Weekly Email: January 19, 2026

Weekly Email

Jan 19

In this email:

Student Tip: Where is your identity resting?
Program News: We are looking for six online students for our recording with Dr. Andrew Walker in our "live classroom" style course. He will be teaching Sexual Ethics.

Student Tip: When "student" moves to the front

So much of the Christian life is about the identity you are resting in. In ministry, it is easy for our identities to become what we are doing. The people we are serving. The sermons we are preaching. The counseling sessions we are laboring over. Over time good work starts to feel like the thing that holds you together.

The same thing can happen in seminary. Without noticing, “student” moves to the front. Your week becomes lectures, LiveSyncs, papers, and deadlines. You stay busy with good things yet your heart can still wander from Christ. You can learn a lot about theology. You can learn a lot about God. But if you are not knowing Him and drawing closer to Him, then what is the point?

Philippians 1:21 helps re-center our desires. “For to me to live is Christ.” When that is the center then it changes the questions we ask. What is actually driving me right now? Am I doing this for Christ, or am I leaning on achievement, approval, and success? Those motives can hide under spiritual language and good intentions but they eventually show themselves through anxiety, fear, and and comparison. A constant need to prove yourself. The subtle fear that you are only as valuable as your performance.

When my identity starts to shift, it also changes how I think about maturing in Christ. Christian maturity is not something I find by staring harder at myself or by trying to grind my way into holiness. Seminary has its own ways of exposing how unfinished we are.

When my prayer life becomes rushed because I need to “get to the work.” When my Bible reading turns into content instead of communion and satisfaction in Christ. When I start wanting to be seen as sharp, ahead, or just on top of it. When I feel the pressure mounting and AI promises a quick fix and an assignment that is good enough. When I cut corners on the reading then tell myself it is fine because I still “learned the main idea.” When I treat faithfulness like productivity and confuse discipline with closeness to Jesus. Those moments show me I am not becoming mature in Christ by sheer effort or self-improvement driven by an identity centered around me and not Christ.

That is why the gospel matters so much for students. In Christ, you are complete in Him. In God’s eyes, you are blessed in the Beloved. That does not excuse sin. It does not make growth optional. It means your standing with God is not hanging on your performance. You are covered and clothed in what is not your. You are holy by merely being clothed with him and accepted because you are in him. When you rest in this identity, this makes real growth possible because you can repent without panicking and you can pursue obedience without trying to earn a place you already have.

You belong to Jesus. You His because the Father gave you to the Son. You are His because He purchased you by His blood. You are His because you have been set apart for Him. You are His because you bear His name.

So as we enter the third week of the new year, with routines back and early momentum fading, return to the center. This is not a sprint. It is daily surrender. Let your studies serve your worship, not replace it. Let Christ be your identity before anything you do.

Program News: Help Shape a New Online Course Experience

We’re continuing this new initiative to improve the online experience for students like you, and we want you to be part of it.

This July, Dr. Andrew Walker will teach a one-week, seminar-style course on Sexual Ethics. This course will cover the theology of sexuality, the sexual revolution, and contemporary perspectives about sex, as well as singleness and celibacy, marriage, divorce and remarriage, procreation and contraception, and reproductive technology. Special attention will be given to the natural law tradition’s influence on Christian moral reflection.

We’re selecting six online students to join him on campus for the class. The sessions will be professionally filmed and used to create a new type of online course experience, similar to our new Early Christian Biographies course.

By participating, you're not just taking a course. You're helping shape the future of online learning at Southern Seminary.

SUBMIT STUDENT INTEREST FORM
(This form does not enroll you. It simply lets us know you’re interested)

What You’ll Receive:

All meals during your stay in Louisville
Lodging at Legacy Hotel on campus (July 26 to 31)
A possible scholarship toward tuition (amount TBD)

What’s Involved:

Complete prep readings and coursework from June 1 to July 26
Attend recorded, in-person classes with Dr. Walker in Louisville (July 26 to 31)
Submit final assignments by August 17th
Receive full academic credit for the course (29860MD Sexual Ethics)

Thank you for helping us reimagine what online theological education can be.