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<\/a><\/p>\nWhat a long strange trip it has been (and still is), to quote the Grateful Dead.\u00a0 My career as a teacher began B.C.\u2013 before cellphone, and even before personal computer.\u00a0 My poor wife had to type my doctoral dissertation (twice) on our IBM Selectric 3 typewriter, using a Hebrew ball, and a Greek ball, and a symbol ball etc.\u00a0 Many years later when we were living in Ashland Ohio,\u00a0 our daughter who was in grade school, and had begun to learn how to use computers, was studying that typewriter and trying to figure out what it was and what it did.\u00a0 She said \u2018Daddy, its a keyboard with a printer attached\u2019. I said \u2018you\u2019re right honey, they\u2019ve now separated these two things so they can charge you for the printer separately.\u00a0 My journey took me from teaching part time in my hometown at High Point College (now a major university thanks to the visionary leadership of my former youth ministers Nido!) while pastoring 4 rural Methodist Churches. I taught Jesus and his Gospels, and Paul and his Letters.\u00a0 And I quickly learned undergrads need more grace, and shouldn\u2019t be graded like grad students.\u00a0 Only a year after that I took a couple of courses at Duke Divinity school and was asked to teach Wesley studies to local pastors for two summers.\u00a0 And then I was called to pastor a larger city church in the mountains\u2013 East Flat Rock UMC in Hendersonville.\u00a0 This was a year with no teaching other than in the church itself.\u00a0 And it was during that year that I got a phone call from the president of Ashland Seminary, which I had never heard of.; I asked when he called\u2014 is this Ashland Kentucky\u2013 NO,\u00a0 Ashland Oregon then\u2014 NO,\u00a0 Ashland Alabama, NO.\u00a0 It was a small town in the middle of Ohio\u2014 Ashland Ohio, and we spent 11 years in Ashland Ohio, where our two kids grew up.\u00a0 During that time I adjuncted at alma mater, Gordon Conwell, and interviewed there, and turneed down that job.\u00a0 In the early 90s I also interviewed at Wesley Theological Seminary in D.C. and was one of 2 finalists, and didn\u2019t make the final cut. The Dean at the school called me to tell me that while my publications and presentations were better than the other candidate, they needed to make an affirmative action hiring.\u00a0 And they did.\u00a0 Finally, I got a call from Maxie Dunnam then President at Asbury Seminary. He told me I needed to get myself down to Asbury where there were many more Methodists to train. The advice I had gotten from my conference was \u2018don\u2019t take the job, as you\u2019ll never get a job at a mainline school thereafter. They are too conservative.\u2019 The irony of this advice became almost immediately apparent.\u00a0 I was due a sabbatical from Ashland, which Asbury honored in the Spring of 1996, when I went to Cambridge as a Robinson College Fellow, by that University\u2019s invitation.\u00a0 Not long after I left for the U.K., the phone rang in my Asbury office. It was the Dean at Yale asking if I would please apply for their NT opening.\u00a0 Since I had no cell phone, and since the messages on my office phone were not relayed to me, I did not find out about this call until I got home in May. By then, someone else had been hired at Yale, since I never responded to the call.\u00a0 But it just showed that the proverbial wisdom of my conference advisors was all wrong\u2013 if God wanted me somewhere, he could open the door.\u00a0 And so it was that I began teaching in 1995 at Asbury and now have been there going on 30 years.\u00a0 During that time I also taught a bit at Vanderbilt Divinity School, teaching Revelation.\u00a0 When I set out on my full time teaching career I taught OT, NT, and Wesley Studies on 4 campus, including in Columbus, Cleveland and Detroit, fulfilling the role of a Methodist circuit rider.\u00a0 When I came to Asbury I was asked \u2018which part of the NT would you like to teach, and I just laughed. \u2018Yes the NT, I said.<\/p>\n
I would be remiss if I did not say that I have learned much from my own students along the way, and have tried to treat them with care and respect.\u00a0 I\u2019ve especially loved having very bright Biblical Studies doctoral students the last dozen or so years. From them I\u2019ve learned a good deal.\u00a0 But I wanted to be sure to say that for me at least, one of the keys to being a good teacher is to continue to research and write, which is to say to continue to learn, and not just repeat the same material over and over, even though I\u2019m teaching the same courses multiple times over the years.\u00a0 As a teacher one needs to convey one\u2019s enthusiasm for the subject matter, and what better subject to enthuse about than the greatest book of all time\u2014 the Bible.\u00a0 My grandfather, James Arthur West, a deacon and a Sunday school teacher for many decades said this about the Bible\u2013<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book called the Bible contains the mind of God, the state of humankind, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. it\u2019s doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It\u2019s the traveler\u2019s map, the pilgrim\u2019s staff, the pilot\u2019s compass, the soldier\u2019s sword and the Christian\u2019s charter. Here paradise is restored, heaven is opened, and the gates of Hell disclosed. Christ is the grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given to you in this life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor, and condemns all who trifle with its holy contents. This friend will all our needs supply. This fount sends forth streams of joy. This good Physician gives us health. This sun renews and warms the soul. This sword both wounds and heals and makes us whole. This book shows us our sins forgiven. This guide conducts us safely to heaven. This charter has been sealed with blood. This volume is the Word of God. Follow it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Amen to all that.\u00a0 While studying the Bible has sometimes exhausted me, I have never been able to exhaust it.\u00a0 It\u2019s blessings are new every day.\u00a0 In short how you view the Bible will determine at least in part what you will get out of it, and whether it will provide you with resources daily to learn and teach with.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What a long strange trip it has been (and still is), to quote the Grateful Dead.\u00a0 My career as a teacher began B.C.\u2013 before cellphone, and even before personal computer.\u00a0 My poor wife had to type my doctoral dissertation (twice) on our IBM Selectric 3 typewriter, using a Hebrew ball, and a Greek ball, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":61454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14931],"class_list":["post-68028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-word-of-god-for-the-people-of-god"],"yoast_head":"\n
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