In my spiritual walk with God, the pattern of behaviour usually goes like this:
I hear His voice. He asks me to do something. I say yes, then do nothing! I freeze with either fear or doubt that I could ever do that thing. The delay isn’t a conscious tactic, rather a reality that God sometimes asks us to do the impossible (or what feels that way).
I’ll tell you about some of the stories later, but what I want to focus on today is: returning to His word, the Bible. It started back in 2023, when I heard God’s voice: study my Word.
Cliché I know, a missionary who wants to read the Bible. Many of my colleagues and friends have already been through theological seminary and are now practicing pastors, vicars and other clergy. It doesn’t appear that radical or revolutionary. I won’t be the first person who finds himself on the mission field and feeling wholly unprepared for defending the faith and feeling that he needs more training. But my story is different. I didn’t turn to God’s word out of embarrassment of my lack of knowledge (though that exists) or my desire to know the Bible better (which is also true). No, my push in this season to read and understand the Bible, comes from God himself. He has spoken to me very clearly that he wants me to study His word. He hasn’t told me how, or indeed, why. He has just told me that I need to study his word. This message came to me whilst I was in the Cebu House of Prayer during an intercession time. It wasn’t an audible voice, but so clearly from the Lord. His unmistakable “tone” that gently, but firmly says: “listen” and “do”.
I shared this message with my wife who asked the good questions. “Will you go to Bible school?” she asked? “To what end will you study?” and “Do you want to become a pastor and have your own church?”. I hadn’t thought of the answers to any of these questions. To be honest, I just relayed exactly what I felt the Holy Spirit had impressed on me. I fumbled an answer of “I have no idea”, which appeared to frustrate her that I somehow wanted to study the Bible, but didn’t know why, how, or to what end!
Now, my innate ability to procrastinate caused a delay of over a year whilst I gently enquired at a few seminaries and canvassed trusted friends who might point me in the direction of some professional bible teaching. During 2024, I faced the possibility of having to lay down my involvement in the ministry and possibly cease doing homeschool with the kids, to study full time at a theological college. But nothing sat right with me. I thought of just reading the Bible with a bit more intentionality. But I knew that wasn’t quite what God was leading me to. At the same time, I didn’t have peace about embarking at this stage on a degree course or full-time academic study.
Towards the end of 2024, my frustrations were getting high. I was homeschooling the kids, ministry was getting busy with lots of niggly paperwork and all the jazz you get when pioneering a new charity. My personal quiet time and self-study was taking a hit and days would go by when I hadn’t picked up my Bible.
Then… something happened. I shared my frustration with a colleague in YWAM who told me that YWAM in Malaysia was offering an online Bible studies course called “School of Biblical Studies”. I’d seen this course when I used to live in South Africa and shared a building with the team that ran this course. Although it looked interesting, I’d been put off by how much work it was, the colour-coding of the Bible pages and the fact that it’s not affiliated with any accredited institution in the UK.
However, this time was different, as I wasn’t looking necessarily for a degree in theology, but just to study the Bible. I enquired into this version – the online Chronological School which, apart from weekly cohort meetings, the studying was completely asynchronous. There were still deadlines and structured learning, but study could happen at any time of the day, as all the lectures were pre-recorded.
I jumped at it, contacting the school straight away and asking to be allowed onto the course. After an application was submitted, references given and an interview from the school leader, I was accepted to start my Bible journey in January 2025.
I say, start my Bible journey, as if I’d never picked up the Bible before to study it. That’s not true, so to give you context: having been in missions for 15 years, I knew the overview of the Bible and I’ve spent considerable amount of time studying it before on various subjects matters. I helped the University of the Nations with their new study tool the “SphereView” Bible, where you can break the Bible down into different spheres of society. I’d gone through the whole Bible in depth, drawing out all the areas of communication (good, bad and ugly). I’ve also given my fair-share of sermons and have led small groups before. But I’d never devoted a whole year to studying it, purely for the sake of knowing it better.
The first class came and it was brutal. For the kick-off, they decided to do several live classes to help us understand the curriculum, learn use the software they required and understand the basis behind the programme. On the first meeting the school leader reminded us that this was serious and it wasn’t an ‘easy’ course and we needed to be fully focused and give several hours a day to this work. The first task: memorize the full 66 books of the Bible and recite them in order! The deadline? Tomorrow! This scared me! After completing the task, my feeling was: wow, if every class is like this, I’m not going to last the week, let alone the year.
The School of Biblical Studies (SBS) is a core course with the University of the Nations. It is typically completed in 9 months and is an intensive overview of the whole Bible where each book is read 5 times through building in the student a deeper understanding of the content and context. Rather than studying Greek and Hebrew and picking apart individual passages for theological insight, the SBS is a place to soak in the Bible. It is a place to start to see the bigger picture of this amazing collection of historical narrative, poetry, songs, apocalyptic imagery, parables, gospels and letters. The idea is to let the Bible speak to you before you study it.
The first term was a bit of a killer. About two-thirds of the way through, I met with the school leader and other staff on a video call to confess that, although I loved the course, the intensity of the work was way too much for me. Before the call, I psyched myself up to tell them that I wouldn’t be continuing the course after the first semester. After I shared my feeling of overwhelmed study and over commitment, they understood, but said something to me that changed my mind. They told me that they would not be running this course next year and they weren’t sure if they were ever going to run it again!
This took away my backstop, which was SBS is 3 terms, so “I’ll just do one term each year” plan. It was all or nothing. I had to commit, or I would be back to the place of “what now”?!
Then something strange happened. I gave up my desire to meet every deadline and made a ‘deal’ with the Lord. I told Him in my quiet time: I’m going to continue on the course, using their material, but my focus is not the course materials and requirements, but just on the Word. I will use the SBS framework to study the Bible, but if I miss a deadline or if I don’t complete a work, that’s not as important as the actual study of His word. At first, I found myself dwelling on certain passages or things I didn’t understand and mulling, musing and meditating. However, after a while, the strangest thing started to happen. I began to enjoy it and find it easier and more enjoyable than I had ever found it before. I found myself desiring to do the charting and reading at times when I didn’t need to, or on books we’ve not started yet. My grades started going up and I began to really have fun reading it. Weird things started happening, like sermons at church would align exactly with what I was reading, or circumstances in my life would be met with an answer that I was reading in scripture that day.
No longer did I find SBS a chore, I found it a joy! In fact, as I write this, I’ve already completed my work, handed it in, had it graded and graduated with top marks. Yet I spent the best part of an hour this morning studying the kings that followed Solomon and re-charting their successes and failures using the SBS method with no-deadline and no grade to look forward to.
So, where do I go from here?
I don’t know.
I still don’t have an answer to my wife’s original question. I’ve found myself looking to study New Testament Greek (for fun!) and feeling pleasure about any discussion that centres around God’s word. I’ve been enjoying doing devotions with the kids (and the neighbour’s kids) and loving discovering new things and stories from the Bible that I’ve never seen before.
I may well need to be re-disciplined with some theological training, especially if I want to ‘professional’ with Bible exegesis. I’m not closed to these things, but right now, it’s a period of ‘waiting on the Lord’ and in the meantime, diving into scripture with the new tools that I’ve got at my fingertips to learn more each day.
At church on Sunday, the pastor called our walk with God ‘progressive’. As I read His word, I’m starting to understand in a deeper way, what that really means.
