The Reason That Another Level Bible Institute Is Right For You

The Reason That Another Level Bible Institute Is Right For You

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***Titles Authored by Pastor J. Anthony Gilbert***

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Transcript

Welcome And Big Announcement

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Coming up on Dimensions, you are in for a treat. I've got a couple of guests that I have here with us today that is going to be a blessing to you. We're going to be talking about the launching of our new Bible Institute called Another Level Bible Institute. And I've got two guests that are helping us launch this bad boy off of the ground. I am so excited to get into this. These are two men of God that I truly admire and respect, that have so much knowledge of the word of God and are going to help bring you into a closer walk with Jesus Christ. And you're going to hear about how you can be a part of another level Bible Institute. So you're not going to want to miss this because we've got a whole lot more coming up with another level Bible Institute. And that's coming up right now here on Dimensions. That's right, helping you keep oil in your lamp, love in your heart, and sending leaving out of your life. And I am so excited, and I want you to be excited today as well because we are going to have a great broadcast for you. And listen, take a moment right now to like, subscribe, follow, and share. Let everybody know that you're tuning in here on Dimensions right now. And if you have not gotten the Dimensions podcast, wherever podcasts are being held, you can go there right now and you can be the latest member of the Dimensions family, and you'll never miss an episode. Right after this live episode, it gets uploaded to the cloud and it'll come right to wherever your device is. And we're always going to be bringing something fresh to you, something fresh from the Word of God, talking about what's happening in the prophetic now, giving you instructional principles and helping you be the best version of yourself that you can be. So I want you to get that podcast and let everybody know that you are a part of the Dimensions family. And I am so excited because today I've got two great guests that I'm going to bring on here in just a minute. It has been a passion of mine for a long time. I started the Bible school back a few years ago, but when COVID hit, everything went down. We pulled back from it. And now we've gotten into our new location here, and we are ready to launch it afresh. And two of the men that I'm going to be bringing on here shortly are two of the men that are going to be backing this, helping support it, teaching, doing different things to help us to get to where we need to be. So it's going to be a phenomenal episode, and we're going to talk about the importance of biblical education in this day and in this hour, and why you should be a part of it and why you should consider being a part of what's going on here at Another Level Bible Institute to help you grow and become the best version of yourself that God has called you to be. So I'm about to bring on here two men of God that are very important in my life. The first man I want to mention is my father-in-law. His name is Dr. Winford Craig, and he's a phenomenal man of God. And he's my father-in-law. So I am married to his daughter. He's a member of our ministry. He's got an actual doctorate, a real doctorate, earned doctorate. And so thankful for him. He's going to be coming on in just a moment, and he's going to be acting as the dean of our school. And then I have another man of God. His name is Dr. Bishop Van Gaten. I went to his school when I was a little boy in third and fourth grade. My father was under his ministry. He's had a very important role in my life. And he's actually a part of the covering of our ministry. But I call him Bishop Alphabet Suit because he's got so many letters behind his name that he looks like a bull of Alphabet Suit. And he travels literally all over the world. He's spoken at our church. He speaks at Oxford. He's been at Harvard. He's been at so many different places, been the dean of schools. And so he's not a wet behind the ear college professor. He is a man that has extensively traveled and knows all about what needs to be done in order to put on a school and is very well trained to keep us on the right path. And he's going to be our resident theologian. So I want to bring both of these men of God on now so we can get into our discussion. Can we bring them up? Hello, men of God. Good evening, Pastor J. Yes. Yes. It's going to be a great conversation. First of all, let me say I'm honored to be able to be doing this new work with you both and to be able to launch this. And I wanted to give you guys the best introduction I can to kind of give you some background of our relationship and how we know each other and what we're going to be doing. And I'm really excited because, ladies and gentlemen, just to mention this real quickly, tomorrow we're going to be on Cornerstone Television Network at 3:30 p.m., 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. Uh we're going to be doing kind of something like what we're doing right now, but it's going to be on ctbn.org as well. If you don't have the channel, you can go there online. We'll be airing it live at 3:30, 8, and 1 a.m. You're going to want to check that out. We're going to be talking more about the Bible school and uh how you can be involved and why it is important. And uh, you know, uh Dr. Craig, first thing I'd like to uh ask you is uh why is it that you feel in this day and hour that education, uh biblical education is so important for uh believers?

