Mark Dever

Mark E. Dever

Mark E. Dever (born August 28th, 1960) has been the senior pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. since 1994, and is the president of 9Marks (formerly known as the Center for Church Reform), a Christian ministry he co-founded "in an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America.".^[1] He is known as a Calvinist preacher.^[2]

Biography

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Dever grew up in rural Kentucky where he was an avid reader. He began reading sections of the World Book Encyclopedia and the Harvard Classics before he was ten years old and based upon his reading and thinking considered himself an agnostic in his younger years. Later rereading and thinking about the Gospels and the change that he saw in the life of Jesus' disciples led him to become a Christian.^[3]

Dever earned the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Duke University, Master of Divinity, summa cum laude, from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Master of Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Doctor of Philosophy in ecclesiastical history from Cambridge University.^[1]

Dever is married with two adult children.^[4]

Dever's ecclesiology and the nine marks

Dever is a Baptist and Reformed, but his church polity is notable for its emphasis on an elder led, congregationally ruled church. In addition, he believes that Baptist churches should be led by a plurality of elders as opposed to a single elder.^[5]

Dever's main emphasis, as evidenced by 9Marks, is in the realm of ecclesiology. He aims to help Bible-believing churches become healthy by recovering a Biblical view of the church. The 9 marks he provides are his positive prescription for church health. He does not intend the book as a comprehensive ecclesiology or even a comprehensive diagnosis of all the problems that may be found in contemporary churches. The nine marks are:^[6]

1. Expositional preaching
2. Biblical theology
3. Biblical understanding of the Gospel
4. Biblical understanding of conversion
5. Biblical understanding of evangelism
6. Biblical understanding of membership
7. Biblical church discipline
8. Promotion of Christian discipleship and growth
9. Biblical understanding of church leadership

Dever's influence

In the last several years, Dever has become a more widely-recognized name among conservative Evangelicals, due in part to his appearance at large, nation-wide conferences such as the Desiring God National Conference, the Ligonier Ministries Conference, the Shepherd's Conference organized by Rev.John F. MacArthur, and the Together for the Gospel conference (which Dever co-founded with C. J. Mahaney, Ligon Duncan, and R. Albert Mohler).

Dever and the congregation that he serves in Washington, DC also train church leaders on a smaller scale. For the past four years, twelve interns a year have passed through the church's internship program that centers around ecclesiology. Many of these interns have gone on to seminary education, at the same time becoming active reformers in their current local churches.^[7] In addition, 9Marks hosts semi-annual weekend conferences at the church where pastors, elders, and seminarians from around the country experience the inner workings of Dever's church.

Most churches in the Southern Baptist Convention (the association of which his church is a member) have not adopted his views on ecclesiology. Even so, he narrowly missed being elected as the convention's first vice-president in June 2006,^[8] and he does serve the convention as a trustee of its Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dr. Dever is also a member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals where he leads the Alliance Forum (www.AllianceNet.org).

Selected works

• Dever, Mark E., ed., Polity: A Collection of Historic Baptist Documents-Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life, (2001)
• Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Crossway Books, (2004)
• The Deliberate Church - Building Your Ministry on the Gospel (2005)
• The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept, (2005)
• The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made, (2006)
• The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, (2007)
• What is a Healthy Church? (2007)
• 12 Challenges Churches Face, (2008)
• In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement, (2008)

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Biography from Capitol Hill Baptist Church
2. ^ Christian faith: Calvinism is back, March 27, 2010, The Christian Science Monitor, Retrieved November 2, 2010
3. ^ Dever talks about his childhood in an interview with C.J. Mahaney: http://resources.christianity.com/details/mrki/20070901/46c7732c-1aef-4598-a5c9-1ccf8eaddc12.aspx
4. ^ Mark refers to how he met his wife in an interview with C.J. Mahaney. http://resources.christianity.com/details/mrki/20070901/46c7732c-1aef-4598-a5c9-1ccf8eaddc12.aspx
5. ^ See his books: A Display of God's Glory: Basics of Church Structure, Deacons, Elders, Congregationalism, & Membership, By Whose Authority?: Elders in Baptist Life, The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel (co-written with Paul Alexander), and a volume he edited called Polity.
6. ^ "The 9 Marks Overview"
7. ^ "Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". Capitol Hill Baptist Church website. Capitol Hill Baptist Church. http://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/we-provide/internships/where-are-they-now/. 
8. ^ "Frank Page elected SBC President" from the Baptist Press News

External links

• 9Marks Ministries
• Blog articles by Mark Dever
• Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals
• Advancing the Church Conference
• Mark Dever a Biographical Sketch

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