Off To School...

Well, it has been two years since I left Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where I had started a 3 year Masters of Divinity program. I have completed one year and after being gone for two years working in mission I had decided to not go back as a full time student upon returning to America. This was because I didn't want to pull out loans for another 2+ years of school, especially with the intention of being available to travel overseas for the pastoral calling God gave to me in my senior year of Bible school. I was just reminded today of the need for seminary education today as I had the opportunity to teach a Bible study using the Greek meanings and the tools that I had acquired while in Bible School and Seminary. The cool thing was that I was teaching an OM team in a slum area of Bombay where most of the inhabitants are uneducated, unable to read and seem to need prayer, finances and healing more than sound Bible teaching and Greek exegesis. Today I found out that this isn't true. Although some of the listeners aren't able to read they aren't stupid, in fact they connect with the culture of the Bible much more in their present day situation than the Western world does. In this, they were able to connect with the principles more naturally as they would from their own everyday experiences. They all were thankful for the Biblical teaching and lamented at those who had taught them without working on their sermons or teaching them off the cuff. Wow! Proper Biblical exegesis and the original languages are just as important if not more for uneducated, illiterate brothers and sisters who have embraced Christ in the slums of Bombay. So the result, after seeing God lead me back to school and asking me to trust him for the provision and reminding me of the importance of a Seminary education in the middle of a Bombay slum, I have decided, in faith, to reapply to school full time and have been accepted, trusting God for the stamina, finances and brain power. I will get home to Chicago on the 18th of August and start classes on the 22nd. Prayer is in high demand! Oh Yeah!