2009 Fall Seminary Report
Posted by deangonzales on December 3, 2009
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It’s been a busy year. Student enrollment has increased to 60 students. Moreover, Dr. Gonzales has been working together with our sister seminary, Midwest Center for Theological Studies, as an adjunct professor of Old Testament studies, teaching elementary and intermediate Hebrew in the spring and fall. Additionally, he’s currently the sole elder of a local church (since Jeffrey Smith accepted a call from Emmanuel Baptist Church of Coconut Creek, Florida) and is working diligently with a pastoral search committee to find a new pastor for the congregation. Nevertheless, despite the pressures, God has sustained, and the increased demands of the seminary have actually prompted us to set in motion some changes that will serve to enhance the seminary training and make the distance-learning product we offer more efficient.
RBS Virtual Campus
On August 15, we opened “RBS Virtual Campus” (VC). VC is a website that utilizes Moodle learning management software to facilitate online distance-learning. Now students can login into VC and find course information, download course handouts and audio lectures, complete quizzes and exams online, and communicate with other students who are logged in. VC also features video tutorials for teachers and students, including a tutorial on how to use a special writing template to format academic papers. These video tutorials are on the home page and accessible to the public. If you’d like to get a feel for how it works, let me encourage you to navigate to our website (www.virtual.rbseminary.org) and view some of the tutorials. For those interested in auditing, we plan to make “guest passes” available for those who simply wish to download and listen to lectures.
Though much of VC is up and functional, we’re still uploading lectures and course information, as well as sifting out some of the initial “bugs” that show up in the first few months of utilizing learning management software. Please pray that VC will take theological training to a higher level.
RBS to Relocate and Expand
Because of the growth of RBS, the seminary overseers have realized the need to relocate the seminary headquarters and expand the ministry. Accordingly, the two founding churches, Grace Immanuel Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Covenant Reformed Baptist Church of Easley, South Carolina, have, after consulting with the advisory board, extended invitations to Immanuel Baptist Church of Sacramento, California, and Grace Baptist Church of Taylors, South Carolina, to join in the oversight of the seminary. Both of these congregations have accepted the invitation.
Because CRBC of Easley is a relatively smaller congregation and is in search of a new pastor, we believe it wise to relocate the seminary headquarters and dean to a larger church that can provide the extra human resources needed to administrate the seminary. GBC of Taylors has offered to serve as the new headquarters and can currently offer Dr. Gonzales the secretarial help he needs. GBC also has larger building facilities and is committed to construct a “virtual classroom” where lectures can be taught, recorded, and even streamed to students over the Internet. GBC and the overseeing churches also hope to partner with other sister churches to develop internship programs that can be offered to eligible students.
Lord willing, the overseers will meet in the early part of December to discuss the timing of Dr. Gonzales’s transition and many other ideas and plans for the future with reference to theological training. Please pray that the Lord will grant us guidance as we attempt to improve our program and better serve the churches in the needy area of providing theological training that is sound, affordable, and accessible to men who aren’t able to relocate to a traditional seminary.
The “Marrow” in Colombia
The “Marrow of Theology” program being offered in Bogota, Colombia, is nearing completion. In the last week of April, Pastor Jeffery Smith, with the help of translator José Alberto Garcia, taught the module entitled “Doctrine of Salvation II.” He dealt with the various topics covered by the theme Ordo Salutis (“order of salvation”) including effectual call, justification, repentance and faith. Late July and early August Dr. Richard Barcellos joined with translator Francisco Orozco to present a module on “Ethics.” The primary focus of the module was to demonstrate the abiding validity of the Decalogue and, in particular, the Fourth Commandment for the believer and the church. Then, in the last week of October, Pastor Andy Dunkerton teamed up with translator Luis Simpson to lecture on the subject of “The Covenants.” Here the theme was the Historia Salutis (“history of salvation”) as revealed through the framework of God’s covenants. Thankfully, we were able to get James Williamson’s new book From the Garden of Eden to the Glory of Heaven (Calvary Press, 2008) translated into Spanish and distributed to the students as a supplement to the lectures. In all of these modules, the 40 to 50 students who attend, many of whom are from non-Reformed backgrounds (i.e., Arminian, Pentecostal, Dispensational) are being exposed to some of the central tenets of the Reformed faith. And we’re happy to report that many of them seem to be embracing these truths and rejoicing in them. Our prayer is that their deepening understanding of Scripture and theology will produce not only positive changes in their lives but also in their families and churches.
God willing, Pastor Jeffrey Smith will present the “Doctrine of Salvation III” in the last week of January 2010. Then Pastor Gregory Nichols will lecture on the “Doctrine of the Church” in April, which will be the final module. We hope to schedule a special graduation ceremony during one of the summer months in which those students and pastors who successfully complete the entire three-year “Marrow” program will be awarded the Certificate of Theological Studies (C.T.S.). As this program in Bogota comes to a close, we are prayerfully considering requests to offer the Marrow again in other needy places. We’ve received a couple of requests and need wisdom and God’s provision of resources, so please pray for us. If you or your church is interested in helping to finance another Marrow program in a foreign country, please contact us. The cost is approximately $2,000 to $2,800 per module.
