I shared with you in the last Nugget how God led me and us by the input of others around us – our leaders, other people in our lives who gave input or felt led to send something to me which was either timely or fitted perfectly. But then there have been those times when I felt God speaking into my Spirit. I wrote in the last Nugget, when Jeffrey Rachmat asked me if I could develop a package that would train and equip his leaders to go deep into the Word of God, the structure and schema instantly popped into my mind as we talked. I immediately thought of the three Houses of Hebrew rabbinical training:-
- Beth Sepher (The House of the Book)
- Beth Talmud (The House of Interpretation)
- Beth Midrash (The House of Allusion)
and the four levels of Interpretation:-
- Peshat (Plain)
- Remez (Hinted)
- Midrash (Alluded)
- Sod (Hidden)
As I began to put it all together I felt overwhelmed at the immensity of the task before me. There were many times when I cried out to the LORD for help. “LORD, how do I do this? I know what I want to do but how do I pull it all together?” On one such occasion early on in the process I felt God answer me deep in my spirit with the words, “Teach them like I taught you.” In that moment I knew exactly what He was telling me. I told you in Hearing God’s Voice 4 about the Word from the Lord that I was to go to Wellington and there I would see the next step really clearly. In Bible Gem 802 I told the story of how God put together my Bible College course for me. I was trained in a very unique way. No one else has done what I have done in the history of my Bible College. I was given an amazing opportunity to see the big picture. Tania and I were informed that in order to join Wycliffe and become Bible translators, we needed Bible College training. David Cummings, the Wycliffe Director I met at Move Out told me he thought two years would be sufficient given our previous background.
So when I got back to Matamata after the time in Wellington, we went off to find a suitable Bible College. We went to Faith Bible College, where we felt we could best fit. Milton Smith said “No, you need more than we can give you. We offer the bare minimum in Greek and don’t teach Hebrew.” He suggested we go to BCNZ to get the best training in Hebrew in Greek and exegesis. Oh no, that was where I didn’t want to go. I had picked up the brochure for BCNZ in Wellington but had felt it wasn’t right for us.
We made an appointment to see Alan Knight the registrar at BCNZ. When I said I felt that we were to be “there” for two years, Alan told us that as a man with a degree I should be doing the degree course which would take four years given the way the course was structured. I told him I wasn’t interested in the piece of paper at the end, I just wanted the ability and the skills to become a good Bible translator. But I felt that we were do two years. He scoffed and told me I couldn’t do that. That Hebrew course was structured so that Hebrew I and Hebrew III were offered in the same year and Hebrew II in the alternate year. Alan told us, “You would have to do four years here Ian to achieve what you need.”
I told him again that we thought we were to be there for two years. He told said that would be impossible and I should do the MTh level course. As soon as he said that the phone rang. It was Bill Osbourne, the Hebrew professor, ringing to ask Alan about the availability of a classroom in the summer holidays in which he would cover first year Hebrew in an intensive course over 6 weeks for some people heading overseas. The registrar’s mouth dropped open in surprise and he said he had someone in the office right then who was a candidate for such a course. Could he do the intensive course as well? “It seems that God has opened the door for you, Ian” he said when his conversation with the Hebrew Prof had concluded. Yes, God had opened the door.
I spent each of the two years at Bible College following after one professor. In my first year it was the Old Testament and Hebrew professor, Bill Osbourne. I followed Bill everywhere. I did first year, second and third year all in the same year. So everything connected across all of my classes. In my second year I did the same thing with Basil Brown, who had come as a guest lecturer for that year only. I got to follow Basil around to every class he taught in New Testament and NT Greek, combining all three years in one. Again I saw the overview at the same time I was learning about the details. No one has ever done that before in the history of the Bible College. I had a unique opportunity. At the end of the time they said “Ian, we can’t give you an MTh because you have not fulfilled all of the requirements for the Degree but we will give you a Diploma of Biblical Languages, with only one recipient ever, you.” When God told me to teach them “like I taught you”, I knew what He was telling me. “Teach them the way I taught you.”
I told the story in Bible Gem 1200 of my experience in university circles where this degree game is played. I think it is funny and love to play the game in reverse. I play MY degree card and wait for the reaction and then smile inwardly. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in History and Geography and a Teacher’s Training Diploma. I also have 2 years of training in Hebrew and Greek and Exegesis at a Master’s level but I don’t have a Master’s degree because of the way the Lord worked out the above plan. I was more interested in the training than I was in the Certificate that goes with it. God opened the most amazing doors for me to do training that no one else has ever done. It’s incredible but I don’t have a Certificate to back it up.
