Course Description

This course is designed to acquaint students with the practical application of Christian doctrine to a wide variety of issues. The course addresses such issues as fighting personal sin, prayer and fasting, roles of men and women, suffering, worship, God’s sovereignty, eldership, inspiration of Scripture, and motivation for life and ministry. Students will be urged not only to consider the biblical underpinnings for these issues, but how to apply them to every-day life.

Course Objectives

Practical Theology aims to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. We pray that honest, humble, rigorous interpretation of Biblical texts, as well as God-centered discussion of theological and practical ministry issues will kindle this passion and equip students to spread it winsomely to others.

Thus it is our aim that the student who successfully completes the course in Practical Theology will be better equipped to:

• savor, strengthen, and spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all of life and ministry;
• meet a wide range of needs in people’s lives with a loving and powerful application of Biblical truth;
• apply Biblical doctrine to the nitty-gritty of life and ministry

Required Textbooks

• The Bible (Bring your GNT and NAS95 or ESV)
• Wayne Grudem and John Piper, eds., Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, Crossway, 1991.
• John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, Multnomah Press, 2003.
• John Piper, A Hunger for God:  Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, Crossway Books, 1997.
• John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23, Baker Book House, 1993.
• John Piper, Let the Nations be Glad, Baker Books, 2003.
• John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God, Multnomah, 2000.
• John Piper, The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in FUTURE GRACE, Multnomah Press, 1995.
• Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership:  An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership, Lewis and Roth Publishers, 1995. 
• T.U.L.I.P. What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism, Bethlehem Baptist Church Staff, 1985 (available from DGM or online at www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/doctrines_grace/tulip.html)
• Various articles to be supplied.

Supplementary Reading

• Either Clark Pinnock, ed., The Grace of God, The Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism, Zondervan, 1989; or: Clark Pinnock, ed., The Openness of God, InterVarsity Press, 1994; or: Gregory Boyd, God at War: the Bible and Spiritual Conflict, InterVarsity Press, 1997; or: Greg Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil,  InterVarsity Press, 2001; or:  John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence, InterVarsity Press, 1998; or Norman Geisler, Chosen But Free (Bethany, 2001). Or some other approved book from a different conviction.
• Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles : A Guide for the Study of Female Roles in the Bible, 1985; Or: Stanley J. Grenz with Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry, 1995; Or: Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality, 1997.