Fifth Annual Girardeau Lectures set for April 5-6
Erskine Theological Seminary and First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, S.C., will welcome Dr. Jarvis J. Williams as speaker for this year’s John L. Girardeau Lectures April 5-6. The theme chosen for the 2017 lectures is “Christ Died for Our Sins.”
Williams serves as associate professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of a number of books, including One New Man: The Cross and Racial Reconciliation in Pauline Theology (B&H Academic, 2010) and Christ Died for Our Sins: Representation and Substitution in Romans and Their Jewish Martyrological Background (Pickwick, 2015). He is also the author of A Commentary on Galatians for The New Covenant Commentary Series (Wipf & Stock, forthcoming in 2017).
The first lecture, “Jesus’ Death as a Representation of Sinners in Paul’s Soteriology,” will be delivered Wednesday, April 5, at 6:15 p.m. in Jackson Hall at First Presbyterian Church. The lecture will be preceded by a supper (5:15 p.m., $5 per person) in Jackson Hall, and followed by a question-and-answer session (7:15-7:30 p.m.)
On Thursday, April 6, a “Coffee & Questions” will be offered at The Bridge Coffee House, 1400 Lady Street, at 3:30 p.m. on the topic “Race and the Church.”
A reception with heavy hors d’oeuvres is scheduled for 5 p.m. at The Bridge, Room 125, 1400 Lady Street, and the second lecture, “Jesus’ Death as a Substitute for Sinners in Paul’s Soteriology,” will follow at 6 p.m. in the same location.
For further information about the Girardeau Lectures contact Crystal Tolbert at Erskine Theological Seminary’s Columbia campus by email at Tolbert@erskine.edu or by phone at 803-771-6180.
The Girardeau Lectures are named in honor of John Lafayette Girardeau (1825-1898), whose extensive pastoral and educational ministry among the slave population in Charleston, South Carolina, developed many African American leaders for the Church. He stood against segregation in the Southern Presbyterian Church during Reconstruction and became one of the South’s leading theologians and educators. While a student at Columbia Seminary from 1845 to 1848 he attended First Presbyterian Church, and in 1875 returned to Columbia after pastoring in Charleston. As Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology in the Seminary, Girardeau supplied the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church.