggler, a brother in Christ, who is dealing with the deep issues of faith and life and time and eternity. And I’m built up in my faith when I read these people. I think our students will be, too. >>Doug Sweeney: All right, Dr. George. I have an embarrassing question to ask of you. One of our alums, Chris Hanna, who teaches here in town and ministers here in town, has written a book about you. It’s called, “Retrieval For the Sake of Renewal: Timothy George As A Historical Theologian.” I have read it. And I think it’s wonderful, not least because it’s subject is wonderful. So, the question is, how does it feel to have a book written about you and your theology and what’s you connection to Chris Hanna? And if we could get you to be just not so humble as to refuse to respond on this question, what do you want readers to take away from a book by one of your former students about you? >>Dr. George: Well, Chris is a former student. I’ve known him ever since he came to Beeson, full of life and he loves the Lord. He’s very deeply committed to the local church. He’s a minister at the Church of the Highlands here in Birmingham. He leads their undergraduate course of studies. He’s just a wonderful guy. I never thought necessarily that he would do a PhD. He’s so active in ministry and the love of people just exudes from him. But he came to my office one day ... this was a year or two or three maybe after he finished his MDIV at Beeson, and said, “Dr. George,” he calls me Dr. George, “I would love to write my PhD dissertation on you. About you.” Well, I was taken aback. People come to see the Dean for all sorts of reasons. I had no idea why Chris was there that day. And I certainly didn’t think he was there with that proposal. I discouraged him. I had a ministry of discouragement to Chris Hanna and said, “You don’t want to do that. There are a lot more important things.” And I still think that’s true. But he was persistent. So, I finally was able to make a counter proposal. Don’t write about me, but write about the people who influenced me. The great teachers I’ve had in my life who have shaped me in my vision in so many ways. And I think there’s something to be learned from them. You can stand on my shoulders to get to them, if you want to. And so who were those people? Well, George Huntston Williams was my major professor at Harvard University. He was a fantastic teacher in so many, many ways; great knowledge of the whole Christian tradition. Also, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan was another. He was not my classroom teacher, he was at Yale where Dean Sweeney attended, not Harvard, but I became acquainted with him and became friends with him through George Williams. One of the great honors of my life was near the end of his life he produced a three volume set of creeds and confessions of the Christian church, the definitive, critical edition of these statements for many years to come. And he asked me if I would write an endorsement for it. Well, I was just overwhelmed and of course I was happy to do so. He was another one. Another person who had a great influence on me and Chris writes about him was David Steinmetz was a Methodist. He was a professor at Duke University for many, many years. He came to Beeson a couple of times, gave our Reformation Heritage lectures. I have never had a greater classroom teacher than David Steinmetz. You are there, you are hearing those Reformation debates between Luther and Zwingli on the Eucharist. You couldn’t escape. And he had an 8:00 class. No one was late. No one left early. You wanted to hear the whole thing. So, if I learned how to teach historical theology, church history, from anybody – David Steinmetz would be the number one candidate for that. So, these were great figures in my life and those of our listeners who know much about church history will probably recognize some of those great names. They still are worth reading today. I’ve never read a more compelling book than “George Williams: The Radical Reformation.” It’s a big book, 1500 pages, in the third critical edition. But it tells the story of these disparate characters all over the map of Europe who are going under every book and cranny to bring about a new understanding of the church and salvation. You can’t help but be engaged by something like that. So, when I first read that book as an undergraduate, I said I want to study with the person who wrote this book. And in the providence of God I was able to do so. Well, I thought Chris would do better by focusing on some of these great figures. And he focuses on me enough. I’m in the book. But you asked, Dean Sweeney, what I thought people might learn from this book. I hope they get a grasp of the importance of church history as a theological discipline. It’s not just names, dates, facts, events. And it is an exciting story. One of the great criminal acts that some historians commit is to make history boring. It’s not boring. And when you deal with these figures who are putting all they have on the line for Jesus Christ and the Church, often at great cost, under persecution, sometimes it rivets your faith, it makes you dig deeper and come out stronger, I think. So, I hope people that read Chris’s book will look beyond Timothy George to some of these great figures that influenced my life so much. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, when that book comes out we’ll have to have Chris on the show to talk more about it. Let me ask you one more question about another book. And that is your Reformation Commentary on Scripture series which you serve as the general editor. I know that a new volume has come out on 2 Corinthians. Can you tell our listeners about this commentary series? What is it? Who is it for? >>Dr. George: I wish ... the podcast is wonderful, but you can’t see. You just have to listen to what we’re saying. If you were here in the studio with Dean Sweeney and with Kristen and me you would see I’m holding in my hands a copy of the freshly minted latest volume in the Reformation Commentary on Scripture. And on the very front of it, this is the image we have on all of the volumes, is a picture of a Protestant worship service in Lyon, France, in the 1560s during just the beginning of the French wars of religion. And it shows the centrality of scripture, the Word of God being proclaimed. It shows people coming and going. There are little kids all over the place. Church is for everybody, not just airy head old people. And look here, what’s that? It’s a dog. They even let the dog in the church. Well, we wanted to show that the Reformation was for everybody. It was for the people. And the Word of God was to penetrate every area and dimension of life. That’s one of the great themes of the Reformation. Now, a word about this series. It is a series that really ought to have Tom Odin’s name on the front of it. Because he edited, he was the general editor of an earlier series called, “The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.” Published by Intervarsity Press. Both series published by IVP. Well, it did extremely well. And when the series had