Phase Two of the “Marrow”
RBS chose 2 Timothy 2:2 as the verse of Scripture that best epitomizes its vision: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” A careful reading of this verse reveals the idea of successive phases of teaching. What Timothy had learned from Paul he was responsible to pass on to faithful men. But that’s not where the mission ends. Once those faithful men are trained in sound doctrine, they must then become the teachers of others. And so the baton of theological education is passed on from one generation to another.
In the summer of 2007, I had the pleasure of participating in the graduation of 23 Dominican pastors from the 24-credit Marrow of Theology program. Several students graduated with honors, and three of those honor-students, Luis Arocha, Oskar Arocha Jr., and Juan Perez, have joined with Pastor Oscar Arocha to start the “Academia Ministerial de la Gracia” (Grace Ministerial Academy) as a ministry of Iglesia Bautista de Gracia (Grace Baptist Church) in Santiago, the Dominican Republic. These men have taken what they learned through the Marrow of Theology program and are not only indoctrinating the members of their church but are passing it on to other faithful pastors and ministerial aspirants.
In particular, the Academia Ministerial de Gracia (AMG) carefully screened several young men from various parts of Latin America who expressed an interest in relocating to the DR in order to attend the academy and enroll in the Marrow program. Seven were selected, representing Peru, Colombia, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, and they came to Santiago with the commendation of their local churches. Within the space of seven months of intensive training, these seven students successfully completed the Marrow program. And on October 4, 2009, I had the privilege of participating in their graduation. They all plan to return to their local churches and labor alongside their pastors. Some of them hope to continue their education and eventually begin ministerial academies in their own countries, so that they too might pass on what they have learned to faithful men who’ll be able to teach others also.
So not only did we have the honor of passing the baton of “sound doctrine” to faithful men in the Dominican Republic. We also rejoice to see those faithful men continuing to enhance their own education and passing the baton of biblical truth to others. Our earnest expectation is that God may continue to multiply our efforts and raise up an army of faithful men who will continue passing that theological training baton to others so that in 10 to 20 or 30 years, there will be doctrinally and practically sound ministerial academies all over Latin America. Presently, Luis, Oskar, and Juan (who’s the dean or principal of AMG) are seeking to complete their Masters in Theological Studies (M.T.S.) through RBS to further equip them as educators. AMG has already approved 10 students from various parts of Latin America for another round of their intensified training program, which will commence in the early part of 2010. Please pray for AMG and its partnership with RBS. Once again, if you or your church would like to partner financially with AMG and RBS in this endeavor, please contact Dr. Gonzales or Pastor Oscar Arocha (parocha@ibgracia.org).
Dean’s New Book Published
It’s finally available! Wipf & Stock has published my “theology of Genesis” entitled Where Sin Abounds: The Spread of Sin and the Curse in Genesis With Special Focus on the Patriarchal Narratives. Here’s what one well-known Old Testament scholar says about the book:
Although my library shelf holds many commentaries on Genesis, I eagerly anticipate turning again and again to Where Sin Abounds by Robert R. Gonzales Jr. In a fresh, comprehensive, and detailed theological exegesis, Gonzales empowers the patriarchal narrative, as well as the so-called primeval history, to express the spread of sin, its varied nature, and the divinely imposed consequences. Here is a monograph that the contemporary evangelical church, corrupted by the Marcionite heresy, needs desperately to hear.
—Bruce Waltke
Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary
The book seeks not only to demonstrate the thematic and literary unity of Genesis (thereby debunking source-critical views) but also to highlight the fact that the themes of sin’s spread and God’s curse permeate the entire Genesis narrative. Even the patriarchs and matriarchs to whom the promises were given did not escape the gravity of sin and the curse, which has important implications for the doctrines of sin, justification, and sanctification. If you’re interested in getting a copy right away, you can order through Wipf & Stock Publishers and get a 20% discount. If you can wait till January, the book is available through Barnes and Noble at a 32% discount and will be soon available through Amazon.com.
Support RBS?
Although RBS charges students a quarterly enrollment fee and tuition, the seminary is partially supported by the generosity of local churches and individuals. This is one more reason why RBS is a “church-based” seminary. We believe that training “laborers for the harvest” (Luke 10:2) is a vital facet of the Great Commission and, accordingly, that local churches should be willing to invest in those who aspire after and show potential for the ministry. In light of this, we would like you to consider supporting RBS financially. Students of churches that support the seminary for $2,000 or more per year may receive their theological education tuition free. For more information, please contact us.
Bob Gonzales, Dean
Reformed Baptist Seminary
Dear Brothers,
The students were waiting or hoping with particular expectation, because Pastor Jeffery had arrived in his first visit with great appreciation and respect for the relevance of his teachings, so that the exposure of the first part of the topic, our hearts were left with a special longing to continue to delight ourselves in the exquisite treasures of the doctrines of salvation. Accordingly, the conference dealt with in this module the various topics covered by the theme “Ordo Salutis” which were of great comfort and edification to the students, who have testified, that not only did they learn the concepts, but also refreshed their souls with the precious truths concerning the effectual call, justification, repentance and faith among other doctrines that were widely and deeply presented or set forth by Pastor Smith. We thank God for this gift he has given to the church.
