My books for the semester!

To fill you in since my last post, the Seminary campus was back up and running on Sunday night thanks to the Louisville Gas & Electric crews.  Apparently, as I was told, only one power line was down on campus this whole time!  Since we are of lower priority to the city, LG&E trucks didn’t start working until early Sunday, but I’m thankful that power is restored and that I am back in my dorm room.  It’s a weird thing to call a dorm room home, but with all of my photos, coffee maker, microwave, books, TV, PS2, refrigerator, blankets, personal sink, warm showers, etc. this is the closest thing I have to home.

Today was the first day of my seminary career beginning with a commencement chapel service and then classes afterward.  Al Mohler preached on Acts 1:1-8 in chapel, a familiar passage to many, where he described the state of the church with regards to missions and how he fears today’s church has become calloused to the central role of being a “blessing to all nations”.  He identified with how radical this proclamation was to the disciples after the resurrection.  Even after Jesus had died, been buried, and rose again the disciples all still thought and even questioned Jesus on whether He would now restore everything back to Israel.  Seems like a dumb question doesn’t it?  They were still concerned about themselves and the nation state of Israel, but Jesus had a different idea, an idea which was traced back to the early parts of the Old Testament with God telling Abraham that through him all nations would be blessed (Gen. 22:18).  Where was Al going with all of this?  He drove home how we are the fulfillment of that promise and if we take Acts 1:1-8 lightly, which was given by our Lord Jesus Christ, we are disobeying Him and the world in which we live in will continue to secularize itself in light of a “church” which stands on comfort rather than truth.  Mohler ended with saying that we have such a great opportunity to go ANYWHERE in the world today.  Technology has been made into a vehicle for the spreading of the Gospel and if we are faithful we will go.  I’d have to say it was pretty encouraging to hear yet convicting at the same time because I tend to worry as to where I will be in the coming years.  But if I stay faithful to the Gospel and set my heart on God, He will give me the desires of my heart and lead me into areas according to His will.  There is one family who stands out in my mind when thinking about this sermon on “going”, the Flippens.  For those who may not know, this family is a huge part of Old Powhatan Baptist and served the church with such love.  They felt the call to overseas missions in Serbia after a one week volunteer mission trip to Serbia accompanied by many days and nights in faithful prayer.  It is such a testimony to see them take their two boys and go for the sake of the Gospel.  There are so many places in this world that need the message of the Gospel, so why aren’t we going in droves to these places locally, nationally, and internationally?  I fear as well that Churches become complacent to how things are with regards to sending for the sake of the Gospel and I am so thankful to be part of a church back home that gets it right.  Please pray for our churches and that they would become revitalized with hearts on fire for the One, True, Living God.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for the day, my classes just added to the love and passion of why I am here.  My Old Testament I professor (Dr. J. Betts) is a man dedicated to the understanding of the OT and how it shapes the way we think about God throughout all of Scripture.  He basically gave us a sermon on how we cannot know Jesus without the OT and how important it is to balance out our preaching from the OT and the NT.  He was quite fired up about churches who don’t preach the OT but rather stick to the New and this is very common with our churches today.  Paraphrasing Betts about sticking strictly to the NT, it’s like jumping into a movie’s climax without ever seeing the introduction (helping to understand all of whats going on).  His passion in teaching really excites me and I am at the point where I want to soak up as much information as I can to further my passion for God and enjoy Him that much more.

Finally, my last class is one on Christian Philosophy, basically understanding apologetics.  Dr. Ted Cabal is the professor and he is one for bringing back old stories from his lifetime.  He is old but funny at the same time.  Most of my luck with old professors while at VCU were really lame so this is definitely a plus.  And the fact that Cabal is a believer in Christ!  Although, it seems to me like this course is going to involve a lot of thinking and reading (look at my Philosophical book up above).

Oh and if you are wondering how my Online Hebrew is going….just splendid.  Teaching myself another language may be beneficial after all.

I hope this has given you a brief summary of how things are going and I will probably post more on the topics of each course as we go further into the semester.

Here is a treat for anyone who likes blogs about Statistics and the Gospel, There Really is a Bible Belt

My temporary dorm room (looks cozy!)

The power officially cut out on the campus today and we were forced to move off campus for the night or head to Boyce College’s one electricity filled dorm (I have chosen the latter).  Classes have been canceled for the rest of the week as well.  We have no idea when we will be able to move back into the dorms so if you can please pray for power, patience, safety, and a worshipful heart among the body of believers despite the continuing circumstances.

Here is something that I found through Tim Challies’ blog for you to chew on:

Children are not a burden on the Economy Matt Perman interacts with Nancy Pelosi’s comments indicating that she feels children are a burden on the economy.  (Simply Ridiculous!)

Outside of my dorm window facing the library

Well it has been just about a week since I moved into the dorms at Southern Seminary and I would have to say that this has been one of the most anxious times as well as the most frustrating.  Anxious to get things started but frustrating, as some already know, because of a semi-broken printer (if one can be semi-broken since I’ve always heard it is either one or the other), a cancelled Hebrew class since there were not enough professors to teach the course-so that leaves me with one option toward taking Hebrew…HEBREW ONLINE (this is gonna be fun, but in some ways I think this may actually help me to understand it better), and finally snow days…yes I said it, snow days.  For those of you back in Central VA, I bet you’re jealous of this since we never get anything but ice!  The first day of classes were supposed to start today but because of the wonderful Kentucky weather we got snow and it’s not stopping anytime soon.  The trusted weathermen assured us that we may see a total of five inches and I’m hoping  he’s dead wrong for the sake of classes (that is the only time you will ever see me say that so you better catch it quick).  So will tomorrows classes and Thursdays classes be cancelled?  Who knows.  I really do love it here, honest, but this is not at all how I envisioned the first week of seminary.  I guess I still need to throw away my thoughts of how things should be and go along with the mindset of “rolling with the punches”.  God is still in control even when stuff is thrown out into disarray.  I’m sure this is very small in comparison to what  kind of craziness will happen in the future.