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I quickly discovered that my student had it wrong. Not only does the Bible itself clearly indicate that Jesus is God, but also the earliest church fathers (who lived at least two centuries before the time of Constantine) believed this as well.
Although I have long since lost track of this student, my desire to see whether what she said was so has led to a twin lifelong passion--theology and church history. Over the years I have pursued this passion both formally through seminary courses and informally through personal research.
I left my teaching position at Nebraska two years after my conversion to attend Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Subsequently I was a pastor in South Dakota and Ohio for six years before moving back to Lincoln in 1989 with my wife Elizabeth (whom I met in seminary) and our two young children. After five years of running a mail-order business and doing freelance writing, I began teaching philosophy again--this time at Southeast Community College.
During this time my passion for learning and teaching theology and church history continued to burn in my heart. However, while I pursued these interests in my spare time, God, for whatever reason, did not give me the opportunity to teach in these areas.
At the same time an idea was percolating in the back of my mind. Wouldn't it be great if some church would begin a program that would make available training in theology, church history, and other areas for those who were interested in becoming trained as leaders in the church and the community? Needless to say, a few years ago when Lincoln Berean Church (which my family and I had begun attending in 2000) started talking about its vision for a Christian Leadership College, I was thrilled.
During the past year I have had the opportunity to live my dream. I have taught church history and parts of the theology sequence in the daytime program for fulltime students, as well as church history in the evening Worldview Studies course. I have found the students in both of these programs eager to learn and willing to probe in depth the issues we are discussing. At times their questions have caused me to investigate areas that I might otherwise have left untouched. Having students who are truly interested in the subject matter is a sheer joy.
I have been a teacher in one context or another the greater part of my adult life. While I have always enjoyed teaching, at no time have I felt a greater passion for my work than I do at present. I thank God for the opportunity that He has given me to be part of the Christian Leadership College.
