Terrific Time in Florida

November 19, 2009


I hope you’ll take a good look at this photo because these are your Christian leaders of tomorrow. I know because I’ve spent this week with them at Word of Life Bible Institute in Hudson, Florida. For ten hours this week I’ve been teaching them the Book of Daniel. And I must say they are a studious bunch. We meet each day in the GTAC (George Theis Activity Center) where I get them for two or three hours in the morning, usually just after a theology class or a quiz from a class they look last week.

Word of Life Bible Institute operates on an unusual–and attention-grabbing–premise. Imagine that you spent one year learning the Bible. What difference would that make in your life? In this case, the answer is obvious. After I finished teaching on Tuesday, I was heading out the door when a student stopped me and said, “I took your class on Daniel last year and I came back to say thank you. That class was where my life really started to change.” And then yesterday another student said, “Before this week, Daniel was just a bunch of Bible stories. Now I can’t wait to study it on my own.”

The students this year seem a little younger than usual, or maybe I’m just a year older. Nearly all of the 170 or so that I’m teaching  this week seem like they are in their late teens. But that means I get a chance to have input into young adults who will become pastors, missionaries, and Christian leaders in other fields of service. Some of the students will go on to take the second year at the New York campus while others will head for a Christian college or a state university. 

For ten hours over four days I get to talk about Daniel and his three friends and how to stand for Christ in a pagan culture, and I get to delve into Bible prophecy. We’ve been deep into the statue of Daniel 2 with its head of gold, chest of silver, thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay and how that correlates with the animal parade of Daniel 7. Today we talked about Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Hitler of the Old Testament and how he prefigures the coming Antichrist. I also discussed in mind-numbing detail the prophecy of the “Seventy Weeks” in Daniel 9. They all cheered when I was finished and because I was finished. Tomorrow we’ll wrap up the book with a look at “War in Heavenly Places,” “Who is the Antichrist?” and “Daniel in the Last Days.”

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself, and as I told Harry Bollback today, I can’t think of a better way to spend a week than helping teach the Word of God to the next generation of Christian leaders. 

Meanwhile enjoy the picture. As you can tell, we’ve had a terrific week together.

Do you have any thoughts or questions about this post?