What I'm Learning

Things I've been learning at Bible College, by class:

Romans:

We've covered about half of the book of Romans so far. Romans is written as a formal argument, almost like a legal document. It starts off by establishing that people are guilty of sin and don't deserve heaven, then introduces the grace of God that brings justification. Justification being a one time act of forgiving sins, so that sinners may be pardoned and permitted entrance to heaven. Then it continues on to the topic of sanctification, which is God continually at work in the Christian's life to purge sin and produce holiness.

Discipleship:

Discipleship is my favorite class. It's going over a bunch of basic Christian doctrine, in order to prepare us for discipling new believers. The topics covered include daily quiet times, prayer, fellowship, being Spirit-filled, witnessing, and Biblical reconciliation. Lots of good stuff, much of which I have heard at points before, but it has really helped me to have it presented in such a focused format.

One controversial subject that was brought up in this class was a teaching on forgiveness. According to the teacher, Pastor Bob, forgiveness in the Bible is only given to those who are repentant. For example, Jesus said that if someone sins against you and repents seventy times seven times, then you should forgive them seventy times seven. On the other hand, we are called to forgive others as we would wish God to forgive us, so it seems we should forgive unconditionally. I just brought it up because I thought it was an interesting point of discussion, and I'm not entirely sure what the answer is.

Hermeneutics (Inductive Bible Study):

This class is about how to study the Bible. There's a focus on preparing students to lead a small Bible Study. We pick a passage of scripture each week, do an outline, and go through the verses recording observations, interpretations, and applications. Then the class period is discussing what we got out of the text.

John:

Nothing special about the course requirements here, we're pretty much going straight through the book of John with insights from the teacher. I like the teacher, he's quite a character. He cracks jokes like "My wife is great, when she's humble." The book of John is also a great book, some recurring themes are the deity of Jesus, how the Jewish leaders tried to suppress and kill Him, and how His teachings were repeatedly misunderstood by the unbelieving Jews.

Genesis:

This is also teaching straight through the book of Genesis, although the homework is varied a bit from the standard (some papers and memorization). Many Christians believe that Genesis 1-11 are not literally true, but figurative in nature. These are the chapters that cover creation, the flood, and the tower of Babel (origin of languages). Interestingly, the percentage of Christians taking a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11 is higher if the Christians in question are scientists! The teacher for our class takes a literal interpretation.

Other:

We have a class called "Chuck Tracks" which is pastor Chuck Smith teaching straight through the entire Bible. This class takes all 4 semesters, so for my semester I am just going through the first half of the Old Testament. He likes to emphasize the importance of relying on God to work rather than trying to rely on ourselves.

I've also been doing a little studying on my own time when I get the chance. I've been reading through From God to Us, which is all about how we got the Bible and why Christians claim it is inspired.

Another interesting point that was touched on in both the Sunday sermons and the Discipleship class was that of a Sabbath day. The pastor here believes that the Sabbath should still be observed, not according to strict rules about what times and actions are acceptable, but rather setting aside one day a week to relax and spend time with God. We put this into practice in the Discipleship class, setting aside a few hours one Saturday to go on a 3 hour prayer retreat. Since the point was relaxing and enjoying time with God we weren't required to force ourselves to pray for all that time, we were encouraged to come prepared with a devotional book or a sermon we wanted to listen to. It was a good thing, and something I think I'd like to work in to my weekly routine.

Discussion: Bible Prophecy

"No unconditional prophecy of the Bible about events to the present day has gone unfilled. Hundreds of predictions, some of them given hundreds of years in advance, have been literally fulfilled."

- Geisler & Nix, From God to Us

In my mind, prophecy is the most convincing evidence for the authenticity of the Bible. If the claim above is true, it seems like almost incontrovertible evidence. This thread is the place to discuss it.

Note that if the Bible is really inspired by God, then we can expect 100% accuracy. If it can be shown that even a single prophecy went unfulfilled, it would have huge ramifications.

An Open-Minded Faith

A brief statement of faith:

I believe that God exists, that He created the universe and He cares about people. I believe that the Bible is true, the divinely inspired word of God. Therefore, I will try to live my life according to what the Bible teaches.