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Um I believe that uh in this day and time and where we are in this um, all these major conflicts and everything that is going mentally, spiritually, um in our lives, in our lives of our of our families, in the lives of our in our country. I think it's good to have a foundation, uh, physical foundation because we have to have um a way that we can stand and always revert back. You know, Sunday service is great. You know, we get that revitalization, but what happens along the course of the week? We need something that can give us some substance that we can hold on to. And and the thing about um biblical education, it gives us that opportunity to understand the scripture. Uh, you know, where did God come from? How did he um walk through different adversities? And and what did he do? And study the Rema and understand the historical version of Jesus, understand who he was as he walked the earth and what did he represent? What was his goals? And and and the thing about it is give us a firm foundation, how we can stand in these um trying times.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And Dr. Gate, I'd like to throw that back at you as well. Why do you feel uh that biblical education in this day and hour is so vital for us as believers?

Seminary Stigma And Real Value

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Yes, well, I agree with Dr. Craig for sure. And I'd just like to add that uh uh if I go back to Matthew's gospel, when the Lord is resurrected from the dead, he gave his disciples the great commission. And in Matthew 28, he said, uh, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you. So the first thing Jesus did was give an apostolic commission of instruction that we see exemplified in the book of Acts, chapter one, it says that uh they the early church, after being filled with the Spirit, it says in Acts that they continued in the apostles' teaching. So they that's what they did. That was the flow of the Spirit of God, and so we see the Word and the Spirit flowing together uh into the people of God. And if we're gonna walk in true what's called apostolic succession from the apostles of Jesus Christ, then we need to be following them in the teaching that was given to them by our Lord Jesus Christ. And I meant to say this uh the other day is that um when people say, Well, there's no need for uh uh school, we have uh, you know, the disciples, they were unlearned men, they were Galileans, you know, which meant they were from the hood, and uh, you know, they a little slurred to their talk, etc. But it said, but they noticed that they'd been with Jesus. Well, I want to know, do we understand that the greatest mind that ever existed gave them instruction? So we say they didn't go to school, they were with the rabbi himself, and you can't get a better education uh as a disciple than through Jesus Christ. And so, because we are part of the church, and I believe it's in Timothy, it also talks about we are to teach others and faithful men that they might teach others. So it's supposed to be an apostolic succession to instruction, to teaching being given to the church. That is a mandate from the Lord Jesus Christ, from Matthew, and then we see it demonstrated in the book of Acts.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

You know, one of the things, too, that uh I hear a lot of times saying, both of you guys, I also have some seminary training as well. And um, why is it that a lot of people call it a cemetery? And what would you say to that? You know, there's always the big joke about, oh, I went to cemetery, I need seminary. And uh, what would you guys speak to that? Dr. Craig, I'll start with you. Why would you what why do you think that stigma is and what would be your response to it?

