Teaching Day 1

I had a great day in the Lord today with the students from the VBBI. They were so gracious in filling out the questionnaire and pre-test for my DMin research. It took them almost 2 hours of the morning. One thing I learned as they went through that this morning is that even the way we ask questions in the US is sometimes difficult to translate into another culture.  How much a student of culture the Apostle Paul and others like him had to have been to go into so many different cultures around the world at that time and effectively share the gospel of Jesus with so  many lost people.  I am becoming more and more confident that to effectively and efficiently share the gospel we must know our culture and cultures we invade thoroughly.  Become a student of culture today, so you might change the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ tomorrow.  One size does not fit all.

After the class of 40+ pastors and church leaders (can you imagine how they could change Vietnam and the world if they catch a glimpse of the call and command of the Great Commission) finished the paper work I gave them, we jumped into the deep end of the pool, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. One of the most difficult things for me to do  is decide what to try to talk with them about and what not to discuss concerning this doctrine. With only 3.5 days of actual teaching time, and that cut in half when you account for translating time, there is not very much time to cover vast amounts of material. I keep praying and asking: "Lord, what are the essentials I need to speak to considering the context and the need?" We covered very briefly today the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person, the Holy Spirit is divine, and the Holy Spirit is co-equal with God the Father and God the Son in the Trinity.  What is so challenging is you could spend weeks studying any one of those three aspects biblically.  My goal is to overload their wagons with scripture that they can then in turn return home and study, allowing God the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Word of God in their hearts and minds. 

And speaking of returning home, the guy traveling the farthest to attend class this week, besides me, traveled over 700 KM to get here. Not sure how far that is in miles, but I know it's a long way.

The goal for tomorrow and Thursday will be to exegete passages on the job of the Holy Spirit from John 14-16, the fruit of the Spirit from Gal. 5, and spirtual gifts from I Cor. 12-14, etc...  Please be praying for me as I seek to honor the Lord Jesus and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Thanks and God bless.
Serving Him,
Mike