Mark E. Dever (born August 28, 1960) is a theologian and the senior

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and the president of 9Marks (formerly known as the Center for Church Reform), a Christian ministry he co-founded "in an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America." Dever also taught for the faculty of Divinity at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and also served for two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge.

Biography

Dever grew up in rural

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

where he was an avid reader. He began reading sections of the

World Book Encyclopedia The ''World Book Encyclopedia'' is an American encyclopedia. ''World Book'' was first published in 1917. Since 1925, a new edition of the encyclopedia has been published annually. Although published online in digital form for a number of years, ...

and the Harvard Classics before he was ten years old and based upon his reading and thinking considered himself an agnostic in his younger years. Later rereading and thinking about the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

and the change that he saw in the life of Jesus' disciples led him to become a Christian. Dever earned the degrees of

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

, from

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

Master of Divinity For graduate-level theological institutions, the Master of Divinity (MDiv, ''magister divinitatis'' in Latin) is the first professional degree of the pastoral profession in North America. It is the most common academic degree in seminaries and ...

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

, from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary,

Master of Theology Master of Theology (, abbreviated ThM, MTh or MTheol, or ''Sacrae Theologiae Magister''; abbreviated STM) is a post-graduate degree offered by universities, divinity schools, and seminaries. It can serve as a transition degree for entrance into a ...

from the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville, Kentucky. The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. The s ...

, and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

ecclesiastical history Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of the ...

from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and received J.B. Lightfoot Scholarship at

from 1989 to 1991. Dever also taught for the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University while serving for two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church. Dever is married with two adult children.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church

Capitol Hill Baptist Church is a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

church located on

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...

, a few blocks from the

United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called the Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the Seat of government, seat of the United States Congress, the United States Congress, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, federal g ...

. Dever has been the senior pastor of the church since 1994. Capitol Hill Baptist is affiliated with the

Southern Baptist Convention The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestant, and the second-largest Chr ...

Dever's ecclesiology and the nine marks

Dever is a

and a

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

, but his

church polity Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local (congregational) forms of organization as well as denominational. A church's polity may describe its ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches. Polit ...

is notable for its emphasis on an elder led, congregationally ruled church. In addition, he believes that Baptist churches should be led by a plurality of elders as opposed to a single elder. Dever's main emphasis, as evidenced by 9Marks, is in the realm of

ecclesiology In Christian theology, ecclesiology is the study of the Church, the origins of Christianity, its relationship to Jesus, its role in salvation, its polity, its discipline, its eschatology, and its leadership. In its early history, one of th ...

. He aims to help Bible-believing churches become healthy by recovering a Biblical view of the church. The 9 marks he provides are his positive prescription for church health. He does not intend the book as a comprehensive ecclesiology or even a comprehensive diagnosis of all the problems that may be found in contemporary churches. The nine marks are: Dever has written about the adjective "biblical":

I try to use 'biblical' as an adjective. And I do so not to say less than 'Reformed' to my
Arminian Arminianism is a movement of Protestantism initiated in the early 17th century, based on the Christian theology, theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed Church, Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remo ...
friend, but to say more. I do so to get in what they perceive to be their territory. If I say that our position is 'Reformed,' Arminian or Wesleyan friends can simply dismiss me, thinking that I'm on the other side in an ancient battle, and am about to do no more than rehearse old disagreements. But if I call freshly on that which claims the allegiance of all evangelical parties—the Bible—and I work from there, I require their attention.

Dever's influence

In the last several years, Dever has become a more widely recognized name among conservative evangelicals, due in part to his appearance at large, nationwide conferences such as the Desiring God National Conference, the

Ligonier Ministries Ligonier Ministries (also known as simply Ligonier) is an international Christian discipleship organization headquartered in the greater Orlando, Florida area. Ligonier was founded in 1971 by R. C. Sproul in the Ligonier Valley, Pennsylvania, o ...

Conference, the Shepherd's Conference organized by Rev. John F. MacArthur, and the Together for the Gospel conference (which Dever co-founded with C. J. Mahaney, Ligon Duncan, and Al Mohler). Dever and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, also train church leaders on a smaller scale. Every year, twelve interns pass through the church's internship program that centers around ecclesiology. Many of these interns have gone on to

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

education, at the same time becoming active reformers in their current local churches. In addition, 9Marks hosts semi-annual weekend conferences at the church where pastors, elders, and seminarians from around the country experience the inner workings of Dever's church. Dever narrowly missed being elected as the convention's first vice-president in June 2006. Dever is also a member of the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is an organization of Christian individuals that believes evangelicals have largely forgotten the foundations of the Christian Gospel and is dedicated to calling on the Protestant churches, especially those ...

where he leads the Alliance Forum.

Selected works

*Dever, Mark E., ed., ''Polity: A Collection of Historic Baptist Documents-Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life'' (2001) *''A Display of God's Glory'' (2001) *''Nine Marks of a Healthy Church'' (2004) *''The Deliberate Church - Building Your Ministry on the Gospel'' (2005) *''The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept'' (2005) *''The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made'' (2006) *''By Whose Authority? Elders in Baptist Life'' (2006) *''The Gospel and Personal Evangelism'' (2007) *''What is a Healthy Church?'' (2007) *''12 Challenges Churches Face'' (2008) *''In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement'' (2008) *''It is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement'', with Michael Lawrence (2010) *''What Does God Want of us Anyway?'' (2010) *''Preach: Theology Meets Practice'', with Greg Gilbert (2012) *''The Church: the Gospel Made Visible'' (2012) * ' Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus ' (2016)

References

External links

9 MarksCapitol Hill Baptist Church
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dever, Mark 1960 births Living people 20th-century Baptist ministers from the United States 20th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century Baptist ministers from the United States 21st-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians Alumni of the University of Cambridge American Calvinist and Reformed theologians American evangelicals American male non-fiction writers American religious writers Baptist writers Calvinist and Reformed writers Converts to Baptist Christianity Converts to Protestantism from atheism or agnosticism Duke University alumni Ecclesiologists Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary alumni Southern Baptist ministers Southern Baptist Theological Seminary alumni People from Kentucky