I have taught at university level and had my name and credentials listed as Ian Vail (M.A.) for a seminar that I was participating in. I went to the Dean and told him my degree was listed wrongly. I have a Bachelor’s Degree, not a Master’s Degree. He smiled and said, “It’s alright Ian we know you have got the goods.” The next time we had a seminar at the university I was listed as Ian Vail (PhD). it’s laughable. Again I complained and told him the listing was incorrect. At that seminar a lecturer at the university approached me among a group of people wanting to play his “degree card” against mine. Just to prove himself you understand. He asked me what I had done my dissertation on. I told him honestly I didn’t have a PhD degree, I had a B.A. He immediately turned his back on me and walked away much to the amusement of everyone else in the group. You can imagine my delight two years later when the Dean asked that same lecturer to put together a teaching programme but he couldn’t do it to the level the Dean required. The Dean suggested he ask me for help to do it.
I have been privileged over the years to receive input from Basil Brown, Bill Osbourne, David Pawson, Jacob Prasch and Gordon Fee at perfectly timed moments in my training. I had the opportunity to drive Jacob around to various engagements he had in the North Island of NZ on two of his visits to Matamata. He was teaching us about Midrashic interpretation and so I had the chance to ask him questions about Midrash as we journeyed around. I was present when Gordon Fee introduced the idea of Sense Units in the Bible which set me on a course of putting the pieces together over the next years. It was as though God was telling me, “I have given you all the pieces you need to teach them like I taught you.”
As I worked my way through the schema laid out above I would stop and ask God what to use to illustrate a point or how to develop that idea. When I talked with cell group leaders in Jakarta about what they needed, the idea of an adage or saying to build a theme around was suggested. What came to mind was the saying: Give a person a fish and feed them for a day; teach a person to fish and feed them for a lifetime. That became our operating principle. Everything was based around that principle. Basil Brown had instilled in me the idea that gold was to be found all over God’s Word. He would repeat the refrain:
“Class, there is gold in this verse.”
“Study that word there is gold there.”
“There is always more.”
All I have done is point out where there is gold to be found. Dig for it! I just simply followed the lead of my Greek Professor and have borrowed his sayings and approach. Working with the cell group leaders in Jakarta within JPCC we came up with the Oceans Schema for arranging it all and changed gold into ‘finding fish”, but continue to use Prof Brown’s search for gold idea as well, leading to the gold box in the ultimate level in DB 701.
Why Seven Levels of Deeper Bible? Another leaf taken out of Prof Brown’s approach. He would frequently tell us in Year One, Year Two and Year Three level classes (all concertina’d into my second year of Bible College) about the need to read any passage or part of the Bible seven times! He would always smile when he said it. What he was hinting at a deeper level with that comment was to read the Bible over and over until we had perfected it. The connection was to the fact that the number 7 is a symbol of perfection or completeness, consummation. Keep reading until you have perfected it. That is the reason why 701 is the final level of Deeper Bible.
What I saw Dr Basil Brown doing during my one year with him in class across three levels of study (New Testament Year I, Year 2, Year 3 and Greek Exegesis) was to peel back the understanding of biblical passages in layers. Prof and his wife Madge had been the staff appointed liaison to our cell group. At the end of our time at Bible College he told me he would like to keep in touch with us and support us in prayer and any other way they could. We shared our newsletters with them and caught up from time to time as we passed though Melbourne. When I began writing Gems and Nuggets I shared them with him and others and he gave me lots of valuable feedback. It has really been an easy road to follow; I have just followed my prof’s lead and the input God has given along the way. There have been many times when I reached an impasse or a blank. I would pray and give my problem or my need for an example to God. He would either remind of something I had learned from all those who had given me input along the way or would “drop into my lap” a book, an illustration or an idea of how to deal with my latest challenge. It has happened over and over through the years. In many ways similar to what God did in the course of putting together God’s Awesome Book.
One participant in JPCC asked if he could take me to lunch one day. He had some question related to Deeper Bible. He asked a number of specific questions regarding the details of the course and then he asked me a pearl of a question. Clearly he had seen something which had intrigued him.
He said, “Is it true that you have levels within Deeper Bible where you hide clues or hints of deeper things to come?”
“It is like if we look back we see that you gave us a hint about that but didn’t develop it any further. You just left the clue there and develop it a few levels further on.”
“Did you really do that or am I imagining it?”
My answer in the next Nugget where I will describe more of this process.. This Nugget has already grown long enough.