My name is Joseph (“Joe”) Byrd. I retired from more than two decades of full-time pastoral ministry. I have served as a seminary professor having an earned Ph.D. in practical theology. I am an experienced attorney living with my wife, Carmela, outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Our two adult daughters were raised in parsonages as “PKs” (Pastor’s kids) and now live in the southeastern United States with their husbands. We have four wonderful grandchildren – who have little patience to hear their Granddad (me) explain anything to them.
My theological studies and post-graduate writing focused on hermeneutics (interpretation of scripture) and homiletics (expositional preaching). In these posts, readers will not find a topical devotional guide or commentary on world events from a Christian perspective. Instead, I write reflectively as a practical theologian and retired pastor about the teaching of Scripture regarding the life of a believer in the context of the Kingdom of God as taught in the Bible.
I was very familiar with Christianity early in my life, and then a biology teacher in junior high school persuaded me that all religion was nothing more than old wives’ tales (a real twist on separation of church and state as he was assertive in his derision of people of faith). I became a self-proclaimed atheist and spent the next few years reading as much as I could, being totally committed to everything I was taught by my science and math teachers. But as high school was drawing to a close for me, what I read (even reading philosophy in secondary sources), I began to question what was fed to me as proven scientific fact when I turned the methodology taught to me on the so-called proven facts. “Proven” scientific theories began to lack any coherence and failed to answer the big questions in my mind. Meaninglessness was giving way to hopelessness, and I was miserable.
My mother began attending church near my childhood home outside of Detroit, Michigan, and essentially negotiated my commitment to attend one Sunday service – it was awful, and I vowed to never return. My brother (Michael – who is six years older than me) convinced me to give it one more try and attend his Sunday School class. Though the class was intended for college-age adults, the teacher, Ms. Shelba Pitt, allowed me to continue to attend. She was a Bible College graduate who knew the Bible and taught it thoughtfully but unapologetically. After months of hearing her exposition of Scripture, I found the meaning and truth I sought and gave my heart to Christ.
My faith was nurtured in the 1970s by attending that Sunday School class and listening to radio Bible teachers/pastors (e.g., Chuck Swindoll, J. Vernon McGee, John MacArthur, and Chuck Smith). My essential readings were Good News for Modern Man (New Testament) and John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I was also impacted by the Charismatic movement of the 1970s in the U.S., particularly the Catholic Charismatic movement. This was the foundation of my nascent faith after my conversion to Christ over 45 years ago.
As in Bunyon’s allegory, I have viewed the Christian faith as a journey from this world (“the city of destruction”) to that which is to come (“the celestial city”—Kingdom of God). The posts in this blog are expositions of Scripture framed by the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God.
Thy Kingdom Come 