What do you enjoy about teaching students from all different majors? My Psalms and wisdom lit courses are mainly juniors and seniors. And these are non-Bible majors. This semester, I've got all different majors, and so it's fun, because God's Word is intended for the people of God, not just for the “Theo Bros.” It's a joy to prepare them for life and have the Bible speak to their interests and concerns and questions as an accountant or as someone in communications or athletic training. They live in very different worlds, and yet the Bible speaks to all of those things well. What differences do you notice between the freshmen and upperclassmen you teach? The freshmen are starting to clarify what needs to happen, and we see some progress through the Bible and the Gospel semester, but it takes time for maturity to take place. By the time they get to be juniors and seniors, you see things starting to really come together in their thinking and in their life. And you can't speed that process up. It just takes time for the Holy Spirit to help them to really process it. But it is exciting to see a student I had as a first-semester freshman, and then I see them spring semester of their senior year, and it's like, “Wow, you've grown up so much.” It is just a delight. Do you see your Bible and the Gospel students coming to faith or developing their faith in significant ways? What I see is coming to Christlikeness. A lot of students have gotten the idea that, “Oh, I asked Jesus into my heart when I was seven, and I'm going to go to heaven when I die. And that's the whole story.” They are missing out. And so I really challenge them to become complete in Christ and talk about what God is doing to accomplish that and what we need to do in response to what God is doing. To see them making those steps in that direction is really rewarding. How did you begin your ministry of prayer for your students? Well, there are probably three steps to that, the first back when I was in seminary. One Sunday night, I went with my mom to visit an old woman in my home church. She showed me a map of the world with a whole bunch of pins stuck in it, and she said, “These are the people I pray for each day.” Well, that planted a seed in my mind about praying for other people. I took the second step about 20 years ago when I started asking my students the first day of class to write me a letter just describing their lives. And as I did that, it just helped me to understand them better. The third step was probably a little over 10 years ago, where I said, “Okay, could I help my students better if I also write them a note every so often just to tell them I'm praying for them that day?” It's just a little thing, but it's like the proverb that says a good word does good like medicine. I try to write those notes of encouragement so that the student reads it and realizes, “Oh, hey, my profs are praying for me here,” and that can just encourage them to keep at it. As you equip your students to be future church members, what advice would you give them about establishing a discipline of faithful prayer? We tend to think of prayer as what you do when someone has cancer or someone is facing an operation. But praying for one another in a routine can really draw us close together, heart to heart. God has called us in Ephesians 6 to have the opportunity to pray for all the saints. I think it's an untapped resource that we have in the Church. What could it do to revolutionize a unit in a college dorm or a class or a small group or a church? Just really praying intentionally for one another on a daily basis. The bond of Christian brotherhood or sisterhood that you get is just really profound. And if we could get a web of interlocking prayer for one another, that would just provide such strength within the Church. It's a joy to prepare them for life and have the Bible speak to their interests and concerns and questions as an accountant or as someone in communications or athletic training. They live in very different worlds, and yet the Bible speaks to all of those things well. 28
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