This is something I've believed for a long time, but the Bible College experience has helped solidify it for me. I hope that going forward it will be a bigger part of my life.

Since I do not have perfect knowledge I cannot make a claim to know with 100% certainty that this is true, instead I take it on faith backed up by evidence from the small portion of knowledge that I do have. I also have faith that if I challenge and examine my beliefs, then they will stand up to scrutiny. Therefore I would love to hear from anyone who disagrees with me, to test my theory that my beliefs hold fast against criticism. I'd like to call this "open-minded faith".

For starters, there's one thing that's been on my mind that I'd like to hear more about:

Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

So according to the Bible, the existence of God should be evident from creation. I'd like to hear more people's thoughts on this, to see if they agree with it or not.

Shenanigans in Pictures

Here are a few pictures of various happenings that I found funny. You can see the tents that are our living quarters in the background of a few shots.

Tim plays with a mousetrap:

Jimmy vacuums angry wasps in midair:

Some of the guys returning from "work projects":

Steve teaching a baby bird how to fly:

Some other happenings that I don't have pictures of:

• Epic battles: 2 centipedes versus giant cane spider versus 6 dewinged wasps.


• Leftover tortillas and pancakes make for good frisbees.


• Cheese slices stick to people quite easily. So do geckos, but the girls don't appreciate that.

The First Few Weeks

Over 2 weeks have passed since my last update, and a lot has happened in that time. I'll try to fill in the highlights here.

We go to the beach nearly every day, the closest one is only a mile away, and a nice beach is just a short car ride. We often go jump in the waves to clean ourselves off, especially at the beach that has a public shower to rinse off with. The water here on campus is a bit sulfuric, it smells like rotten eggs.

The weekend 2 weeks ago I got to explore the island a bit, there is a water reservoir that is a big lake you can jump in. There's a platform in the water about 15 feet high that you can jump off of. I tried to do a front flip and smacked my back on the water, that didn't feel good.

That Sunday I went to a beach called "Rock Quarry". It's only rocky on one side of the beach, the other side of the beach has some relatively tame waves, and there is a rivermouth so you can go swimming in the calm fresh water if you want. One of the guys from church brought some surfboards and gave me an intro to surfing. I'm not any good, I got tossed of a few times and didn't catch any waves.

Labor day weekend we went camping on the west side that Friday night. I showed up early to help gather firewood, and got to watch the sunset over the pacific. It flashes green for just a moment as it goes over the horizon. I brought my hammock to sleep in, but most of the people just slept on the sand in a blanket or sleeping bag. It was a full moon, one of the brightest nights I've seen, huge visibility. There were plenty of locals camping out on the beach playing loud music. One of the guys had a pretty big crab crawl into his sleeping bag, that was a nasty surprise. In the morning we could see people hunting goats up in the cliffs, there were gunshots.

That Monday I went to a beach called "Tunnels". That is a good snorkeling area, there is a reef right next to the shore and one farther out you can swim to. I saw a sea turtle and some cool tropical fish.

Saturday a family from church had the guys from Bible College over, they fed us and took us to the beach. On the way back the truck ran out of gas, and we had to wait for someone to bring us some extra. Then it started to rain as we pulled away, the guy in the back of the truck wanted to switch vehicles but the driver didn't give him enough time and he got soaked. Once we got back to their house they gave us free shirts and fed us again, then we watched a movie. (Joseph)

The campus is located at the bottom of a hill on church property. The church meets in a big tent on top of the hill, and we walk up their for classes. The tents are split into two groups, one for the guys and one for the girls. The girls have electricity from a generator, but they pay the price by being close to a rooster that keeps them up all night. One of these days I'll put up a post about classes and what I'm learning.

Why Kauai Bible College? (Part 3/3)

So I knew that I was going to quit my job to attend Bible College, but I didn't know where. One night I went Soul Dancing in Seattle. I was planning on meeting a friend there, but he showed up late, so I introduced myself to a few girls and ended up talking with them for about 2 hours. They were telling me how they liked to take vacations in Kauai, they go every year. I hadn't heard of it before, I didn't even know it was an island in Hawaii.

