About Me
My name is Mark Ward. I hold a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from BJU Seminary. My dissertation was entitled, Paul’s Positive Religious Affections.
I currently work for Faithlife as the editor of Bible Study Magazine. Faithlife’s mission is to use technology to equip the church to grow in the light of the Bible; I contribute to that mission by writing many, many articles for the company and doing other stuff I feel grateful to the Lord for allowing me to do.
My most recent book is Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, which comes “highly recommended” by D.A. Carson-and has an accompanying Faithlife documentary.
I attended Mount Calvary Baptist Church for 18 years while in Greenville, SC, and I “pastored” an outreach congregation there Sunday mornings for the last (almost) six of those years. After moving to Washington, I was something of an assistant pastor for six years—though ordained for only the last 9 months of that time—at Cornerstone Baptist Church of Anacortes. The church voted to close toward the end of the COVID era. My family now attends Emmanuel Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, WA, where we serve in various capacities.
I am also the president of the Bible Faculty Summit, a small annual colloquium for biblical scholars who hail from the same sliver of American Protestantism I do.
About the Blog
“By Faith We Understand” (why the name?) exists to glorify God by stirring up my readership—theologically thoughtful conservative Christians—to love and good works. I like to review books. I like to write about apologetics a bit, about language and the KJV a lot, about any blog-length thought that I myself want to access later. If you want a good flavor of what I like to write about, here are three posts that might do the trick:
About the YOUTUBING
I took the opportunity afforded by COVID to jump into something I’ve long felt I could do for the church: YouTubing. Most of the energies I used to devote to blogging—and more—are now devoted to my YouTube channel, though I have found that some content really does still belong on the blog. If you like what you read here, you may want to check me out there.
A FEW MORE TIDBITS
- I got to know my lovely wife in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania on the 2006 Musical Mission Team.
- On March 3, 2010, our family increased by 50%.
- On October 26, 2011, our family increased again by 33⅓%.
- On September 2, 2014, our family increased again by 25%.
- My interests include reading, hermeneutics, Bible translation(s), language, NT textual criticism, epistemology, technology, biblical theology, biblical worldview, language, Stanley Fish, Bible typography, a cappella choral music, barbershop, and ultimate frisbee once a week (I’m a handler, and there’s nothing like a huck that hits your receiver in stride for a score, or a curving flick that goes out of bounds and back in, hitting your receiver in the end zone at just the spot where he is running flat-out).
- I used to do a fair bit of graphic design on the side as Forward Design, and I still do design sometimes because I can’t help it (websites and logos); I serve churches. I am interested in picking up hosting clients. For details, email me.