There Are Many Wars, But This One I Must Make
I got this twitter message sent by John Piper (I trust my eyes, check it for yourself) then I watched the video clip twice and now I can’t get rid of that thought that there is one war that I must make. There are many wars out there. People fight for different causes; I may feel I should fight for something, strive for something or aim to something. But whole passage of the Scriptures in Hebrews 12 pushes me to conclude that one war is crucial, inevitable and necessary. Read the text online: http://ref.ly/He12.3-17;ESV
Verse 4 reads, “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” And that’s so true of me.
Thank you, Jesus, for this reminder. My eyes are upon you, you are my Commander in Chief and the Lord, the Victor. I need your grace to make war against sin in my life, for the sake of my joy and your glory.
What about you my friend, who reads this and watches the video? Do you make war against sin in your life?
What’s new this fall at Kyiv Theological Seminary?
What’s new this coming fall semester at Kyiv Theological Seminary? My answer to the question is: Diploma Programs in Christian Educations, Church Planting, Pastoral Leadership, Pastoral Chaplaincy Leadership, World Missions and Youth Ministry.
I am happy to share that this morning the Executive Council of KTS approved launching of new Diploma Program. It is our noble intention as we open another program in our seminary is providing better and diverse study opportunities to those evangelical believers who are busy with their work and cannot commit for full-time study. This diploma program is going to be our first part-time track that provides transferable credits which could be used as building blocks for earning a degree at our school. This new program will use the current schedule, teachers and courses, and such approach ensures efficient use of seminary resources.
Students will come twice in a year for two weeks of residential study and earn total of 39 credits over 3 years of study. Here are general divisions of the study plan:
• KTS Core (Bible, Church History, General Ed., and Theology): 18 credits
• Specialization: 18 credits
• Specialized practicum: 3 credits
Beside spreading this news our academic office has to update admissions application to include new programs. General admissions requirements are not changed as well as academic expectations from these new students.
Old Sermon Still Makes Sense Today
As I worked on our website and audio from recent chapels I downloaded and listened to another message available at the seminary website. About two years ago Mark McDonnel, Director of Biblical Studies program at undergraduate level, spoke on topic of pride and humility and importance of latter and danger of former in academic seminary setting. I was very impressed with precise relevance of the message to our current times. Well the message was great admonishing to me. It also stirred my appreciation for prevailance of such perspective and humble attitude among our faculty members.
I encourage you to listen to it and enjoy sudden, yet natural jokes that flavor this message. My prayer is for all our faculty to keep holding this humble attitude with high scholarship standards. It such a wonderful thing that we can maintain such healthy environment and model what we teach.
The MP3 file is available at this link for download from seminary website.
By the way, Mark is still here at KTS and we are happy to load him with classes to teach, and he does not mind such treatment of him. Is that humility in action?
(Photo: Mark McDonnel (right) speaks at KTS Commencement 2007 Credit: ktsonline.org).
Seminary Chapel Messages Available Again
Two recent messages delivered at Kyiv Theological Seminary chapel are available for free download at seminary’s website.
On January 27, 2009 we had Dr. James Ehrhard preaching in our chapel on the Book of Ruth, chapter 3, his sermon was answering very practical question: How do we act biblically in every situation? Dr. Ehrhard is known at our seminary for ability to build bridge of understadning between biblical texts and contemporary life, with very relevant applications to seminary community. Link to MP3 download.
On February 17, 2009 KTS President Anatoly Prokopchuk (photo above) gave exposition of several chapters from the Book of Jeremiah. Particularly he spoke on chapters 37-42. As always, it’s pleasure to listen to accurate exposition of biblcal texts with lessons for modern lives. In this sermon I was striked with lessons from lives of Zedekiah and Gedaliah who despite their opposite charachters shared one common mortal trait of unbelief. This unbelief in Jehovah, God of their fathers led both of them to tragic ends of their lives. Link to MP3 download.
What a great encouragement is to have Bible expositors speaking at seminary chapel here in Kyiv.
For a long time we have not posted any audio from our seminary chapel services. An explanation is simple this our chapel recordings done enthusiastically on any equipment available at the time. Which in turn explains various quality of the audio files. The school does not have professional and dedicated audio recording equipment and various individuals of seminary community kindly offer their devices. Presently someone generously lends her laptop computer for chapel or seminar recordings. Thus this semester, Lord wills, you can expect to enjoy seminary chapel podcasts again. SDG.
MP3 Public Lectures from Seminary Website
Free downloads provided at Kyiv Seminary website. This time we have two new recordings of public lectures that were conducted this academic year. Lectures were presented in English with translation into Russian.
Lecture on February 4, 2009. Scott D. Edgar, Ph.D. presented: “Mentoring – the missing link in Ukrainian Theological Education for Ministry”. The audio in MP3 format is available for download from this page.
Lecture on October 15, 2008. Wesley K. Willmer, Ph.D., Vice President for Biola University Advancement presented: “God and Money: The Vital Link Between Our Earthly Possessions and Eternal Soul”. The audio in MP3 format available for download from this page.
