Presley to Deliver Hobbs Lecture Sept. 29

September 28, 2021

Dr. Stephen Presley, associate professor of church history and director of research doctoral studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, will deliver the Hobbs Lecture Wednesday, Sept. 29, at 10 a.m. in Raley Chapel’s Potter Auditorium. The theme of his lecture will be “Early Christianity.”

The Herschel H. and Frances J. Hobbs Lectureship in Baptist Faith and Heritage was OBU's first endowed lectureship with its founding in fall 1980. Friends of the late Dr. Hobbs, who was pastor of First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, and of the late Mrs. Hobbs created the endowed fund in honor of the couple’s history of incredible Christian service.

The Hobbs Lectureship program annually sponsors a lecture at OBU and highlights speakers that share phases of Baptist faith and heritage with the OBU community. It is one of four OBU lectureships designed to help students grow in their knowledge of Baptist theology, Baptist history and studies of the Bible.

Presley earned a Bachelor of Science from Baylor University. He then earned a Master of Theology in historical theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is a native Texan who joined the faculty of Southern Seminary in 2020. He specializes in patristics with an interest in the intersection between the history, theology and exegesis of the early church.

Presley is the author of “The Intertextual Reception of Genesis 1-3 in Irenaeus of Lyons” (Brill), as well as and many articles and essays examining the doctrine, practice and biblical interpretation in early Christianity. He is currently finishing a monograph on cultural engagement in the early church (Eerdmans) that should be out next year as well as a short volume on reading scripture with Irenaeus for Lexham’s Lived Theology Series.

Presley is a member of the North American Patristics Society, Evangelical Theological Society, Society of Biblical Literature and Institute for Biblical Research. He is a research fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and has served as a pastor, interim pastor and elder at several different Baptist churches.