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Uh I guess um, I guess some of the astigmatism is based on um you're going into an area to learn. It's almost like a monk. I think that's what they're looking at, being a monk and you're going into a deep caverns of a cave and you're studying. No, um, this the seminary is different, at least for me. It gave me the ability to understand um historical Jesus, it gave me the ability to understand the languages and the tense and and and the and the structure of the language for like I mentioned before, is that when you look at the different words for child, the padia, technia, and the kiosk, it gives you the understanding that translation, the seminary helped me able to translate um corning Greek, which is the New Testament, understanding those translations may come out as the same word. For example, translation of love. Um it's what it's it's the um the different definition of love, but if you look at the translation, it's just one word. Agape, agape love. You talk about phileo, phileo love. Agape means unconditional, phileo brotherly love. And then you have another word that means love, which means lust. Okay, so but it all translates into the word love. But the symbol gave me the opportunity to understand what is the difference. And more importantly, like Dr. Van Gaeten stated, it gives me the opportunity to take the knowledge that I have, learned, and understanding and parsing scripture in Greek and Hebrew, I can pass that on to the people that I'm teaching, to the students that I'm teaching, to the congregation that I'm teaching, which is my commission. And that is something important to me. So uh the seminary is important to understand the um the essence of of um of what the Bible is saying to you. Understand when you look at the seven churches, where are they located at? They're all in Turkey. Why? There's significant about that. Why did why did God choose churches only in Turkey, no present-day Turkey? So I I think in the seminary give us the not only the ability to understand and to parse scripture and to understand history, to understand the the the uh the poetry of it, to understand the Old Testament Pentateuch, to understand the New Testament gospel, but it give us the ability to take that knowledge and disperse and train others and not those theories.

Gifts Without Word Lead To Error

SPEAKER_04 12:33

Dr. Gayton. Yes, sir. Well, um, why cemeteries? Well, I was raised in a denomination that said that the mind was the enemy of God. That's that's that's how I was raised up. And the first time I ever ran into a seminary trained pastor in my hometown, he was sharing with me, and then I shared some things in Sunday school in my church, and the pastor uh thought, he said, woe unto those that go to Egypt for help. Well, when people say cemetery, well, the word seminary means you get the truth in seed form. You get the seeds of it. And yet, when you think of all the great moves of God, uh from uh Moses on down, every great leader that was used for the movements of God was a professor. They were first of all professors. So John Stott from um Oxford said that in order to reach this world, we we as a people need to uh become very familiar with the biblical texts, and then we need to be familiar with the culture of our day so that we can speak the divine word to the human need with sensitivity and accuracy. So, you know, there in and then the last example I'll use this. If I were walking in a beautiful field in the enchanted mountains, let's say of Oleanne, New York, and uh we and so you go down by the riverside there, and I can be walking with, I can be walking with, let's say I've I've got a botanist. He's a trained botanist, right? Well, we can both stand in that valley and look at that sound and say, isn't this just beautiful? And yet what both of us see is beautiful, but that botanist is trained to see far more in that valley of beauty than I can see. It's like when you're just a Christian and you've not been trained, that's like watching TV in black and white. But when you've been to seminary and you've got a hold of the word of God, now you got in living color. Why? Because the word of God is not training, is not meant to make us dry up and become dead. And this is the beauty of where there needs to be a marriage between the church and the academy. The church and the academy coming together instead of the divorce that's gone on for years. And uh the only man of God that I know that was used in a great way who was who was not necessarily seminary trained, although he did some Bible school, was William Seymour, uh the the uh Zuzan Pentecost, because he was he was born in Jim Crowism. So that's when they didn't allow us to go to school, you know? And so yet we're we're beyond that now. Now no one can stop us from getting a quality education. And I tell people all the time, wouldn't you want to know more accurately what God is saying and what God wants to do? And that does, and so my my motto is study yourself to death and pray yourself alive. And that's the way I try to train believers.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, you know, I think about that, and uh for me, one of the things that's important, the reason why God's always put a passion in my heart for a Bible school is because uh in this day and hour, uh there is truly a famine for the word of God. I think we've gotten so off into the moves of the spirit and flowing in the gifts, which I'm all for. I mean, I like all of that stuff, but if you have that type of movement and you don't have uh the the teaching of the word, the education of the word, we see so many preachers getting off into error and so many people in the church shouting about things that are in error. Yeah. Amen in things that are in error because they're unlearned and they don't know. And I think we've replaced, in my opinion, and I'll leave this to either one of you to answer. I think we've left prophecy and the gifts and the move of God, and we've made that a replacement for the teaching and structure and education of the word. And so I see a lot of people, preachers in particular. I hear I'll hear people, uh, I'll hear preachers saying things I'm like, what in the world are people amening for? How come there's no correction with this? I think that's why some people have gotten off, there's been so much church abuse that we see as well, is because there's no structure, there's no education, and we're just going by whatever somebody says, Well, the word spoke to me, and then they just go with the flow, and then we get off what I like to call goofy bill because we don't have anything. And Paul told Timothy, he said, he said, give yourself to scriptures and the study of the scriptures, for in it, not only will you save yourself, you will save others. So uh, and the Bible never says that my people perish for a lack of anointing. It says they perish for a lack of knowledge. And so I believe it's so important in the midst of the gifts and the movement of the things of God and the flowing of the spirit and the prophetic, which I'm all for. There has to be an education. In my opinion, I think that's why we've gotten into so much error because so many people are unskilled and really don't know the word, but we know church.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

