God

Knowing, loving, and worshiping God is the call and privilege of every disciple of Jesus. Because all Christians are part of his royal priesthood, theology is not just for those teaching in the academy or serving in ministry vocations.

Theology proper centers on God, exploring his existence, his divine nature, his Persons, and his attributes. In this book you will find an overview of these truths in the doctrine of God as well as other great truths in the doctrine of divine revelation.

You are not simply setting out on a journey toward deeper knowledge. If theological study only results in knowing abstract truths about God, then we have not done theology well. Right theology invariably leads to right living and right worship, and this is our ultimate goal in these books and in this life.

God is the first volume of a three-part series entitled Theology for Every Person. The other volumes will include God’s Word to the World, which considers God in Christ and his works of creation, humanity, and redemption, and God’s Work in the World, which explores God the Holy Spirit and the divine works of salvation, the church, and the end. 

 

Malcolm Yarnell serves the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention as Research Professor of Theology at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, as Managing Editor of the Southwestern Journal of Theology, and as a Member of the SBC Resolutions Committee. He also serves the Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas as Teaching Pastor and is a Member of the Commission on Baptist Doctrine and Christian Unity with the Baptist World Alliance.

His most recent books are a biblical theology, Who Is the Holy Spirit? (Nashville, 2019), and a philosophical theology, John Locke’s “Letters of Gold” (Oxford, 2017). His most widely reviewed volumes include a biblical theology, God the Trinity(Nashville, 2016), an historical theology, Royal Priesthood in the English Reformation (Oxford, 2014), and a theological method, The Formation of Christian Doctrine (Nashville, 2007). Malcolm and his co-author, David S. Dockery, the President of Southwestern Seminary, just completed a major dogmatics volume, Special Revelation and Scripture (Nashville, forthcoming 2024).
Malcolm has written 9 volumes and edited another 15, while publishing over 150 other academic and popular essays. He earned advanced degrees in theology, history, and biblical studies from Oxford University (2000), Duke University (1996), and Southwestern Seminary (1991). After completing a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Louisiana State University in Shreveport, Malcolm served for over two decades as the Chief Financial Officer of a real estate investment corporation.

The 57 research students he mentors now serve as church, university, and denominational leaders in the United States, Germany, Ukraine, China, India, Korea, Nigeria, Chile, and the Middle East. He is currently writing the first part of a 3-volume dogmatics called Theology for Every Person. The individual volumes are entitled God, God and His Word, and God and His World. His next three projects include a book on Eighteenth Century London Baptists, a book on Baptist Ecclesiology co-edited with Bart Barber, the President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a book on Anabaptist Theology co-authored with Michael Wilkinson.