Biography

My name is David Smith. My wife calls me David, everyone else calls me “Dave.” I’m a professor of Biblical Studies at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. I’m 55 years old (or young depending upon your perspective) and the last 28 years have been spent married to the most wonderful woman I know, Angie. She is a home-maker and a discipler of young women on the IWU campus. She also is working full-time on renovating our 100 year old brick home here in Marion, Indiana. Two jobs; what a woman. We have two adult children, Joshua 25 (married to Laura) and Hannah 22.

Angie and I have pastored several churches, the last senior pastorate being a Free Methodist church in Cleveland, Ohio for five years (1989-1994). And we loved it. It was a great incubator for me to develop a practical philosophy of ministry. As I see it, the church is God’s organization (maybe better stated as “living organism”) to fulfill the “great commission.” Within the church, solid theological and biblical training certainly play a foundational role as it prepares men and women for the work of the church. But I see it as the stepping stone to enhance one’s practical application to the daily life and ministry of an individual.

To give you at bit of my professional and academic training, I am a second (or maybe third) career professor. I spent 10 years as a Computer Systems Analyst with Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, Ohio. So, my foreign languages are not just Hebrew, Greek, and German, but I also talk "computer eze." My undergraduate training was done at Circleville Bible College (Circleville, Ohio) and Asbury College (B.A.; Bible). I then went to Asbury Theological Seminary for an M.A. in Biblical Literature (Old Testament Major). But in 1994, after pastoring, we returned to Asbury Seminary for me to work on an M. Div. and then on to University of Durham (England not N.C.) for a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies, with a thesis on Orality in the Gospel of Mark.

Currently, I am the Associate Dean of the School of Theology and Ministry (20 full-time professors in this school) and teach undergraduate classes at Indiana Wesleyan. We have approximately 500 students in the School and 3,500 in the traditional undergraduate program at IWU.

In my spare time, I recently wrote a commentary on the Gospel of Mark for Wesleyan Commentary Series. Additionally, Angie and I love to travel across the country and around the world teaching the Bible. In recent years we have crisscrossed the US several times and internationally we have been to Honduras twice and Africa four times. Last but certainly not least, I am also trying desperately to be a good father and husband. So, whenever you run out of things to pray for, pray for my productivity and perseverance.