You know what? I I think you're so on point, um, both you, um, Pastor Jay and um Dr. Uh Van Gaeten is that the the the the reason I've the reason I went into the seminary, the Bible says study is self-approved so you can rightly divide the word of truth. Because I was listening to us to some pastors before I went to the covenant. And I said, that doesn't sound right. So I wanted to, I wanted to rightly divide the word of truth. But then what I learned is that a lot of pastors base their teaching on what I call isegetical preaching or studies. There's a difference between exegetical and isegetical. Exegetical, when you when you teach uh exegetically, that means you you're referring back to scriptures. That means that anybody can um go back and they can um check you in the scriptures. But the isogenical um pastors they always use this is what I this is what God is doing, this is what I think he's on this route. They'll take a scripture and they'll uh manifest it into something totally different based on what they're thinking, not based on scriptures, but based upon how they wanted to convert that to meet their as they were preaching. So sometimes a lot of times that that is what happened happening is that they're taking every they're taking scripture totally out of context or context and they are basing it on just an idea. They may say, you know, for an example, there was a hot 10,000 angels came down on the morning of of September. You know, that's what the Bible said. But the Bible didn't say that. But we have when we're we're teaching as uh as professors or seminarians or someone that's teaching God um word, his remah, we base it strictly on scripture so people check us, go back and find out if we're telling the truth or not.

Apostolic Teaching And Church History

SPEAKER_04 19:41

Amen. Amen. I totally agree. You know, sound doctrine is important, sound doctrine. And Paul said, he said, you know, I've laid the foundation, but be careful how you build on that foundation. And I think that the flow that I'm looking for is that just consider this scenario. Jesus, God come in the flesh, gave the divine word to 12 men. He gave it to them, he taught them, he instructed them for over three years, and 40 days after his resurrection, he's talking about the kingdom of God with them. And then you have what are called the uh apostolic fathers. So John, the disciple of Jesus, uh had a he had a disciple, and he taught uh Polycarp and others, and so all the disciples had disciples. Now notice Jesus gave it to the twelve, and then the twelve passed it on to their sons and daughters, and then the church fathers pass it on. Then we come down to the Reformation, and the leaders in there pass it on to other men, and what we see through, like example, the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasius Creed, is that it those creeds are summaries of what we believe as Christians. And so the point is we don't need new strange doctrine. We need to be rooted in church history and walking with our fathers and mothers in the gospel who did receive it from Christ. So apostolic teaching for an apostolic church is whatever was being taught then should still be being taught now as Jesus gave it to them. So the Wesleyan, it's called the Wesleyan quadrilateral that John Wesley said when you're when you're studying the Bible, you should start by with scripture, do your own uh exegesis of the scripture yourself, best you can. Then look at, then he said the second step is look at tradition, look at the church fathers. What did they say about them same verses? Uh, you know, it could be African uh fathers, it can be Asian fathers, it can be Roman fathers, whoever it was, you know, that we need to hear what they were saying about the same text. And and then from there, he said it's a matter of Western tradition says thou. What what is uh what what is reasonable? So the third step is that which is reasonable to you, and last of all, um what uh your experiences is it livable? So the Western Wesleyan quadrilateral is a lot what I use when I teach uh people on how to study the Bible, and I tell pastors, I said, you know, when you write papers in for academic review in seminary or publication of papers like we do at Oxford or Cambridge and stuff like that, you submit a paper uh for peer review, which means everybody gets to go look at it and critique it and tweak it and draw from it or speak against it to some degree. And it would be a wonderful thing if pastors themselves understood I should submit my sermons to peer review instead of standing up like a pope in the pulpit uh like the Pope. Oh my goodness. They're speaking ex cathedral from the Pope, and uh a lot of pastors you'll find are uh are so in enclosed in themselves uh that they're they're in submission to no one uh because I tell people, yes, I have degrees, but my title is I am simply a student of God's word. I continue to be a student, I want to learn, I want to learn, I want to learn. And the reason I even want to learn is because God told me in Olean on Highland Avenue, standing in a 500 square foot home, Jay, right up the street, down the street from your father, standing there, and the Lord said to me in the when I was in the church of God in Christ, he said, Pursue scholarship, pursue it. And boy, that thing lit a fire in me, and uh I haven't slowed down ever since.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

