Graduated

Last Sat­ur­day I offi­cially grad­u­ated from Wright State. It was a nos­tal­gic time as so much has changed in the last four years. It’s almost hard to believe that I’m even where I’m where I am today. I came into school a fresh-off-the-block drug addict, anorexic, and agnos­tic at best indi­vid­ual. I started my plight through school and over the course of four years man­aged to be exposed to the Gospel through Cru­sade, lead a min­istry, make great improve­ments in my strug­gles over depres­sion, OCD, drug addic­tion, anorexia, and other forms of men­tal garbage.

I have a praise of God upon my lips dur­ing this time. It is evi­dent that the mirac­u­lous things accom­plished in my life are not done by my own accord. I am espe­cially grate­ful that I now have the Holy Spirit and a mem­ber of the New Covenant in which I can turn my body, mind, and life towards serv­ing the liv­ing God. He has given me desires I never thought pos­si­ble, and these desires are push­ing me away from the busi­ness career I once envi­sioned towards los­ing my life for the sake of the Gospel amongst unreached peo­ples. I am thank­ful that in los­ing my life, I have finally found it.

I do plan on start­ing school again in the win­ter, but this time it will be at sem­i­nary. South­ern seems to be the best choice of any in the nation right now. If I were Pres­by­ter­ian I’d go to some dif­fer­ent schools, but alas I am not. I hope the time will prove prof­itable, and my deep desire is that I learn more on how to make my faith prac­ti­cal. I want my the­ol­ogy and study of the­ol­ogy to prove use­ful for the fur­ther­ment of the Kingdom.

Now that I’m grad­u­ated I have the abil­ity to work on some books that I have started but haven’t had the time to fin­ish. The first is Let the Dead Bury Their Own Dead which is a the­matic sur­vey of the Bible which shows God’s heart for all peo­ple groups. I also have two works in covenant the­ol­ogy. The first is The Rela­tion of the Covenants which is my expo­si­tion on the con­ti­nu­ity and dis­con­ti­nu­ity of the Bible (a longer ver­sion of this essay), and the sec­ond which I’m really excited about is Life in the New Covenant which talks about the joy of liv­ing in the present age. I will also be updat­ing my Intro­duc­tion to Sote­ri­ol­ogy man­u­script for teach­ing purposes.

I’ll be lead­ing an exeget­i­cal study over the sum­mer through Gala­tians. I plan on also going over Bible study meth­ods include hermeneu­ti­cal meth­ods, exe­ge­sis, and Greek syn­tax. It is the offi­cial sum­mer Cru­sade study, but any and all are invited. It will start, not this Tues­day, but the next. (For those in the area: I will be send­ing out an e-mail with details.)

I would like to say that my life will slow down, but it’s just now start­ing up: a new job, new liv­ing loca­tion, and new per­spec­tive on ministry/spirituality. A lot has changed and will con­tinue to change. I am so blessed in so many ways, but there is noth­ing more desir­able than know­ing Christ and Him crucified.