What Are Some Key Theological Distinctions That Guide Greenville Presbyterian’s View of Missions?

What are some key theological distinctions that guide Greenville Presbyterian’s view of missions?

When we talk about Greenville, we talk about it usually in three categories. We remind people that what we're here to do is very specific, which is to train pastors—to train men for pastoral ministry. And the three ways that we qualify that are:

We say that we do it in a way that is biblically grounded. We are committed to teaching men, to making sure that they graduate with a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. We have emphasized the languages even when those have been deemphasized in other places.

We also want to focus on the work of a pastor. Pastors are called to preach. Pastors are called to counsel. Pastors are called to meet with people house-to-house if possible. Pastors are called to do the work of an evangelist. And they need to do that by being a certain kind of man. They need to focus on their personal piety first. And so again, that's an emphasis that we repeatedly drive home with our students.

And then thirdly, we are unapologetic about being committed to the Westminster Standards. We are confessionally grounded. We're transparent about what we believe, and what we believe from the confession actually drives—even adds further fuel to the fire of missions—because the Westminster Standards beautifully state the need for people from every language to have the Bible for themselves, to have the Bible in the language that they can understand. That's chapter one of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

So in all three of the distinctive areas—the things that we use, the ways that we describe ourselves in the world of seminaries—all three of those contribute to the work of missions. Because missionaries need to know their Bibles. They need to know the biblical languages. Missionaries of all people need to be a certain kind of person. They need to develop their family and their personal piety and walk with the Lord. And they need to have a solid confession of faith that guides them and fences them in and enables them to engage in the work of planting churches for Jesus Christ.

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