An IMB Trustee on David Platt’s Election

Hershel York is one of the trustees who yesterday elected David Platt as the new President of the SBC’s International Mission Board (IMB). In a blog post today, he answers the concerns that some have raised about Platt’s assuming this role. Southern Baptists who have had such concerns should read what York has to say. His commendation and exhortation at the end are particularly relevant. He writes:

I’ve been in ministry all of my adult life. I’ve known Adrian Rogers, W. A. Criswell, Stephen Olford, John Stott, and many truly great men of God. I say this carefully and reverently: I have never met anyone on whom the anointing of God rests as powerfully and comfortably as David Platt. A few months or years from now, people will grow tired of talking about how much his church gave to the Cooperative Program, and his relentless drive to reach the nations will swamp and drown those driving the chariots of anti-Calvinism in a sea of irrelevance. The anointing of God on his life will be what matters. His ability to capture the imagination and harness the passion of new and succeeding generations for the Great Commission will still be relevant when all the current objections seem silly in our memories…

We trustees made our decision. We have our man. And if you are a Southern Baptist, he’s your man, too. Now let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and get behind him with prayer and encouragement for the sake of the gospel. A lost world hangs in the balance.

Read the rest here.