Musings of a Seminary Grad

Introduction It is truly a blessing to teach redeemed students at a Christian university. In scrolling social media, I frequently find reels made by today’s public high school teachers; the disciplinary, behavioral, and attention-holding challenges they face are truly astounding, and not all of them can be attributed to the culture or age group. In contrast, my students are consistently courteous, polite, diligent, and grateful toward each other and me. This is not primarily due to their intentional upbringing, conservative values, or the constructive environment; above all, their positive deportment is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives, and it makes teaching that much more of a joy. This post is the third in a series on lessons I learned about teaching over this past summer. As I was preparing to teach a class on the New Testament books of 1-3 John, several truths impacted me specifically with regard to my profession as a college teacher. Thus far, I have written ...

Introduction The semester is underway! I am three weeks into the current school year, and classes are hauling along at what sometimes seems a breakneck pace. My teacher colleagues and I often confer about how quickly the semester seems to fly by for us, while the students experience it as a slow crawl. All the more reason for teachers to dutifully consider how we live before them as examples: we only have precious few hours to impress upon them the complete joy and spiritual flourishing that is fellowship with God. This blog series is a result of my study in preparation to teach a class on First through Third John, and actively teaching that class for the last three weeks has only intensified the lessons the Holy Spirit taught me. In First John especially, the Apostle sets forth tests for his readers to help them discern true and false teachers. They were facing a particularly virulent blend of heresy that denied human sinfulness (1 Jn. 1:8, 10), the necessity of Christ’s physi...

Introduction I am a teacher. It is what I do: I work at a Christian university where I teach a Bible doctrine class, several Biblical Greek classes, and survey classes of both the Old and New Testament, among other things. It is also who I am: I believe that God has gifted me with natural talents that enable me to explain concepts to others, and I further believe that God has graciously granted me the Spiritual gift of teaching. When I am in conversations with people, I frequently find myself wanting to help facilitate communication and understanding. I teach because I believe God has led me to do so, and I have been doing so professionally for ten years now. I teach because I believe God has led me to do so I started teaching on the university level at twenty-two years old. As I have grown and matured during these years, my perspective and philosophy of teaching have been shaped not only by experience and training but also by Scripture. Over this last summer, I did research and ...

This is a sermon I preached in chapel at Maranatha Baptist University on 10/28/2024 as part of a series through the Gospel of Luke. Introduction There is no book of Scripture entirely written by a woman, but the words of prophetesses like Deborah and Huldah as well as godly women like Abigail, along with the prayers of women like Mary mark the pages of scripture, and Mary's prayer, often referred to as the Magnificat, is largely based on Hannah's prayer; both prayers reach to the heights of praise to God for his character. As we read a Gospel, the two key questions we need to ask are: “What do I need to believe about Jesus?” and “How do I need to become more like Jesus?” The main theme of chapters seven and eight of Luke is that Jesus is the promised Divine Messiah predicted by the Old Testament and John the Baptist, as proven by his miraculous power over nature, illness, and death. Verses 18-35 of chapter seven record how John the Baptist struggled with doubt as to Jesus’ iden...