About

Dr. Matt Ayars

Dr. Matt Ayars currently serves as the President of Wesley Biblical Seminary. Prior to serving at WBS, Matt served as the President of Emmaus University of Haiti as a career missionary with the One Mission Society.

Matt earned a BA from Asbury University, an MA in Biblical Literature from Wesley Biblical Seminary, and a PhD in Old Testament Studies from the University of Chester, St. John’s College of Nottingham (under the supervision of well known OT scholar Dr. David Firth).

Matt is the author of The Shape of Hebrew Poetry: Exploring the Discourse Function of Linguistic Parallelism in the Egyptian Hallel, which explores foregrounding and structural cohesion as the dual discourse function of linguistic parallelism in biblical Hebrew poetry through a robust application of Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson’s conceptulisation of linguistic parallelism to the Egpytian Hallel (Psalm 113–118).

Matt is also the author of Salvation in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2015) and the co-author of Holy Is a Four-Letter Word: How to Live a Holy Life in an Unholy World (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2019). Matt has also written academic articles on the topics of the New Perspective of Paul, Wesleyan Soteriology, and Pneumatology.

Matt’s forthcoming publications include:

• John Oswalt and Matt Ayars, eds. Holiness in the Old Testament (Publisher TBD).
• Matt Ayars, Chris Bounds, and Caleb Friedeman, Holiness: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Theology (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press)
• Matt Ayars and Peter Ho, eds. Holistic Readings on the Psalms and the Twelve (Bloomsbury).
• The Helper: An Introduction to the Holy Spirit (Seedbed).

Matt and his wife Stacey have four children.