Pastor Ortlund received a B.A. from Wheaton College, Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, M.A. from The University of California, Berkeley, and Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Pastor Ortlund served as Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois from 1989-1998.

He was ordained by Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena, California, 1975.  He currently serves as pastor at Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee.  He has been married to Jan Giles Ortlund for thirty-eight happy years, and they have four delightful children, all launched into life.