Student Highlight: Tadesse

Meet Tadesse from Ethiopia! He has been thrown into prison 2 different times for preaching the Gospel, has planted four churches in Ethiopia, and has a passion for training and equipping Christians in Ethiopia to effectively reach out and share the Gospel with Muslims. Persecution of Christians by Muslims is quite intense in Ethiopia so please pray for Tadesse along with his wife and daughter in Ethiopia. As a Christian living in America I have never experienced persecution or known what it is really like to suffer for Jesus' name. I am the teacher in the sense that I have studied and am teaching a technical subject (New Testament Greek) but I am also a student.

Student Highlight: Timothy

It has been a busy yet wonderful three weeks since we arrived in the Netherlands to teach at Tyndale Theological Seminary for the summer. Tyndale trains and equips pastors, evangelists, church leaders, and teachers from around the world. The best part of the ministry here is interaction with the students: they are passionate followers of Christ from diverse countries and cultures. It is so easy in America to lose sight of the global nature of Christianity and to think that God's kingdom is focused on America (hint: America is not God's Kingdom; God's kingdom is so much larger and grander, greatly surpassing any human geo-socio-political boundaries).

I want to give you a glimpse of the quality and passion of Tyndale students along with the ministry we are involved in here so I am beginning a series of blog-posts that will highlight various students through informal interviews. Please watch, listen, and pray for the ministry here and throughout God's world.

Timothy has a passion to evangelize the least-reached areas of Cameroon; please pray for his wife and children who had to remain in Cameroon during the course of his studies.

Celebration and a SIX hour time jump!

Well, finally here it is...the tale of our trip!  The beginning to the beginning of our great adventure!  It all started with chocolate chip pancakes and the singing of Happy Birthday to our sweet Benjamin who turned "5" on the day our plane flew out!  

Chris and Sarah saw to it that we arrived at the airport in time and before we knew it we were seated on the airplane and taking off!  I need a moment to brag on the boys.  They were amazing travelers!  Oh, if you could have seen the grim faces of everyone who saw us coming...it made me laugh.  No really, I laughed all the way to the back of the plane where our seats were!  Thankfully God is all about details and as He planned it the lovely lady sitting next to me had two grown sons and was excited to hold Micah to give my arms a break.  Elijah, Benjamin and Paul all agreed that riding on an airplane must be like riding a big roller coaster because it "tickles the tummy".

Our first flight ended in Iceland with a 16 hour layover so we decided to stay in a hotel type place (it used to be a US Airforce base) and get some rest.

We brought just a few things with us!

Micah and me with a beautiful Iceland sunset at midnight...I don't know when it got dark but I know it was not until after 2am according to the time there!

Iceland was a very wild and "untouched by man" type place...as we flew over it Benjamin asked if we were going to be camping because for as far as you could see there was nothing but flat fields of lava rock with grass and purple flowers sticking up every now and then.

Flying from Iceland to the Netherlands was peaceful.  Watching the landscape change between the two countries was amazing!  God's creation is so diverse and beautiful!  When we arrived and went through customs at the airport I was overwhelmed by the variety of languages I heard around me!  My sweet little Southern USA raised boys kept asking "is he speaking Spanish?"

We were greeted by one of the staff and a student from Tyndale and they helped us settle in at the home where we are house sitting for a wonderful family from a Church nearby.  We are so thankful for them opening their home to us!  We finally convinced the boys and ourselves to go to bed by 2am (8pm in the US) and slept until Noon (6am in the US)!  Needless to say the time change has been a bit of a challenge but almost 2 weeks later and I think we have adjusted!

We are house sitting this lovely place for a month and then to a one bedroom apartment we go!

 Our first day we got to experience the life of not having a car, not speaking the language and having no idea where the grocery store was!  God is good and provided what we needed for the day...legs, Dutch dictionaries and maps!  We also had the thrill of meeting the summer students who, as Alex posted earlier, are from 15 different countries!  Tomorrow will be the start of Alex's second week teaching and he loves it!  God is so good to PREPARE us for what He wants us to do, PROVIDE for what we need to get there and give His PEACE as we go through the changes!

Alex, Elijah and Benjamin with some of the students from Tyndale!

Modern Day Hospitality

In the ancient world hospitality was a highly valued virtue. Many Jews in the first century viewed hospitality as one of Abraham’s defining characteristics and the growth of the early Christian movement took place as traveling apostles and missionaries found lodging and rest among other believers. This practice is reflected in 3 John 5-8 among many other texts (lol; how often do you see 3 John cited). We have been blessed and aided beyond words by two dear friends and members of God’s people in Nyack, NY, Chris and Sarah Kotecha, as they opened their home to us last night (no small endeavor in light of the energy possessed by our boys), are taking us to the airport later today, keeping our van for the summer, and picking us back up again at the end of the summer.

