Promoting the importance of Reformed, Christian education has been a life-long passion of Dr. Kortenhoeven. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Dordt University and his doctorate in Higher Education Leadership from Azusa Pacific University. He has served schools and colleges for 33 years in Florida, California, and Colorado, with the last 20 years being in leadership roles at both the high school and college levels.

The Providence Christian College Board of Trustees and the Presidential Search Committee have announced the appointment of Dr. Steven B. Kortenhoeven as the 4th president of Providence, located in Pasadena, California.
Dr. Kortenhoeven, a founding staff member of Providence, was the college’s first Dean of Student Life and Assistant Professor of Education. Since those early years at Providence, his passion for the mission of Providence and service to the college has remained constant, serving on college committees and on the Board of Trustees.
Promoting the importance of Reformed, Christian education has been a life-long passion of Dr. Kortenhoeven. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Dordt University and his doctorate in Higher Education Leadership from Azusa Pacific University. He has served schools and colleges for 33 years in Florida, California, and Colorado, with the last 20 years being in leadership roles at both the high school and college levels.
Over three decades of leading in Christian education has earned Dr. Kortenhoeven the respect of his colleagues and the communities in which he served. He is known for wisdom and stability, providing a strong foundation for schools to grow and students to flourish under his leadership. The board of trustees unanimously believe that Dr. Kortenhoeven’s leadership is exactly what the college needs now as we embark into a season of growth and financial stability.
John Jansen, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee, said the following:
“I am delighted that after several years of searching Steve recognized God’s leading. His capabilities, experience as a life-long educator, along with his love for Christian higher education makes him a great fit as Providence’s next President. The fact that Steve also has maintained a strong relationship with Providence over the years made it obvious to the Committee that Dr. Kortenhoeven was the right man for the job.”
Steve and his wife, Donna, live in Denver, Colorado and have five grown children and one daughter-in-aw. Education has always been an important part of the family ethos, and each of the children are either currently working in education or enrolled in higher education.
Steve and Donna enjoy discovering new hikes, reading, traveling to see their children, playing pickleball, and golfing. They are eager to return to the West Coast to embrace the work God has placed in front of them.
The Board of Trustees would like to thank the Presidential Search Committee for their committed work, prayers, and wisdom through the process of this national search.
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Written by Ryan M. McGraw |
Thursday, June 13, 2024
We should read the Bible as one story, of one covenant of grace, with one church united in Christ, with Gentile salvation in view from the beginning. Yet we should also believe that God has a future plan for ethnic Jews, not by giving them a separate destiny as a separate people of God but by bringing them back to Jesus Christ through faith.

Israel is often on people’s minds. Unrest ebbs and flows in the Middle East, with Israel front and center, giving rise to practical and theological questions. Are Israelites a people of God distinct from the church? Is God with them, whether or not they believe in Christ? What is their destiny? How should Christians relate to Jews? The list goes on and, frankly, I hesitate to enter the fray.
When the most recent conflict in Israel broke out, someone at a church fellowship said to me, “You are the doctor of theology here. What should we think and do about Israel?” I stand by my reply: “I am neither competent nor able to speak to politics, but I can point people to Christ through Scripture.” The Bible’s covenant theology has something to say about the relationship between Israel and the church. Rather than politics, biblical answers tell us more about the breathtaking unity of Scripture and how Jews and Gentiles relate to Christ than other questions we might have. Ultimately, there is one people of God, including the salvation of the nations from the beginning, and Israel has a special place in God’s plan for the church.
Is There One People of God?
Moving the elephant in the room out of the way, Scripture does not teach that Israel and the church are two peoples of God with two destinies, one earthly (Israel) and one heavenly (the church). “Covenant” highlights the breathtaking unity of Scripture, making Jews and Gentiles one people of God in Christ (Eph. 2:15).
From the “first promise” of the “seed of the woman” who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15) to one of the last promises of God’s heavenly dwelling with his people as their God (Rev. 21:3), covenant theology pulls together everything in between. The result is that we view the Bible more like a grand, epic narrative than like a collection of short stories. Seeing God’s promise to undo the ruin Satan brought through sin ties together all the pages of Scripture like a seamless thread. In this light, the promise to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18), fits both Genesis 3:15 and Galatians 3:14, in which “the blessing of Abraham” applies to believers now. The “seed of the woman’s” suffering in the place of his people resurfaces in important passages like Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Romans 16:20.
Moses’s leading the people out of Egypt, and everything else he did, flowed from God’s remembering his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 2:24–25). David looked to God to forgive sins and change hearts (Ps. 51), and he pleaded that the deliverer would come through one of his descendants (2 Sam. 7; Ps. 89; Ps. 132). Solomon celebrated God’s faithfulness in establishing his seed (of the woman) over the ends of the earth, bringing blessings to all nations (Ps. 72). Peter urged believers to look to Christ’s return, teaching them that God preserves the world now for the sake of the elect, just as he did in Noah’s covenant in Genesis 6–9 (2 Pet. 3:8–9).
Covenant theology is a blessing because whatever book of Scripture we find ourselves in, every part reminds us of other parts. The entire book is about God’s covenant with his people, always pointing them to Christ (Lk. 24:44–46). Not only does the Old Testament fit with the New but the New starts to look like an inevitable result of the Old, without which the story would be incomplete.1
A single covenant of grace envelops both Jews and Gentiles in eternal life in Christ: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:28–29). Whether we consider God’s covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, or with believers today under the new covenant in Christ, the “blessing of Abraham” (Gal. 3:14) comes on all believers, Jew and Gentile, who are “baptized into Christ” (Gal. 3:27).2
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Several years ago, I was invited to a church to help lead their annual leader training. At this annual meeting, they eat dinner together, talk about their overall ministry philosophy and goals, and then break out into age segments for more directed and specific training. During the dinner, I happened to be seated close to a group of older ladies who chatted happily and enjoyed their chicken casserole as much as I did. But then came the time for a special presentation.
One of the casserole-enjoying ladies was, evidently, named Ms. Peggy, and she was to be honored that night. She was retiring from teaching one of the children’s Sunday school classes because she was moving to an assisted living home. But here’s the kicker – she was retiring after having taught that Sunday school class for 70 straight years.
70.
Think about that. That means she taught children who, only a couple of years earlier, had lost their fathers during World War II. It means she shepherded children through things like the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. It means that her Sunday school class excitedly talked about the Apollo Moon landing one Sunday. It means she was teaching the Bible during the tumultuous years of Vietnam. And on 9/11, she was still there. Sunday after Sunday. Week after week. Year after year. It’s remarkable.
And while it’s easy to think such a thing remarkable after 70 years, I wonder if 65 years ago we would have the same reaction to Ms. Peggy. Probably not.