finished, the editors at IVP said, “We need to continue the same series, same theme, same methodology into another era of church history, namely the Reformation.” That’s when they contacted me and said, “Would you consider being the general editor of the Reformation Commentary on Scripture?” Well, Tom Odin gave me great encouragement for that. Tom Odin was a wonderful Christian scholar and did so much to help us refocus on the sources of our faith. And so I thought about it, prayed about it, and I said, “Only if you will allow me to have an associate general editor who is a better scholar than I am in the Reformation and can really help me pull this off. And that’s Dr. Scott Manetsch.” And they said, “Yes.” Scott said, “Yes.” And so Scott’s name is also on every volume as the associate general editor. He is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He was a student of Heiko Oberman, another one of those great teachers who influenced me. And he has just himself published as the volume editor this new volume on 2 Corinthians. He did 1 Corinthians, too. And so I couldn’t commend this more highly to you, this wonderful volume by Scott Manetsch. And guess what? It’s dedicated to a friend of ours, Dr. Sweeney. Dedicated to Doug Sweeney, trusted colleague and cherished friend. You might want to say a word about Scott since you worked with him so closely at Trinity. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, he’s one of my best friends in the whole world. I think that’s why he dedicated the volume to me. And we used to spend hours praying together over our students and over our scholarship and over our colleagues. He’s a dear friend to this day. And I say Scott and Timothy George are both great Reformation scholars, but I sure did learn a lot from Scott when I taught with him. >>Dr. George: Your comment ... he is a great scholar. Well trained in this field. One of the leading scholars I think in our country today. But he’s a very godly man. He’s a person who takes seriously the life of faith. And with a sincerity that is just compelling. So, Scott, if you’re listening, I don’t know if you are ... but we’re talking about you because you have done something wonderful in both of your volumes on Corinthians in the Reformation Commentary on Scripture. And by the way, if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re not a subscriber to this, I think you ought to be. >>Kristen Padilla: That’s right! >>Dr. George: Just write IVP or go on their web or whatever you have to do and sign up for it. We’ve done 20 volumes. This is volume 20. We have nine to go. 29 volumes. It will be a wonderful collection to your library and something you’ll find useful as you prepare sermons and bible studies. That’s why we’re doing it. To make these riches of Reformation exegesis available to pastors and teachers today. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, they really are great for preachers as well. They’re good for scholars and teachers for sure. But if a preacher wants to know what some of the leading reformers preached about our taught about with respect to a particular passage of scripture or book of the bible that they’re working through, it’s a fantastic resource. Well, last question, last big question for you, Dr. George. We’ve already mentioned that you’re the incoming president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). Our friend, Don Carson, I think is going to give the presidential address at the annual meeting this year in November. I think your job this year is a harder job than probably your job next year. Next year, I think all you have to do is give the speech at the banquet. This year you had to put the whole program together. Tell our listeners just a little bit about ETS and what it’s like being an officer, what it’s like being the president of ETS? >>Dr. George: Well, you know, ETS is almost 75 years old. The first meeting of ETS was in Cincinnati, Ohio at the YMCA downtown in 1949. So, this is the 74 annual session of the Evangelical Theological Society. Only 60 people showed up back then in 1949. They were people who came from bible believing institutions, needed fellowship with one another, wanted to advance the cause of scholarship, committed to the inerrancy of scripture. Well, it’s grown over the years, significantly. And I don’t know the exact number of members now but it’s well over 3,000. And it includes all kinds of denominations and church groups and institutions. And we meet for fellowship, but we also meet to advance learning and scholarship. It’s a wonderful organization. I’m deeply honored to serve in this way. My job this year is to introduce Dr. Carson as our president. And then to also introduce our plenary speakers. We invite plenary speakers who will come and speak to the whole group. Then we break out into sessions and there’s a lot of other ancillary meetings. We have a Beeson Divinity School event for our alumni and others that come to ETS. So, it’s going to be in Denver Colorado. If you think to pray for us around that time, we would be very grateful for your prayers for this society and for its work that the gospel would be advanced. That’s our desire. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, before I ask the last question, I just want to comment how grateful I am to sit between our founding dean and our current dean here in the podcast studio. What an honor it has been for me to have worked for you, Dr. George. And now to work for you, Dean Sweeney. So, this has been such a pleasure for me. Dr. George, we always like to end these podcast conversations by hearing what the Lord is doing in the lives of our guests. And so I wonder if you can close us out by sharing something that the Lord is teaching you these days? >>Dr. George: Well, in my devotional life I’ve been reading some of the great saints of the church and the struggles they have. We think of saints as way up there with halos on their head and there are some like that who are depicted that way. But they were real people who had real struggles. And I’ve been challenged in my own Christian life, my own spiritual life, by finding that there are some fellow strugglers, fellow pilgrims who walk with me this way. And I have a lot to learn from them. So, I try to read them ... yes, to learn about them, but also to be nourished in my heart and spirit about them. They teach us humility. They teach us that God has a purpose and a design for everything that happens in our life. And so I’ve been learning some of those lessons with the saints – walking with the saints. >>Doug Sweeney: Wonderful. You have been listening to Dr. Timothy George. He is the founding dean of Beeson Divinity School and currently serves as Research Professor of Divinity for us. We are grateful to say. Thank you very much, Dr. George for your ongoing scholarship and teaching and for this gift of time today. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. Please continue to pray for the Lord’s work at Beeson and for the students at Beeson. We are praying for you. And we say goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.