Fast forward a week. I'm at work, and I go for a little walk to get away for a bit. I walk and pray for 20 minutes or so. I get back to the office with a brilliant idea: "Hey, I should search for blogs from students that have gone to Bible College, to see what their experiences were."

Top Google search result for "Bible College Blog"? Kauai Bible College Blog.

There's a connection there: I had been praying about where to go, I just heard about Kauai a week before, and now I find out there's a Bible College there. A pretty loose connection I admit, but I decided it was enough.

Our Director of Work Projects

We have some interesting characters here at the Bible College:

Wky Kauai Bible College? (Part 2/3)

It's January 2009. I already know I'm going to quit my job after our project ends in the summer. I don't know what I'm going to do after that; I've been praying for guidance, and Bible College is one option I've thought about.

After church one day I went out for lunch with a few friends. Some of them had been to Bible College before and were talking about their experiences. At one point, someone turns to me and says "Jonathon, you should go to Bible College!"

Now, this was just a random comment that flowed from the context of the conversation. Still, it was something I had been praying about, and it's not exactly something you hear everyday, so I couldn't get it out of my head even though I figured it didn't mean anything. I went home and prayed about it, and I asked for God to make it really clear whether or not He actually wanted me to go to Bible College.

Later that night I went to a service at Mars Hill Church in Ballard. After the service I got talking with a guy sitting next to me and we ended up grabbing some dinner. It turns out that he had gone to a Bible College in California, so I asked him about it and as he was answering he looked at me and said "Dude, you should go."

So on the same day, two different people both told me I should go to Bible College. It's moments like these when I just have to step back and say "OK God, I got it. I got the message." That was when I knew I was going to Bible College, but I didn't know where.

Why Kauai Bible College? (Part 1/3)

Why Kauai Bible College? (Part 1/3)

Last summer I went through a period where I was not walking closely with God, and I wrestled with questions about my faith. Questions like "Why would a good God send people to hell?" and "Do I really believe in God, or have I just been indoctrinated by my upbringing?". Eventually I worked through some of these issues and decided that yes, I do believe in God, and I want to serve Him.

But it wasn't until one night in October or November that I finally sat down and had a really good quiet time with God. I was reading in Ruth, and the verses right at the beginning jumped out at me:

Ruth 1:1-2

Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.

Elimelech moves his family away from Israel into the land of Moab. Moab in the Bible is Israel's bitter enemy. So it seems that Elimelech went off on his own, rather than being where God wanted him to be.

As I was reading this, I just felt convicted that I was not where God wanted me to be. So I decided to quit my job. I would stay on until the end of the project, and then move on to wherever God wanted me to go. I started toying with the idea of attending Bible College, but at this point it was just as likely that I would spend some time travelling or working on my own projects at home.

Arrival

(I wrote this on Friday, but I only had 1 hour of internet access and couldn't get it posted up in time, so here it is now.)

My flight arrived at 7:40 pm local time, 10:40 pm PST. There were no hula dancers greeting us, just a regular small town airport. It was already dark out, but the temperature was comfortable for shorts and a T shirt.

The Dean of Men picked me up at the airport and took me to the campus. It's on the same property as the church, just down a hill. We got there just after the Wednesday night Bible Study ended, I met a few people and hitched a ride to a beach bonfire. Both of the vehicles I rode in that night had a broken door.

There are 3 people in my tent including me. The girl's tents have electricity from a generator, but the men aren't so lucky. Still, it's a nice tent, we have bunk beds and carpet.

The showers have cold water, but it's not too bad because of the climate. It feels brisk and refreshing, definitely wakes you up in the morning. They painted the pipes black so the water will warm up during the day. The first time I took a shower I was bombarded with a high pressure jet stream of water, afterwards I noticed that all the other stalls actually had shower heads installed.

We use outhouses for the bathrooms. The ones next to the guy's tents don't flush properly, so we can only pee in them. Unfortunately I didn't realize this at first...

The weather is beautiful. Sunny, partly cloudy, frequent breezes. It's rained several times since I got here, all just quick showers. It gets hot during the day, but the clouds and breezes keep it from getting too bad.

