We honor the Alexandria of the fathers and our founder

Scripture tells us that, "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways" (Heb 1:1). God has acted in history and interpreted his own works by guiding the words of Scripture's writers. We believe the Bible provides God's ordained means to know him and what he has done, especially in his self-revelation through the incarnate person and work of Christ Jesus. To hear God's voice, we must come to God on his own terms, listening in the Spirit to Scripture's words spoken by the Father through the Son.

All theological education properly ordered must enhance skill and cultivate wisdom in interpreting and teaching the Bible. It is our standard and norm for all theology and life—our most important pillar under whose authority all knowledge, theory, and practice must be submitted.

To rightly hear God's voice in Scripture we must interpret what the Bible says by its own unfolding message, but then turn to one another to confess what it means for us today. Such confession demands explanation: What do we mean when we join with Peter in confessing that Jesus is the "Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Matt. 16:16)? This is the task of theology.

Every Christian must offer explanation to the confession we receive from Scripture. The wise theologian listens carefully to the wisdom of Christians across the ages who have guarded the deposit of this confession entrusted by Christ to the Apostles. Therefore, we seek theology rooted in respectful conversation with our history, driving towards the faith enumerated in the ecumenical creeds and confessions of the early Church as trustworthy testimony to the message of Scripture which we continue to receive and cherish. We call this the Great Tradition, and we build our second pillar upon its wisdom for the Church today.

Reading Scripture and doing theology take place in the Church, classroom, and study, but our faith cannot stay there. The calling of Christ is to be formed into his image by the Spirit as we "go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19). Our theology is of little purpose if it does not bring the confession of Christ to bear on life in his world. In ever-changing cultural contexts, we must have one ear to Scripture and one ear to our surrounding context, that Scripture might read our hearts and minds as we shine Christ's light in the darkness across every inch of the world.

Theological education must prepare us to engage culture, that the Word of God might form cultures of virtue, wisdom, and justice as a foretaste of Christ's Kingdom. We seek to equip Christians to understand the intuitions, affections, and idioms of life in the cultures around us for faithful living for the life of the world. This is our third pillar.