Teaching Bible at Logos

Hello to all,

Things are going well here. We are slowly adjusting. The things that initially shocked us no longer do. We barely blink when we see a rat now; fortunately, they're not in our house. The dirt and the dust are just a regular part of the routine.

The worst part about living here is the language barrier. Kara and I are aching to speak to our neighbors, but we can't. Khmer is a hard language to learn (almost as hard as Chinese). Kara is taking language classes twice a week. I try to make them as often as I can. The people here are very receptive to hearing the gospel. They gladly take tracts and read them. They actually want to talk to Christians about Jesus Christ. We are looking forward to being able to share the gospel with people here - learning the language just takes so long. Language difficulties don't arise only with Cambodians. There are many Koreans here as well, and very few of them know English. Many of the students here are Korean. Some of them have troubles studying at Logos because they don't know English, and they don't have the ability to practice at home because their parents don't know the language either. Some Korean students do great, but I have one student in 8th grade who I had to send to an ESL (English as a Second Language) class for extra help because his English is atrocious.

Classes at Logos are going well. We are almost finished studying Genesis.

A brief overview of what I have been teaching....

We started by studying the infallibility of Scripture. During this lesson I taught the students about general and special revelation. When they were told that God doesn't work savingly through general revelation; some students said it isn't fair of God to send people who haven't heard the gospel to hell. As a class we searched scripture to find out where all of mankind stands in the sight of God. We concluded that man is totally depraved, unable to do good, has sinned in Adam and therefore all mankind can justly be sent to hell. Therefore, it is only God's mercy that sinners are saved. Next we moved through creation and the fall. We discussed the Trinity in creation, man made in God's image, how we fell, and how we can be restored in the image of God. We then studied Cain and Able and discussed why a blood sacrifice was needed. From there we went through the generations of men, the flood, and the Tower of Babel. We spent considerable time with Abraham, dwelling mainly on God's covenant with him. We discussed how the covenant would be literally fulfilled in Christ and the true Church. We also explored how the covenant is one sided, and how God shows this to Abraham by going twice through the parted animals in Genesis 15 and giving a picture of Christ through the sacrifice of Isaac. We quickly moved through Isaac and the deception of Jacob, but dealt for a lengthy time with the issue of God's sovereignty. We looked up Malachi 1:2 and Romans 9: 13 where scripture states, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Many of the students are perplexed by the Calvinist view of God's sovereignty vs. man's responsibility. They are always asking questions, and barely a class goes by without us entering into discussion concerning this issue - it's wonderful!!! They are beginning to see that we have finite minds and can't understand everything about God, but must make His Word our foundation for what we believe. Most of these students love to explore theological issues, and the Spirit of the Lord appears to have worked or is working in many of them. Many of the students are activity involved in evangelism. I am very impressed with the student body here. I have noticed no vindictive teasing in the high school. New students are welcomed, and there is a general atmosphere among the students of living a life that honors and glorifies the Lord. However, keep in perspective that 99% of these kids have not had the privileges that most of us have had growing up. There is still a vast need for biblical education, and especially the blessing of the Spirit. There are also non-Christian students at the school. One of my 10th grade students, Winner, comes from a Buddhist family. He is a super nice guy, and it looks like he is well accepted at the school. He is doing quite well in Bible, and faithfully reads his Bible. Pray that the Lord will open his eyes and that he may come to know our great Lord and Savior. There are other students that aren’t Christians as well as nominal Christians. They all need our prayers.

In my 8th and 9th grade World Issues class the students are currently writing a persuasive essay proving the deity of Christ. They are using legal/historical evidence as it is found in the book we completed reading called More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. This book gives helpful evidence for the reality of Jesus being God. We discussed whether these arguments are the ultimate means of proving that Jesus is God, and came to the conclusion that it wasn't. The ultimate means to proving the deity of Christ is the Word of God. We will soon be moving on to study terrorism.

In my 10th grade World Issues class we are just completing a unit on Mormonism. The students are currently working on a 5-7 page essay proving that Mormons are wrong in their view of God, man, salvation, and scripture. We will be moving on to study an extensive unit on Worldviews.