Most of the students were here by Wednesday night, except for a few who read the wrong section of the website and came in on Thursday. One of the guys in my tent misread the start date and showed up 10 days early!

We had orientation Thursday and today. Thursday afternoon we went to the beach for a few hours. It was nice: big waves, warm water (very salty!), beautiful beach.

They posted the class list, I signed up today. First semester students have a list of required classes: Genesis, Romans, Hermeneutics, and Discipleship. Plus the Wednesday morning prayer meeting and Wednesday evening Bible Study are required for all students, along with "Chuck Tracks". For the Chuck Tracks we listen to 6 hours of audio each week, it's Chuck Smith teaching through the Bible from start to finish and takes 4 semesters to finish. On top of the required classes I'm taking John and the Pastoral Epistles.

Classes officially start on Monday!

Almost There

The last few weeks before I go have been busy and hectic. But in a good way. Aside from packing, moving out, and finishing up other errands, I've been trying to see friends and family as much as I can. I appreciated seeing everyone I was able to, but naming them all would take too much time so I'll just pick out a few highlights.

Friday the 7th was my last day of work, and they took me out to play whirlyball. Whirlyball is a sport, with rules similar to basketball, but you use wiffleballs and you have special rackets to catch and throw. And everyone is in a bumper car. My team lost every game, so they switched me to the team that hadn't lost yet, and then we lost.

Sunday the 9th I went to a show in Seattle called 7 Strangers. It's a live action spoof of reality TV shows. It's set in a huge mansion where 7 people act out their characters and the various fights and drama that happens, and the audience just wander around the house and observe whatever action they happen to stumble across. I enjoyed it, it was definitely a novel approach to improv theatre.

Wednesday the 12th I had a court date to fight a speeding ticket, so I made a beach trip out of it. The skies cleared up and we saw some awesome shooting stars, it was the second best time of the year to watch them. There were some huge ones, a few of them lasted close to a second and left trails across the sky. Then we built a huge bonfire. Not a normal bonfire; a huge one. The kind where you can't stand closer than five feet away because it's too hot.

I went back a week and a half later and built a fire at the same spot, but this time the tide was not friendly. It came up far higher than we were expecting and flooded us out.

Friday night the 14th I went camping at Lake Wenatchee, and again watched the stars. There weren't as many shooting stars this time, but the sky was still beautiful away from the city lights. I spent the night in a hammock rather than a tent, and despite being a little chilly I got more sleep than I would have on the hard ground. I'm definitely bringing that hammock to Hawaii.

And since then there was a going away party, a campfire, I moved out, visited friends and family... like I said, keeping busy. I fly out tomorrow, it's coming up so fast!

Introduction

That first post was mostly a test, I'll try to fill in a little about me here.

Since 2007 I've been a programmer at Airtight Games in Redmond, WA. I was working on Dark Void, which is shaping up to be a fun game when it comes out early next year. The work was challenging and interesting, I liked my coworkers and my boss, and overall it was a good experience apart from working too many hours.

But now I'm moving on! I'm headed out to Kauai Bible College, in Kapaa, Hawaii, on the island of Kauai. I wanted to get away from things for a while so I could focus on God and study the Bible.

I've never visited Hawaii, and I don't know anyone who lives there, although I know a few people who come from Hawaii. Here's a few tidbits I've managed to gather:

• Kauai is the 4th largest Hawaiian island, and is inhabited by over 60,000 people.*
• Kauai is known for being laid back and having beautiful scenery. Many movies have done filming there, such as Jurassic Park.
• Kauai Bible College is affiliated with Calvary Chapel, and from what I hear has about 30 students.
• I'll be staying in tents.
• The meal plan provides 18 meals a week.
• They eat lots of spam in Hawaii.

My flight leaves on August 26th, and I'll be coming back for Christmas break on December 16th. I'll do my best to keep this blog updated consistently.

It's a Blog!

This is my blog. Here you can find updates about my adventures at Kauai Bible College in Hawaii. I'll also be posting about God and life and the Bible, and programming and video games, and whatever strikes my fancy.