One step at a time

The LORD has been good to us. His faithfulness has indeed gone on from one class to the next, and one by one He is transforming the lives and ministries of the pastors who come through DPTC. One class at a time, one school session at a time, and so we match forward like soldiers on a mission.

This October, by the grace of God, the class of 2020 attended their last session this year, which also was the last session for their first year. Finally and steadily, they are now second year students.

Surely sometimes time seems to fly away quickly. It seems like the other day when they reported and we were trying to learn their names as they tried to reintroduce themselves to school life. Now they have finished their first year, Praise the Lord for His faithfulness in this mission.

In this session, Sally Gresham taught a survey of the Old Testament. This course seeks to help the pastors have an overview of the Old Testament, Book by Book. It also focuses on the themes that run through the whole Old Testament and how those themes affect our understanding of the Bible. It seeks to answer questions like “Why did we need a new Testament? What happened to the Old One, or what was wrong with it? Was there grace in the Old Covenant or is it a New Covenant idea? Are there two plans of salvation, one by obedience of the law and the other one by grace, or has there always been one way of salvation.” Such questions and others are answered with Biblical clarity.

This session also was the first one we  had children curriculum taught for the first time as a full course. Lori McDonald

was gracious to take the pastors through that course. The churches from which these pastors come from do not take children ministry with the seriousness Christ takes it in commanding the disciples to let the children come to him, for to such belong the kingdom of God.

This course helps the pastor to develop for themselves and for the church a systematic and progressive curriculum for teaching children and reaching them out with the gospel of salvation. Thus, they are made to be intentional with the children ministry till in discipling them for Christ.

In the first week of the school, the pastors undertook principles of Bible interpretation 1. This course, in which they study the book of Mark through inductive Bible study, seeks to help the pastor understand the Bible through a rigorous contextual study. They follow three principles to arrive at the meaning and finally application of the particular text before them. The three principles are OBSERVATION, INTERPRETATION and APPLICATION/IMPLICATION. By observing what the text says, one is able to arrive at a proper conclusion of what the author meant by their choice of words. It is from here then that we get to understand the implication of that text to our lives currently. Hence, with the help of dictionaries, bible dictionaries and concordances and maps, the pastors wrestle with the grammar, history and vocabulary of the text to determine the meaning thereof. It is one of the most rewarding discipline a believer can learn to engage in.