You know, I'm I'm thinking about what you guys are both sharing, and um, my thought is is do you think this is a lot of people that aren't experiencing the abundant life the way they should? You know, you're not getting the fullness out of it because of the lack of knowledge. I and you guys correct me if you feel this same way or not, or if you feel differently. I think a lot of times people come in and they hear, as Dr. Craig mentioned, about an isogenical sermon. And so what's happened, we're just always hearing something more like a prophetic or something along that line, or a story being told, or something humorous, or maybe some type of humanism, uh self-taught humanism that we're doing and get bringing these types of things. And so what happens, people are constantly living, thinking that one day it's just gonna happen, like pie in the sky, it's just gonna fall upon them, and they're gonna have it one day. And because they don't have the word, there's no stability, there's no rootedness, there's no grounding, there's no, uh, there's no ability to uh endure the storms. There's there's not we misinterpret so many things that happen in our lives. We don't really grow and develop because uh we've become professional at a church, but we really don't know the word. And do you feel that I feel that the word is so important that that's why we see such a lean church, if you will, uh not strong, not mature. The Bible talk talks about how in the end they won't endure sound doctrine. They just want something that makes them feel good. And that's what a lot of preachers have kind of catered to. And my thought is that this is the reason why this education is so important, is because if we can get the word, if we can get the foundation, if we can get the principles laid in our life and build upon that, that's where that exegetical revelation can come out of you. You can get the key to the key, you can walk in the abundant life, walk in the authority, walk in the blessing that God has for your life.

Context Changes Everything In Scripture

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yes, because when uh uh Dr. Craig was sharing about exegetical, you know, what you're simply doing when you approach the word from an exegetical uh point of view, you are your goal as the teacher or preacher, you simply want to allow God to say what he wants to say from the scripture. Not your opinion, not your view, but what is God, what was God saying in the scripture? So you've got to dig in there. You've got to look at the historical of behind the text, you've got to look at the grammatical, you've got to go through all these procedures because your goal is that you recognize that you're simply wanting to make room for God to say what he originally was saying uh to his people. And you realize that you, and you also realize that uh there's an authoritative, but he was speaking to a particular people at that time. And so you've got to first give the historical context. So what did what was God saying then, and then the application, now what is God saying now? And so when people follow that procedure, then the people will become more clear and uh understanding of truth. The Hebrew phrase bait midrash, beit midrash, which means for the Jewish, it the synagogue was a house of study, a house of study. And even to this day, I was on a Zoom with 12 rabbis just last week out of Hebrew college in Boston, and they were sharing how when they get together in the Beit Midrash, they come together and they argue back and forth over the text. They argue and then they go out and have dinner together. He says, you know, he said, but you know, they they they're willing to critique each other and go back and forth. And uh now uh we don't see the value of that and and hunger for it. I mean, who wants to go to a surgeon who's not been trained? Yes. You know, who wants to go, who wants to have their teeth pulled by someone who's not been trained? But you're willing to go to a church and and and put commit your soul to somebody that is not trained. Lord have mercy.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

