A Prison, a Seminary & the Church
Ike Reeder & Derrick Brite discuss the wonderful works of God taking place in Bibb Prison as God uses Birmingham Theological Seminary, Ligonier Ministries & Warrior Presbytery to advance His Kingdom.
Prison is probably the last place you would expect to find someone lecturing on the hypostatic union. And you probably wouldn’t expect the one doing the lecture to have been convicted of murdering multiple people.
And yet in Bibb Correctional Facility, God’s Spirit is vindicating the promises of the gospel and bringing dead sinners to newness of life through the preaching, teaching, and application of the gospel word. At Bibb Prison, God is actively demonstrating the truth of His commitment to save all sorts of people and make them trophies of His sovereign grace.
Birmingham Theological Seminary President Mr Ike Reeder along with returning guest PCA TE Derrick Brite join the program to testify to the faithfulness of God to His word as they have seen it at Bibb Prison.
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On this episode Reeder & Brite discuss…
The importance of maintaining the specific, narrow biblical mission of the Church and the wide, broad mission of Christians.
The sufficiency of the Scripture to address problems of drug abuse, racism, sexual sin, and oppression. They have seen first hand how it is not a new “Critical Theory” that is needed, but simply the right application of the gospel.
When prisoners are converted to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in newness of life, they respond with worship; this is the way the Spirit of Holiness works. And this has created new opportunities for Warrior Presbytery to plant a PCA Church “behind the wire” at Bibb Correctional Facility.
At Bibb Prison, God repeatedly has shown afresh it is not complex theories, worldly wisdom, or human philosophies that have the power to transform lives. Instead, God has used the ordinary means of grace to work this mighty change.
Consider this old video documentary (language and content warning), which features Mr Steven Parker, a man sentenced to multiple prison terms of 999 years, but who is now a graduate of and teacher in the prison with Birmingham Theological Seminary. He’s also featured in this recent video produced by Ligonier Ministries highlighting the work at Bibb Prison.
Hearing what God is doing at “Bloody Bibb” should leave us profoundly grateful for God’s abundant and powerful grace and give us great confidence of the sufficiency of the ordinary preaching, teaching, and application of God’s word that His Spirit uses to bring down strongholds of darkness and liberate captives to the freedom of Christ.
Birmingham Theological Seminary is in the midst of a funding drive to support the ministry at Bibb Prison. At the time of recording, BTS needed to raise about $40,000 for the Prison Program. If you are able to help contribute financially to the work, please do so here. To learn more about the BTS Prison Initiative, follow this link.
The work of BTS, Warrior Presbytery, and Ligonier Ministries at Bibb Prison show us the “reformation of hearts” comes by using the means God has appointed: the word, sacraments, and prayer. Let us renew our commitment to the ordinary means of grace in our lives and our churches in the New Year.
Thank you for supporting Mid the Pines and the Westminster Standard Podcast this year.
Next week’s episode will feature PCA General Assembly Moderator TE Fred Greco, veteran pastor George Grant, and several other elders as we discuss the PCA’s prospects going into 2024 as well as some PCA news items from 2023.