ESBS IMPACT

Mary Austin and Chance Faulkner (ESBS students 2011-12)

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It always blesses me to hear good things from former students.  It's especially encouraging to see them actively engaged in promoting healthy community back home.  This morning I got to chat with Mary Austin Faulkner, a former ESBS student now living with her husband Chance (also a former ESBS student), in Peterborough Ontario.  She filled me in on a 2-hour Old Testament Overview she recently led for some friends from her church.  Here's what she had to say:

 "My purpose was to address some common confusions about the Old Testament; confusions that I certainly had myself before studying at ESBS. 

Ultimately I tried to help the girls have a better framework for understanding the Old Testament and where Jesus fits in to that history, and therefore how relevant it still is to us today! Afterwards I got some encouraging feedback from the girls, saying that I helped them understand certain concepts that they had always wondered about but had never had fully explained to them, like the covenants, the law, what happened to Israel and Judah during the books of Kings, and where the prophets fit into the story. 

Personally, I just felt VERY blessed while preparing and leading the overview, by really seeing all that God taught me last year at school and seeing that he is being faithful to use me for his kingdom here in my new town and new country! 

I feel amazingly blessed every day when I see what God is working in me through last year at school (not to mention meeting my husband and all that, although that's pretty awesome, too!) and I see it in Chance and Rylan too, how our studies and time at school really changed us for the better and how God continues to change us and use us and grow us from the foundation that we received at school.

You guys are doing an amazing thing by being there, it is God's work and I am so thankful that you are there! We think about you guys and pray for you often."

"You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well." (2 Timothy 2:2)

Taylor Balckford on Galatians

taylor blackford, current esbs student

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I thought it would be fun to hear from one of our current students (Taylor Blackford) as he studied this weeks book:  Galatians

Galatians was challenging for me. Not in a sense of completing it, but in the content of it. This is a great quote that was used in lecture, from Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians:
“…Yet I am compelled to forget my shame and be quite shameless in view of the horrible profanation and abomination which have always raged in the church of God, and still rage today, against this one solid rock which we call the doctrine of justification. I mean the doctrine that we are redeemed from sin, death and the devil, and made partakers of eternal life, not by ourselves (and certainly not by our works, which are less than ourselves), but by the help of another, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.” – Martin Luther
I think Martin Luther got it exactly right, and I think what he said still applies to the church today. Often times we don’t truly understand this idea of justification Paul hammers into the churches of Galatia in his letter. They had been deceived into thinking that they had to add things onto the gospel in order to really be accepted by God; that the law still applied to them, and salvation depended on Jesus+works, not just Jesus. Isn’t that the same mindset we so often fall into? Paul basically calls it slavery. We have been set free, but we always tend toward legalism, which just takes away our freedom. The significance of this idea cannot be overemphasized in our lives; justification is by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not Jesus+_______.

T.B.

Galatians 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

WEEKLY STUDENT BLOG BEGINS

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This week each student began blogging about what they're learning in the book we're currently studying.  Look for each student to be posting weekly from now on.  These blog posts are great ways to get inside the lives of our students and see what God is teaching them.

you can visit the blog via a link on the ESBS homepage, or directly via the link below

www.esbsblog.com

Scott Pitts: the cannon of scripture

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Today it's time once again for Scott Pitts (a 5-year, veteran staff member with the ESBS) to give his annual lecture on the "cannon of scripture." The lecture takes the students on a 2 hour whirlwind tour through the history surrounding how the 66 books in our Bible were written, preserved, and finally included in our cannon.

Last year's lecture is available right now on our website under the audio tab: (link below)

http://www.esbsonline.org/audio-2011-12/


This special evening lecture exists as part of our curriculum because Scott studied for it, prepared for it, and has a passion to give it.  It's extra, it's awesome, and its just another one of many examples of just how deep the bench is at the ESBS from a staffing perspective.  We are blessed to have some real Bible studs on staff, and Scott is at the top of that list.

scott preparing to teach the cannon lecture

scott with his crazy timeline on the board

Wrapping up the "Seminar"

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We are nearing the end of the first three weeks of the school year, a section of the program we call "the seminar."  These first three weeks the students are in class morning and evening, baby-stepping their way towards mastering the steps of the inductive study method.  Now towards the end of that portion of the school, the students are handling more and more of the study time on their own, and after this friday we will no longer have evening classes.

So far we've studied Philemon, Titus, Philippians and Ephesians.  Tomorrow we start the gospel of Mark.  I for one am glad to be entering into more of a normal work schedule with classes only in the morning.  Everyone seems to be off to a great start and Im once again very thankful for getting to take yet another trip through the Bible.

Tom