You know, you're absolutely right. You know, it reminds me of um when Paul, I think he was talking to um um the Corinthians, city of Corinth, remember the temple of Diana. Yeah. And that's where the prostitutes came out at night. Right. And and they would they were dressed different and they had cut their hair, okay, to let people know that they were available and they were coming from the temple of Diana, and they was giving themselves for payment. Uh and and and people would say, and Paul would say, do not cut your hair. Okay. He was telling the women don't cut your hair. And a major fact, he didn't want them to be associated with these prostitutes that's coming out from the temple of Diana. And but you hear you get pastors saying women should not cut their hair. Okay. Yeah. Have you ever heard that before? I heard it. Oh yeah. But not knowing the ramification, and and Dr. Van Gaet and what you just said, Paul was approaching uh I concern at that moment in time.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

At that moment in time.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

There you go. There you go.

The Institute Vision And Leadership

SPEAKER_03 28:52

So and so that's how we, you know, we have to be careful, and that's the reason education is important so we can understand understand the historical parts of it.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Amen. Amen. We know I want to mention a couple of things, uh, so everybody that's watching, uh, we're doing this to kind of talk a little bit about why uh going back to Bible school would be important, why you should get involved uh to further your biblical education. And uh uh Dr. Van Gayton, he's our resident theologian. He's the one that's gonna be overseeing the whole part of the school and making sure that we stay uh theologically where we need to be and also help give instruction and uh um and just wisdom on how to lay the foundation for a school. And then we have uh Dr. Winford Craig, who's going to be our dean, who's gonna be putting together all of our structure and our school and our classes and helping to select uh different teachers as we continue to grow and to develop. We're working on our accreditation as well uh to work on all these things. And uh with that in mind, uh Dr. Craig, would you share with the people what we've got coming up, uh those classes uh that we're gonna be starting with?

First Courses And What You Learn

SPEAKER_03 29:59

Um we have two classes that's coming up. Um I think it's um uh March 21st. I think it's March 21st. March 21st. The one is the biblical overview. And this is a good um course that you can take. Give us foundational structure to understand the bottle in the school, looking at it from a 30,000-foot view. We'll we we're we we'll take um um scriptures and and books of the Pentateuch, um, the Psalms, the major and minor prophets, the synoptic gospel, and also John, um, the the epistles of of Paul and the other epistles and revelations. So you get a chance to look at all these books of the Bible from a um from a higher view, not getting all deep into it, but giving you a basic understanding of scripture of the entire Bible. And then we have another course that's being taught. It's called Comparative Religion. And I think this is also a very good course because it gives you the opportunity to understand the different religion, whether it's Mormonism, whether it's Judaism, and whether it's Islam and the Baha'i faith, uh, Hindu, Buddhism, give you the capability of looking at all these different religions. And what is key to that? And we all know the key is to that, to understanding the different religions, so you can defend your faith. How can you defend not knowing what the other religions are? Um, not knowing um how to defend. So this is a this give us a uh give the student the understanding of looking at all the different religions and say to themselves, I understand this, I understand what this religion is all about, but now I understand the significance about Christianity, about about being a Christian and defend that faith.

