Author Archives: Leah Bruneau

God’s Nickname

How would you feel about someone not only calling God by his name directly, but even shortening it to a single-syllable nickname? Something like ‘Jo’ instead of ‘Jehovah’? Yikes! It feels disrespectfully over-familiar to me. After all, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Deuteronomy 5:11). Out of respect […]


A New Year

I was immensely shaped by the community and curriculum championed by Bethlehem College and Seminary, so it was easily the highlight of my year at work to welcome in all the new faces and families into our school. My years in college and seminary were the most formative years of my life, so being able […]


Dreaming of a Bethlehem Seminary, Mysore, India

    God is at work in India. People in India are getting saved, discipled, trained, and commissioned to serve, even as you read this. Godly men pour themselves into the lives of aspiring men, producing future pastors. With the limited training and resources available to the church, our unlimited God is at work. We ourselves […]


Three Reflections on Being a Pastor and a Professor

On July 28, the elders of The North Church in Mounds View, Minnesota, announced that they are commissioning two of its pastors, Tom Dodds and me, to plant Christ the King Church. Joining us are Dustin Williams and Nathan Colestock. Three of this church plant’s leaders are directly connected to Bethlehem College and Seminary: Tom […]


Steddom Fund Re-Focused

We are writing to make you aware of an exciting reframing of the work of the Alex Steddom International Student Fund at Bethlehem College and Seminary. By the grace of God manifested as your personal generosity, we are now able to focus on delivering Bethlehem’s Bible-saturated, academically rigorous seminary education in-country among the theologically famished […]


The Inauguration of Dr. Brian J. Tabb

Bethlehem College and Seminary will inaugurate the school’s third president, Dr. Brian J. Tabb, in ceremonies to be held at 7:00 p.m. CDT, Friday, October 11, 2024, on the school’s main campus at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Chancellor John Piper is scheduled to make remarks. President Tabb will also deliver an Inaugural Address. “We […]


Tolkien On Taking a Book as the Original Author Intended

In 1936 J. R. R. Tolkien gave a lecture to the British Academy on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The primary point of this lecture, and its subsequent publication as “The Monsters and the Critics,” was to offer a defense of studying the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf as a poetic work. That proposition may sound obvious: we […]


A Call to Christian Faithfulness

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. -Colossians 3:23–24  Last October, while on my research sabbatical, conducting archival research in England, I encountered two inspiring examples of Christian faithfulness—one from the past and […]


A Receipt. For Good Things.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! — Matthew 7:11 ESV We asked. On every day of every week of the school year just passed, we asked the Lord to […]


Studying Scripture with the Global Church

Eddie D’Souza (4th-Year Seminarian), and I just returned from a week in Ambo, Ethiopia. We woke up each day heading into a training session on skills for interpreting New Testament epistles—focusing on Ephesians. And honestly, what could be better?  Teaching the Bible doesn’t get much better than (1) observing the spiritual blessings given to us […]