It was also exciting and encouraging to hear how God is using and leading Chris and Sarah. They have recently joined up with CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) with the vision and goal of starting an after school Bible club in each of 39 elementary schools in Rockland County, NY, an ethnically diverse suburb of NYC. They do this by networking and partnering with local churches which supply the volunteers and resources. This ministry is compelling for several reasons: First, it powerfully brings the Gospel to children; a desperate need at this point in America. Second, it brings together and unites various churches and denominations in a single cause—watch out if churches from different denominations begin to work together for the Gospel! Third, Chris and Sarah are uniquely gifted and trained for this networking and training ministry; they bring a lot of skills and passion to the table. If you are interested in being placed on their mailing list to further partner with them in prayer or with financial support please drop Chris a line at cskotecha@gmail.com.   

Chris and Sarah

 

International Ministry

I just received the registration list for the classes I will be teaching this summer and students are from the following countries: Cameroon, Ukraine, Suriname, Romania, Netherlands, Ghana, Ethiopia, USA, Serbia, Finland, Georgia, Myanmar, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, and Brazil. What an international student body! Jenny and I are so excited to be a part of God’s global kingdom!

Dissertation

Since most will not read the actual dissertation I want to share the “Acknowledgements” page below with a wider readership. I would be happy to send a pdf copy of the dissertation to any interested readers. It is entitled “Soteriology as Motivation in the Apocalypse of John” and applies Toulmin’s model of argumentation analysis to the text of Revelation. I hope to get it published sometime in the next few years but that will depend upon finding a willing publisher.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Looking back over my life and the road that led to the completion of this dissertation, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude to those who have contributed and sacrificed not only to help me complete the project, but to shape me into the man that I am today.

            To my beautiful wife Jenny: there is no doubt about it, I married up. You have shouldered the weight of sacrifice for this project far more than me; and that with unflagging love and without a single complaint. My respect, admiration, and love for you has done nothing but increase since the day we said “I do.” Thank you! To my boys Elijah, Benjamin, Paul, and Micah: thanks for your patience—daddy’s big book is finally done!

            To my parents Michael and Debby Stewart: thank you for your consistent support, love, and encouragement from diapers to diploma—I am who I am today because of you. To my other mom, Karen McAlister: thank you for entrusting your daughter to my care and for embracing me as a son.

To the professors at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Columbia International University that have personally guided and mentored me along the way: Dr. David Alan Black, Dr. Andreas J. Köstenberger, Dr. Chip McDaniel, Dr. William J.  Larkin, Dr. John D. Harvey, Dr. Bryan E. Beyer, Dr. Don N. Howell, and Dr. Joel Williams—thank you for approaching your work as a vocation and ministry and not simply as a job. I have benefited as much, if not more, from observing the sincerity of your lives and faith than from your teaching and research, which was, of course, also exemplary.

To the leaders and members of Tabernacle Christian Church in Southington, CT: thank you for instilling within me, from a young age, an insatiable longing for God’s presence and a focus on the heart, not just the externals, of walking with God. To Carey Baptist Church in Henderson, NC: thank you for embracing my family as your family. Your love and support made this project possible and made our ministry in Henderson a joy.

           Finally and preeminently, thank you God for including me within your people, loosing me from my sins, redeeming me from among mankind, and placing your seal upon me thereby enabling me to overcome. I long for your salvation—the coming of the day when you will finally, fully, and completely set everything right in your creation.      

Graduation

The long doctoral journey has finally been completed. God has led us through four years of undergraduate study, three years of graduate study, and four more years of doctoral study. My doctoral research focused on the main point or purpose of the book of Revelation so if anyone has any apocalyptic questions feel free to contact me. I certainly do not know everything about the book but I have learned a few things over the past few years :-). The graduation ceremony was a bit surreal and definitely memorable.

The “hooding” part of the ceremony.

My two bosses: Dr. Andreas Köstenberger (on the right) was my second reader; I worked as his research assistant for 3 years. Dr. Benjamin Merkle (on the left); I worked as a graduate fellow with him for a year.

Dr. David Alan Black; my major professor and a full-time academic missionary (follow his ministry and musings at http://daveblackonline.com/blog.htm). Dr. Black, more than any other person I know, models a sold-out missionary lifestyle for king Jesus.

Dr. Al James; Professor of Missions and pastor of Carey Baptist Church (our home church for the past four years—we miss yall dearly)

 Paul loves hats and stole it at the first opportunity!

Micah also seemed to enjoy the celebration!