Training Disciples With Hermeneutics

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah, that is so good. You know, and uh matter of fact, uh Dr. Craig, I brought the books here. Here's the book for um comparative religions. We're kind of bringing it a little closer. It's called So What's the Difference? Uh, that's a book that we're gonna be making available. And then also Comparative Religion is actually a phenomenal, um, kind of like a trifold, and it has all of the different religions and uh why they believe what they believe in regards to Christianity and how we'll be going through of them. And then also we have the biblical overview uh book that we're gonna be using as well uh to do that. So listen, for everybody that's watching and listening, uh classes will start March 21st. And if you sign up by Saturday, March 7th, you get 20% off. And what's amazing is that you can take it in-house or you can take it um online. Either way, uh, but all classes will be held on Saturday, and you can take both classes. You come in at 9 o'clock and it ends at 11:15. So 9 to 10 is the first class, and then from 10:15 to 11:15 is the second class. Uh, I've already got other teachers uh that are coming in the fall that have already started that said they would make a commitment to come. Uh, we've got a whole lot more class that we're doing. Our vision is, you know, Dr. Gain, one of the things that we want to do as well is we want to have uh eventually a ministerial training uh um uh process as well for people to come in that want to be a licensed minister, to go through to have a practicum, to take certain classes. How important is it for somebody that wants to be a lay minister, even to start getting involved and get biblically trained?

SPEAKER_04 33:29

Well, I think training is something every believer, if you're gonna be a disciple, uh you need to be trained, not only uh spiritual formation. That's a class within itself, right there, a study, uh doubt uh spiritual formation, but uh we need our minds trained. We need our minds trained. Uh Isaiah says, Come let us reason together. And then on top of that, think of what we got. We've got a book, 66 uh books in the Bible, all right, the one we use, and written over a 1600 year span of 40 different authors, three different continents, and three major languages differences. So, and then on top of that, you've got some books that are prophetic, you've got some books that are historical, some books are biographical, some books, you know, each book. So when people say, Well, I don't know where to go and all that, you don't interpret every one of those different genres in the same way. And so, how do you know how to interpret unless somebody teaches you how to, which is hermeneutics? You learn how to interpret, how to see the difference between a metaphor, an a simile, an allegory, etc., and poetic books. We've got to learn those differences, or we will just wander uh in the quicksands of an existential mood, just just go uh just don't know nothing, ain't going nowhere. We we got to have help to be trained. So everybody should want to be trained so that when we speak for God, I mean, just think of who we're speaking for. Yeah. We're speaking for God. And you would not release any ambassador out into the world as a king or a leader of the domain, and they're gonna represent you, and you would send somebody to talk for you to the rest of the world who's untrained?

Never Too Old To Start Learning

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah. Right, right, right, for sure, for sure. Dr. Craig, any final thoughts that you have in regards to uh why people should get involved, why they need to step up and uh launch out and do some education. What if somebody says, you know, hey, I'm too old, I'm too young, uh, you know, it's a very modest price too. It's very, very, very cheap. Uh, you know, so it's not, we just we want people to have skin in the game, but at the same token, it's not anything that's gonna break the bank, and it's 10 weeks. Uh, why should somebody say, you know, I'm gonna make a commitment for the next 10 weeks and get involved and get trained?

SPEAKER_03 35:53

You know what? Um when I was in school, when I was doing my undergraduate work, you know, and one of the three philosophical phrases of Renee Descartes, he said, He who knows not and knows not that he knows not cannot be taught. But he who knows not and knows that he knows not can be taught. But he who knows and knows that he knows as a prophet, you follow him. So we all fall in that center peace. We should all be in a place where we always are in a place that we want to learn and learn more. And the thing about teaching, teaching always put me in a place that I'm doing additional research and I'm doing I'm and I'm seeking God even more to give me an even a better understanding. So I never stopped learning, and teaching helped me to learn even more. So I don't care. You look at this gray here on my head, okay, you're never too you're never too old to learn. You're never too old to get involved. Okay, so so you got us who are uh are uh um doctors, PhDs, and in seminaries like uh Pastor Jay. We all have um it's it's in in this framework of trying to learn more. But our job is to give this what we have, to give it to you. And I guarantee if you take these courses, you will be highly satisfied.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Amen. Amen. Any closing thoughts, Bishop? Well, this can be the most exciting journey of life, and I think that uh, as Renee Descartes said, my my my response to that is that that's why I choose to be a st a student of the word, even at 70-something years old. I'm a student of the word, and I'm I'm just humbly at his feet trying to learn from him and learn through, you know, when we go to Oxford and Cambridge to these PhDs all getting together, everybody has their PhD in different disciplines of the Bible. And so we learn how to listen to each other according to our particular disciplines. And you realize no one theologian, no no one scholar has it all. And so we need each other, even in the academic realm. We need each other. We need to be hearing God, the expertise that each one is given. There's something for us to learn, there's something of value always for the people of God. And it's our privilege to share with students that are hungry for the word of God, for the knowledge of the word of God that we have. And it's nothing like having the word, but the it's also better to give the word and see it produce life in other people. So it's it's a life of excitement for me.

