“This is by God’s grace. It is to God’s glory,” President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. said as he welcomed guests to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s December 12, 2025 commencement service. This year marked the Seminary’s 236th commencement exercise.
Early in the service, Mohler reminded the congregation of the church’s responsibility to “perpetuate, to proclaim, to teach, and to defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” then invited Alumni Chapel to confess the Christian faith together using the Apostles’ Creed. The service continued with Scripture readings and prayers offered for the church and for the nations.
As he prepared those assembled to understand what was taking place, Mohler pointed to the meaning carried by the formality of commencement. He described the Seminary’s academic dress and colors as an embodied reminder that theological education exists for the service of Christ and his church. “It’s not a holiday red, it’s theology red. It’s gospel red. It is witness unto death red,” he said, tying the Seminary’s colors to the shed blood of Christ and the church’s testimony.
Turning directly to the graduates, Mohler described commencement as a genuine threshold. “This isn’t the end of learning. It is the beginning of a new learning,” he said, urging graduates to carry forward a deeper love for God’s Word, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the church, preaching, and teaching.
In his commencement address, titled “And They Went with Haste: The Urgency of Gospel Ministry,” Mohler preached from Luke 2:1–20. He drew attention to the way Luke’s narrative displays the steady momentum of God’s purpose, even through ordinary actions and earthly rulers. Caesar Augustus called a census for taxation, Mohler noted, but God used that decree to bring Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem in order to accomplish what God had promised.
Mohler fixed the graduates’ attention on one line that he said is often overlooked. “And they came with haste.” That phrase, he argued, captures a fitting response to divine revelation and to the gospel itself. The shepherds heard the message, believed it, and moved quickly to see what the Lord had made known. Mohler applied the shepherds’ response directly to the work of Christian ministry. “A call to the Christian ministry demands an answer,” he said, asking what the right response should be for those called to preach, to teach, to shepherd, and to go to the nations. The world treats haste as a vice, he acknowledged, but “gospel haste is the right response to the glory of God.”
To strengthen the pastoral force of Luke 2:16, Mohler turned to voices from church history. He cited J.C. Ryle’s call to prompt obedience and closed the citation with a simple line of encouragement: “The journey that has begun in faith will generally end in praise.” He also referenced Bishop John Hooper, martyred in 1555, who used Luke 2:16 to press believers toward obedience without delay, even at personal cost. Hooper’s point, Mohler said, was that Christian faithfulness is often stalled by fear of what obedience will disrupt. The answer is trust in God’s providence, that the Lord will care for what we leave behind. Hooper’s confidence was vivid, Mohler said, as he reminded graduates that God “will wash the dishes and rock the cradle.”
After the commencement address, Southern Seminary celebrated the class of 2025 with the conferral of degrees. In total, Southern Seminary graduated 280 students, with 168 in attendance and 92 graduating in absentia. They represent 34 states and U.S. territories and 19 nations: Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Honduras, India, Iraq, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, the People’s Republic of China, Peru, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey.
As graduates crossed the stage, the ceremony gave visible expression to Southern Seminary’s mission to educate, prepare, and equip ministers for faithful service. Faculty members looked on as students they have taught, trained, and mentored were sent out, now prepared to preach the Word, shepherd God’s people, and carry the gospel wherever the Lord may call them.
As the service concluded, Mohler left the graduates with a final charge drawn straight from Luke 2. “On the authority of the Word of God, make haste.”