Men for Ministry Interview Series: Mark Dever

Mark Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Since his ordination to the ministry in 1985, Dr. Dever has served on the pastoral staffs of four churches, the second being a church he planted in Massachusetts. Prior to moving to Washington in 1994, Dr. Dever taught for the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University while serving two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church.

In an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America, Dr. Dever serves as the executive director for 9Marks (formerly The Center for Church Reform, CCR) in Washington, D.C. 9Marks encourages pastors of local churches look to the Bible for instruction on how to organize and lead their churches.

He very kindly agreed to be interviewed by Men for Ministry, and we trust you will gain insight, help, and inspiration from what he shares:

1. Could you briefly outline your own call to minister God's Word?

From my first weeks as a Christian I subjectively wondered if I should give my life to preaching God’s Word. Almost 20 years later, after getting a few degrees and being very active in churches, I finally decided to give myself to pastoral ministry when in 1994 I became the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

2. What role and function does the Holy Spirit fulfill in the proclamation of God's Word?

The role and function of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential. He inspired the word, he supervised its inscripturation, he is providentially overseeing its preservation and transmission, and I trust by extension even translations. It is preached only with his aid, and our hearts are turned to believe it only by the Spirit’s work. The Scriptures that He gave by inspiration must be received by his illumination. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, the Bible is utterly useless.

3. One of the main blessings flowing from your own ministry has been your raising the profile and importance of Church health and polity. Do you feel a particular approach to preaching helps to promote the health of a local church?

Yes. Expositional preaching should bring modern individualistic ministers to a more corporate understanding of what it means to follow Christ. This is the understanding we see in Scripture and this is what we should preach.

4. What particular books/authors would you recommend to someone setting out in a ministry of preaching?

John Stott’s I Believe in Preaching, D. M. Lloyd-Jones’ Preaching and Preachers, J.I. Packer’s Fundamentalism and the Word of God, C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Arnold Dallimore’s biography of George Whitfield, and Jonathan Edwards “Farewell Sermon.”

5. What do you perceive are the main challenges currently facing evangelicalism in the West?

The main challenges currently facing evangelicalism in the West that I can see are a practical rejection of the authority of God’s word even by those who theoretically submit to it; a rejection of the sovereignty of God in favor of the putative sovereignty of man; a caricature, misunderstanding, or rejection of the penal substitution of Christ for sinners; a shallow understanding of conversion as a mere shift of opinions; a worldliness in our evangelism which deceives people about the very nature of the gospel we are hoping to win them to; an individualism that de-centers the congregation from the life of a Christian; and a carelessness of churches in addressing members in unrepentant sin, which causes untold confusion about what it means to be a Christian.

6. Could you briefly outline your own strategies for approaching the study and proclamation of God's Word?

Read the text. Read it in the original if your background and training allows, read multiple translations of the text, note crucial areas of the text or questions you have about the text. Try to answer those questions yourself before you turn to commentators, make an exegetical outline, then make a homiletical outline as close to the exegetical outline as possible. Next, consult commentaries from different eras of history, work to apply the text by deliberately thinking through the applications of the text and how you will preach the gospel in it. Then create the notes or manuscript which you will use.

7. Tell us a little about the new 9 Marks blog 'Church Matters' and what we can hope to find there in coming days.

The new 9Marks blog is a discussion about what the Bible says about church life and implications of that rather than simply best practices (as good as those are in their place).

8. Finally, if you were stranded on a desert island and could bring only three books (in addition to the Bible) and one CD, what would they be?

My choice of CD would be There is a Happy Land which is a recording of the congregation of Capitol Hill Baptist Church singing. It is also a 2 CD set, does that count? (If you gave me a second CD I might go for Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto!) My three books would be, a recent World Almanac, Calvin’s Institutes, and I can’t go on answering this question…it is too cruel to consider…God in his kind providence has never put me in such a situation.