Maybe you’d like to download the files for listening as part of your Russian language study? Or recommend them to your friend?
Finally, thank you for keeping our school (staff, administration, faculty and students) in your prayers.
Event at KTS: Public Seminar
Next week our we have special event night when Dr. Scott D. Edgar presents his dissertation findings at KTS Public Seminar on Wednesday February 4, 2009. According to Dr. Edgar, he wants to “encourage mentoring relationships among the students at KTS and in the churches and organizations in which they serve”. Topic of his presentation will be Mentoring – the missing link in Ukrainian Theological Education for Ministry.
I am excited that Dr. Edgar and his wife Becky came to our seminary to teach two intensive courses this month. It’s my delight to welcome old friends of Kyiv Theological Seminary who served here in Ukraine as missionaries in 2000-2002. Dr. Edgar served as full-time faculty and active Academic Dean of KTS at that time.
You can download reproducible poster to print and share with your church this weekend. Poster Seminar Edgar A4 Eng Rus
Please pray for this event and for Dr. Edgar as he presents this important topic to us.
Kyiv Seminary Goes Twitter
Just recently Kyiv Seminary registered with Twitter. http://twitter.com/kyivseminary/
You can subscribe to seminary’s RSS Twitter feed right here, without going there.
Today we made our first post announcing new information related to Public Seminar event at KTS next week.
Tool for Teacher: Visual Snapshot of Blog’s Message
Interesting and fun way to represent words in visual way. Here you can see my blog presented visually with some words used here. I think that http://www.wordle.net is a great tool for teachers to bring a creative element into their classrooms. I plan to test the service and see how well my students respond to it.
Free Sermon: A Good Lesson From a Bad Example by Robinson
I had wonderful instructive moment this Monday along with starting another module of Exposition of Isaiah class. The class on Isiah itself is excitingly growing experience for me since I can go deeper into the living Word of God in context of personal study as well as teaching and class discussion. But I want to point out to free resource of audio sermons from Christianity Today. Tonight I delighted myself with listening to a sermon by : A Good Lesson From a Bad ExampleTo live to pursue riches and success is foolish, for these things are not eternal.
Here is sermon description and summary from the webpage:
Text: Luke 12:16-34
Topic: What is important in life
Obsessions with worldly priorities keep us from hearing what Jesus has to say.
In Luke 12, a man interrupts Jesus’ sermon on life and death, asking him to divide the inheritance between him and his brother.
Jesus asks him, “Who made me a judge or a divider over you?” meaning the man has missed the reason Jesus came to earth.
Jesus said, “Beware of covetousness, for a man’s life does not consist of the things he possesses.”
Our culture and the media spread a message that life is made up of things.
Riches themselves are not evil, but money can bind us to the physical and temporal and blind us to the spiritual and eternal.
Illustration: Jesus begins to tell the story of a wealthy farmer who would have been esteemed in his community because of his success.
The Bible commends industry, but it’s not progress to move rapidly down the wrong road.
Illustration: The farmer in Jesus’ story is progressive, investing his wealth in capital improvements; however the progress he makes is in things, not people.
Illustration: Robinson tells a story of an American missionary in Africa who tells natives about modern conveniences but notices one of the natives is unimpressed; the native tells him that being better off is not to be better.
If you live to collect riches and as though God does not exist, you are a fool.
Illustration: Robinson imagines in detail when death visits the farmer unexpectedly and takes all his wealth from him, despite the man’s efforts to bargain for his life. The angel of God walks through the cemetery and writes the word fool on his gravestone, for all that the man had collected was left behind.
Jesus is asking, “Is it worth your life to get what you are after?”
Jesus says you ought to make the kingdom of God, not money, the central concern of your life.
Illustration: Jesus illustrates his point with ravens: if they do not worry, and God feeds them, why should we worry that God will not do the same for us?
Illustration: Again Jesus uses a metaphor: as lilies in the field grow carefree, so are we to trust that God will provide for us.
Illustration: Robinson describes people who make money, passion, or power the center of their lives and the inevitable ruin of not focusing on what is eternal.
Illustration: Robinson tells the legend of a master who calls his servant stupid and gives the servant a staff, instructing him if he ever meets anyone more stupid than himself, to give it to that individual. One day the master tells his servant he is going on a long journey from which he will not return and for which he did not he could have. Upon hearing this, the servant gives his master the staff.
You can download the sermon at this link: A Good Lesson From a Bad Example
I delight in good expository sermons and I appreciate that Kyiv Theological Seminary takes expository approach in homiletics class, teaching our students faithfully how to handle the World of God carefully and effectively. I appreciate our teachers such as Dr. Thomas Nite who teaches expository preaching in his Homiletics 1 class at KTS. who also uses Dr. Robinson’s texts as intructional materials for our Ukrainian students. Much to learn from KTS faculty and such a joy to do so.