How To Enroll And Get Discount

TV Spot Details And Closing

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Yes, it is. Amen. Amen. Well, Dr. Gayton, Dr. Craig, thank you both so much for your time and for your efforts and energy to help another level Bible Institute get to where it needs to be and where it's going to be going. And uh, thank you guys so much for hanging out with me here on Dimensions as well. And I'm sure you guys will be back uh in the future to talk more about the success and how God is taking our school from one level of glory to the next level of glory. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Take care. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you have been blessed by this time here. And I hope that now you're gonna want to come and be a part, even as you heard these two men of God that have been seminarily trained, doctors, PhDs, and why it's important. And we're bringing this to you for an opportunity for you to be able to further your education and know the word of God like never before, to educate, to empower you, and to release you. And so if you're interested, there's information on the screen on how you can come and join with us. You can go to another level.church and you can sign up there for the classes. Remember, sign up by Saturday, and you'll be able to March 7th, and you'll be get 20% off. Yes, 20% off. And uh I promise you, you are going to be blessed uh by the opportunity to be able to come and learn the word of God. And we're gonna continue to keep building upon it. I can tell you this you want to get in now while the getting is good. The prices are low, the prices are cheap, and I'm sure somewhere in the future they're probably gonna go up. So get in now while you can. And you can take it at home, or you can come in here to 605 Thompson Run Road, right here in Pittsburgh, 15237, and come hang out with us here on Saturdays and get education and get the word of God uh into your life. So you can also text the word Bible Institute to 412-586-7159. Text the word Bible Institute to 412-586-7159. And you can also sign up that way as well. Get going quickly because before you know it, March 21st will be here. And we don't want to start without you. And I believe this is the first step. Some of you may feel a call to go into ministry, some of you may just want to go deeper into the word. Some of you just look for an opportunity to know God more. Some of you just may want to feel uh God's presence in a greater way through his word, whatever your reasoning might be. Maybe you said, you know, years ago you wanted to do it, you want to get back involved, and you want to get seminarily trained. Come on out, come and be a part and get the word of God into your heart, into your mind, into your spirit. And I promise you, you will not be disappointed. So go and sign up today. If you have any other questions, you can call us at 412-586-7159. We have people that'll be there to answer the phone and be able to answer whatever questions you might have. We want to help you become the best version of what God has called you to be. So go and sign up and don't forget, tune in tomorrow, Cornerstone Television Network, at 3:30, 8 p.m., or 1 a.m. for our live show with Dr. Gaiton, Dr. Craig, and myself, and the host of Unscripted Faith, a show that I used to host myself along with Angela Madden. She's going to be there as well, hosting the three of us. And we had a wonderful conversation going a little bit deeper into some of the things that we talked about as well. So I hope that you'll join with us then. If you miss it on television, you can't get to it on television, go to it online, ctbn.org, or go to Cornerstone Television Network on YouTube, and it'll be there for you as well. So God bless you. I'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening at 8 p.m. Like I always say, coming at you at the very least five days a week, Monday through Friday, every evening at 8 p.m. Join me there. Download the podcast, and I'll see you tomorrow night for another episode of Dimensions.