The way I'm going to approach this is by

I'm going to approach this is by telling my story

in seven chapters of my life, beginning when I was a child and then going through high school college, seminary, Germany, Bethlehem.

That's my plan.

My hope is that this approach will enable you to decide whether I'm a scholar or not and whether it's a good thing or not, whether you should be or not, because I wasn't sure

when I got the assignment whether I was once, still not sure, because I'm not sure what the definition is being used

are, so I thought the safest thing to do that would probably be most helpful to most people

even non-pastors would be to tell my story and how I got where I am at age 63 at Bethlehem Baptist Church

where I've been for 29 years. It's a typically American approach what I'm about to do.

We Americans in general love to bear our souls more than other cultures do.

FF Bruce in his autobiography wrote this, which I was appalled by when I read it.

While some readers have observed that in these chapters I have said little about my domestic life,

others have wondered why I have been so reticent about my

religious experience. The reason is probably the same in both instances. I do not

care to speak much, especially in public, about the things that matter to me most.

Others do not share this inhibition and have enriched their fellows by relating the inner story of the Lord's dealings with them.

One thinks of Augustine's confessions and Bunyan's grace abounding,

but it calls for quite exceptional qualities to be able to do this kind of thing without

self-consciousness or self-deception. So you can see how he's trapped me.

My first reaction when I when I read this years ago I read it 1980 the year that I became

that's the year the book came out and that's the year I became a pastor when I read

this I thought to myself no wonder I have not liked his

...