Upcoming Lectures
Jonathan Leeman will present the 2025 Hughes Lecture Series at RTS Jackson. Jonathan Leeman is the editorial director for 9Marks. After doing undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science, Jonathan began his career in journalism where he worked as an editor for an international economics magazine in Washington, D.C. Since his call to ministry, Jonathan has earned a master of divinity and a Ph.D. in theology and worked as an interim pastor.
Today he edits the 9Marks series of books as well as the 9Marks Journal and is the co-host of Pastors Talk. He has written for a number of publications and is the author or editor of a number of books.
Jonathan lives with his wife and four daughters in a suburb of Washington, DC and serves as an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church. He teaches adjunctively at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Reformed Theological Seminary. You can follow him on Twitter at @JonathanLeeman.
2024 Hughes Preaching Lectures
Gray Sutanto presented RTS’s Hughes Lectures in 2024 in Jackson, MS. Dr. Sutanto serves as assistant professor of systematic theology at RTS, Washington D.C. He spoke on the 19th century Dutch Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck.
About the Lectures
The Hughes Lecture Series was started as a part of the Hughes Initiative for Pastoral Excellence. The Hughes Initiative aims to identify candidates for the Gospel ministry with evident Christian character and personal maturity, a clear calling to preaching and pastoral work, a record of service in the local church, and proven academic performance and potential in order to give them the best ministerial preparation for a lifetime of service to the Lord and his people. Mrs. Robbie Hughes, a long-time supporter of Reformed Theological Seminary, established a generous scholarship program to prepare the next generation of pastors. This lecture series is a component of that initiative.
RTS, the flagship seminary of the Reformed evangelical world, hosts named lectures across our campus system. The John Reed Miller Lectures in Jackson, the Simon Kistemaker Lectures in Orlando, the Harold O.J. Brown Lectures in Charlotte, the Francis Grimké Lectures in Atlanta, and now the Hughes Lectures. These lectures enable our students to hear from the leading scholars of our time.
In Jackson, the Hughes Lectures bring in the most accomplished Bible-believing theologians and scholars of our day to address our students on topics that relate to the biblical, doctrinal and historical theology. The core of the RTS MDiv curriculum focuses on “Bible, Theology, and Ministry.” In Jackson, the John Reed Miller Lectures address pastoral theology, the “ministry” component of our curriculum, and the Hughes Lectures address the Bible and theology portion of our curriculum. At RTS, we aim for our graduates to be expert and faithful interpreters and teachers of the Scriptures, to know, understand and embrace the “faith once delivered,” and thus to be able to articulate, commend, and defend the doctrinal truth of the Christian faith, and to do these things with a view to loving and faithful pastoral ministry. These lecture series further this aim.
It is wholly appropriate that the Hughes Lectures will focus on these subjects, because Robbie Hughes is an avid student of the Scriptures who began to teach Sunday School as a teenager and has continued in Christian service and leading Bible studies ever since. Her life has been characterized by seeking to know God and to make Him known. Fittingly, the Hughes Lectures will assist and equip the students of RTS to do just that – to know God better and to make Him known among the nations.
Past Speakers
To listen to past lectures, select the year you would like to hear (if available).