Teaching Homiletics at ACU

October Highlights

• Alexis spoke at the Ladies Bear Valley Bible Lectureship in Denver on the women in Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus.

• Scott is teaching Advanced Homiletics for 3rd year students at Asian Christian University

• Scott is teaching on the Gospel of John for the Woodstock congregation as part of his Freed-Hardeman (FHU) Graduate internship.

• Scott completed a FHU Graduate course on the Early Church Fathers.

• Samantha’s volleyball team won their tournament. She did an excellent job serving!

• Scott and Samantha drove a carload of backpacks down to Eastpoint, FL, a needy community on the panhandle, and helped distribute for their backpack giveaway.

• We invested in four new radios for the church in Rattanakiri, Cambodia so that our partner Evangelist, Heang Chanvanny can keep in touch and continue Bible studies with the church from his home in Phnom Penh.

  
  

Homiletics II for Asian Christian University

As I mentioned in our last newsletter, I spent the month of June in the Philippines at Asian Christian university teaching 2nd year students the Prison and Pastoral Epistles. I am encouraged that I continue to receive positive feedback from the students there. Just a few weeks ago, I received an unsolicited note from one of the students I taught, who has continued with his studies. He expressed his appreciation for my class and the advice I offered. I am so grateful to God that He has given me the opportunity to have a small role in encouraging younger preachers to continue in the work.

The leadership at ACU must also have appreciated it because they asked me to teach another class during Fall Semester. It was humbling because I did not feel adequate for the task. They asked me to teach Homiletics II, which is focused on teaching how to teach and preach. I’ve never taught such a course before, and I’m not a full-time pulpit preacher (though I love to preach and find it incredibly important). In any case, I felt I should accept the opportunity and do my best. And so, over the past few months, I have immersed myself in books and lectures on the topic. I’ve also reflected a lot on my own preaching and teaching. The process of preparation alone has been incredibly fulfilling for me.

The students are also being challenged in new ways. At the beginning of the semester, I offered a list of passages for them to preach from. The passages they picked from were not easy. They were passages, mostly from the OT, which have some unique challenge in preparing to preach. I did this because I wanted the students to face the challenge of preaching a Biblical sermon that is also practical to their modern audience, from anywhere in Scripture. Their midterm project has focused on researching the exegetical highlights of their selected passage (i.e. key emphases, structure, linguistics, historical background, etc.). Their final project will be to deliver a 30-minute expository sermon on their passage. And so, the course is structured not only with lectures, but as a lab where the students can practice thoroughly researching and writing a substantial and impactful sermon.

Gospel of John

Over the past several months, I have also been teaching an in-depth class on the Gospel of John at my local congregation, Woodstock. In part, this has been to satisfy one of the requirements of my MDiv program at Freed. I am to participate in a supervised internship program where I present a course in a congregational setting on one of the courses I completed at Freed, in this case, the Gospel of John.

I feel like I can write a commentary on the Gospel at this point. Aside from the graduate course I took several years ago, I have translated John in my Greek III class, and I have written several research papers on important topics in John. On top of that, my internship required a whole semester of research in preparation for the course. The whole experience has been incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. The purpose of the Gospel is “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name” (20:31). After teaching this course, I feel like I believe in Jesus more deeply than ever before. I LOVE HIM so much! Thank you, God!

The class has also been powerful for several people who have watched. Some have told me that I step on their toes, but I tell them, “Oh no, that’s the word of God!” I don’t try to step on toes. But before I prepare every class, and before I present, I pray, “Lord, please help me to forget myself and my agenda. Help me to preach your Word powerfully!” The Gospel of John is arranged to step on our toes. It challenges our faith. It challenges us to deeper faith. It tells us who Jesus is and calls us to bow even lower now that we know it.

All our classes have been recorded. They are currently available on the Woodstock social media pages. In addition, I plan to make the entire course available on our Fluent Bible platform.

Spanish lessons for Fluent Bible Academy

I haven’t told you much about our Fluent Bible platform. It is still in development. So, you will have to wait until later to find out more. 😊 But, in a nutshell, Our Logos Answers platform is focused on developing lessons for nonbelievers. Fluent Bible, on the other hand, will be focused on developing content for disciples, and advanced training for church leaders, missionaries, and preachers. And so, for this platform, we have been able to record my Gospel of John course en Español!

A few months back, a supporting congregation asked me to help them find a solution to streaming services live in Spanish. While I was researching solutions, I came across a way to record my classes in Spanish. And so, when we launch our Fluent Bible Academy, we will be able to provide a complete Gospel of John class in both English and Spanish.

Do you speak Spanish? If so, please reach out so that I can provide you a link. I would love to hear what you think about the translation!

Love,

The Ihle Crew