10 Week Semester
Thursday Classes starting January 12, 2012
Saturday Classes starting January 14, 2012
Saturdays 10:00am -10:55am
History, Culture, and Evangelism in the Early Church (BHT 401)
Instructor: Dave Belles M.T.S.; M.A.
As the message of the Gospel spread from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the utter most parts of the Gentile world, those who proclaimed the message encountered a diverse culture with populations having varied historical backgrounds. As the first century evangelists went out, they took an awareness of this diversity with them and varied the message's emphases to meet the needs of the different audiences, while maintaining the core of the newly founded Christian faith. Our sessions together will examine how the evangelists of the early Church met the challenge of a diverse audience with a consistent Gospel account. As we shall see, they did so by being congnizant of the historical and cultural environment in which they worked.
Saturdays 11:00am - 11:55am
Biblical Leadership - The Call (BL 401)
Instructor: Alan J. Schrader Th.B; M.A.; D.B.S.
Biblical Leadership begins in only one place: God's view of the world. Unless you begin from God's starting point, no leadership technique, no performance model, an no application theory will make a difference. Biblical leadership is not measured by the normal "success" criteria. It is measured by God's standard: submission, surrender and obedience. The course's objective is to help perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you as a leader in the Body of Christ. We will examine the need for leadership to gain God's perspective of the world and begin to apply Kingdom principles to an un-healed, un-taught, un-fathered, un-corrected, un-fruitful world. The course is intended to provide the basis for the call to be light in the dark world. Are you willing to be changed?
Thursdays 7:00pm - 7:55pm
Controversary and the Development of Theology in the Patrisitic Era (BHT 402)
Instructor: Dave Belles M.T.S.; M.A.
In the face of persecution from without and controversy over its identity from within, the early Christian Church grew until it became the dominant structure in the Roman Empire. Controversy forced the Church to reflect on its understanding of the nature of salvation, the incarnation, and what documents were deemed to have scriptural authority. The second through the sixth centuries, referred to as the Patristic Era, constituted the period when key facets of what we now consider orthodox fined. Without this period of theological reflection, the orthodox doctrines that we take fro granted might be very different and it is possible that Christianity mighty not have flourished. For this point of view, the development of the theology of this period was the divinely appointed means of preserving the Church and solidifying its identity.
Thursdays 8:00pm - 8:55pm
Biblical Leadership - The Motivation (BL 402)
Instructor: Alan J. Schrader Th.B.; M.A.; D.B.S.
Jesus Christ, the master of leadership, trained His disciples as a group. Learning to work together in love was paramount to Jesus' training of His disciples. True Biblical leadership will understand the significance of the "new commandment" to love one another as He has loved them. By this community of love, the world would know that they were Christ's disciples. Our sessions together will cause us to gain a more accurate understanding of loving leadership. "But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way" (1 Cor. 12:31). Biblical leadership is about transformation, not technique.
