Jones’s theological journey leads to fulfillment in teaching

Colby Jones first sensed a call to ministry while in high school, leading to a strong desire to pursue Christian education and in turn teach others.

Raised in a Christian home in Northport, Alabama, faith was woven into everyday life as his parents faithfully taught him the truths of Scripture from an early age. By the time he reached middle and high school, Jones began to develop a desire to understand his faith more deeply.

“I was fascinated by questions of theology,” he said. “I wanted to understand Scripture better.”

Those questions became the catalyst for a lifetime of study.

“I knew that I really loved the Bible, and I had a lot of interest in asking lots of questions,” Jones said. “I had some really great mentors – pastors and youth pastors – men, who were willing to entertain those hard questions. Somewhere around high school, I started on this trajectory of thinking, ‘Wherever I go to school, whatever I want to do post-graduation, I want to study the Bible.’”

That goal led Jones to attend Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham, where professors invested in him not just academically but personally.

During his sophomore year, Jones met his wife, Sarah, after what he laughingly describes as “a tale of conspiracy.” Their campus supervisors intentionally introduced the two, hoping something might happen. It worked.

“I would conveniently make my rounds through the library where she worked,” he joked.

The two dated throughout college before marrying while Jones was pursuing a master’s degree in New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outside Chicago.

As he continued his education, his vision of ministry continued to develop. While initially planning to pursue pastoral ministry, Jones gradually realized his greatest joy was teaching Scripture. That realization led him to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2012, where he completed his Master of Divinity with a concentration in biblical languages in 2014 and his Ph.D. in New Testament in 2022.

For the Joneses, the move to Fort Worth was a leap of faith.

“We didn’t know anybody,” Jones recalled.

The couple settled into student housing, found a church home at Redeemer Church in White Settlement within their first month, and began putting down roots that neither expected would grow so deeply.

While in school, Jones worked as a lifeguard at the Recreation and Aerobics Center before joining the team at the Riley Center, where he formed friendships that continue today. Along the way, he said former professors like Paul Hoskins (New Testament) and George Klein (Old Testament) and current professors Joshua Williams (Old Testament) and Andrew Street (Biblical Studies) became mentors and friends. Each one brought a level of scholarship and personal character that shaped Jones, even impacting the focus of his doctoral work.

“These are people that I will reach out to if I have a question about ‘What should I do here? How should I approach this issue?’” Jones said. “… It’s become more than just a professor-student relationship.”

Some of Jones’s fondest memories of Southwestern have little to do with classrooms. When he and Sarah arrived, they were newlyweds; a decade and two degrees later, they had four children.

Living in student housing with a growing family wasn’t always easy, but Jones recounts it fondly. Friends lived just across the courtyard, their children playing together daily, and student wives encouraged one another through the challenges of raising families while husbands navigated seminary and doctoral work.

“We look back on that now and we’re, like, ‘That was actually wonderful,’” he said.

Today, those memories still resonate with their children, who Jones says associate Southwestern’s campus with childhood friendships.

Jones admitted that his love for academia and a strong desire to teach in academia for a time led him to constantly be in pursuit of the next degree and next opportunity, as he pursued multiple degrees from varying institutions. But Jones said the Lord helped him change that perspective to one of contentment in service.

“It’s easy to become stuck in this place where your eyes are so fixed on the horizon that you’re not much good right here in the present,” Jones said. “And I think that’s one way in which the Lord has really worked on me.”

Jones now teaches at Grace Classical Christian Academy in Granbury and The Oaks Tutorials in Fort Worth, where he instructs high school students in Bible, theology, rhetoric, and Greek. He also teaches New Testament courses at Southwestern as an adjunct professor.

“I have the opportunity to teach things that I love,” Jones said. “I love teaching the Bible, love teaching theology. I love teaching Greek. Those are all things that I spent all this time preparing to teach.”

This passion extends beyond academics, as Jones said he believes education is fundamentally about discipleship.

“It’s not just a matter of academics, although I do care about the academics. It’s a matter of discipleship, mentorship,” Jones said, adding he thinks of his students as “persons who we desire to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not just to be able to know things, and to be able to regurgitate them, and those sorts of things, but to actually grow in Christlikeness, and to love the Lord and His creation.”

With that mindset, Jones continues to embrace where God has placed him today. Whether teaching Greek to high school students, serving Southwestern as an adjunct professor, preaching several times each year at Redeemer Church, raising four children with Sarah, or investing in the community that has become home, he has discovered contentment in the ordinary faithfulness of daily life.

“If I’m doing what I’m doing now, I’ll be content,” he said, adding there is danger with discontentment, because “you miss all the little, simple, mundane graces that the Lord has planted all around you, whether it be your wife, or your kids, or your church, or whatever. All these sorts of things that just trumpet the Lord’s mercy can be so easily overlooked.”