We praise you, Father, that you have laid such a foundation for us.

Nothing can shake it, nothing can shake us standing on it.

We praise you together.

Receive our praises in the name of Jesus' Father.

And please come and help me now to be faithful

to your word.

Grant that these friends

would be attentive and

docile to your truth.

And grant I pray

more than ever before, we would study in the power of the spirit,

and that we would have insight. We would get insight for the sake of our people and for the

glory of your neighbor.

Through Christ we pray.

Amen.

From the age of 6 to the age of 28, I was in formal education. To school nonstop.

Twelve years, public school in Greenville, South Carolina.

Four years in a Christian college in Illinois, three years in seminary in California,

three years in graduate school, secular university in Munich, Germany, and thought that

I had arrived because I got a job as a college professor at Bethel College here in town.

And it seemed as though, at least from the perspective of those around me, that,

well, you've got your last degree.

...