Dr. Gareth Lee Cockerill is Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Wesley Biblical Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi, where he taught for thirty-five years before retirement in June, 2017. His friends usually call him ‘Gary’. Before coming to Wesley, he served for nine years, with his wife Rosa, in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He is an ordained minister who holds the Th.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (now Union Presbyterian Seminary), the M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary, and the B. A. from Southern Wesleyan University. He has had a life-long interest in the relevance of the Old Testament for Christians and in cross-cultural interpretation of the Bible. He has specialized in the book of Hebrews and in teaching the Gospels of Mark and John. Above all else, Dr. Cockerill is passionately committed to following Jesus.
Professor Cockerill’s book, The Jesus Question: Discovering Jesus’ Identity in His First Biography is scheduled for publication by Hendrickson in 2026. His ‘Yesterday and Today . . . and Forever’: Listening to Hebrews in the 21st Century appeared in 2022 (Cascade). Christian Faith in the Old Testament: The Bible of the Apostles was released by Thomas Nelson, February 2014. His commentary on Hebrews for the prestigious New International Commentary on the New Testament series (Wm. B. Eerdmans) appeared in April, 2012. In 2022 it was translated into Korean.
Other recent publications include “Sinai in Hebrews,” Appropriating Hebrews’s Scriptural Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century, 131–48 (ed. Dana M. Harris & J. David Stark, T&T Clark, 2025); ‘“Prophets and Apostles”: the Arrangement of the Old Testament Canon and the Theological Interpretation of Scripture,’ Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 64.3, 2021, 433–51; ‘From Deuteronomy to Hebrews: The Promised Land and the Unity of Scripture’, Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Spring (24/1) 2020, 83-100; ‘Method Follows Content: Interpreting the Bible as the Bible’, Method in Teaching Inductive Bible Study: A Practitioner’s Handbook. Essays in Honor of Robert a Traina with his unpublished Material on the Subject. Greathouse Festschrift Series Book 2, Great House, 2019; and ‘Hebrews 12:18-24 Apocalyptic Typology or Platonic Dualism?’ Tyndale Bulletin, 69/2, 2018, 225-239. His book Guidebook for Pilgrims to the Heavenly City (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2002) was an experiment in cross-cultural interpretation.
Dr. Cockerill has published a number of articles or book reviews in the following professional journals: Tyndale Bulletin; Bulletin for Biblical Research; The Evangelical Quarterly; The Journal of Biblical Literature; Missiology: A Review; Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society; Interpretation; Bibliotheca Sacra; Journal for Inductive Biblical Studies; and The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He has presented a number of papers at the Evangelical Theological Society, the Evangelical Missiological Society, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Institute for Biblical Research. Dr. Cockerill has contributed chapters to popular books and written adult curriculum.
In addition to teaching at Wesley Biblical Seminary, Professor Cockerill has lectured or taught as an adjunct at Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Ohio Christian University, Kingswood University, God’s Bible School and College, Patrick Henry College, and the Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is involved in his local church as a Sunday school teacher and preaches or teaches regularly in camps and conferences. Dr. Cockerill is whole heartedly committed to the world-mission of the church and is particularly interested in the training of cross-cultural workers and Christian leaders from around the world.
Rosa and Gary have been happily married for 53 years. They have three adult daughters (Allene, Ginny, and Kate), two sons-in-law (Carey and David), and four grandchildren.