Ministry Class

Today was the first day of our Ministry class. Matt Swank and his wife drove up from southern New Zealand yesterday. Matt is our Ministry Professor. He's been teaching and in Youth Ministry for around thirteen years. They just moved here to New Zealand three months ago from the States. Matt is a Bethel grad and his wife was teaching back in the States. I'm not sure what she does here now. But they are amazing people with a great story of how they got here. They basically new 2 years before they came here that God had a major plan for them, they just didn't know what it was and where they'd be going. And now they are here in New Zealand.

Today in class we went over many many verses about how the Holy Spirit has power over us. It's been a struggle today to understand how Jesus was born of a virgin and went through a normal childhood, yet he was fully human and fully God. It's been hard for us as a class to understand that today. We've discussed over and over how the Holy Spirit is the one who has led Jesus all over and after being baptized he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted. We read countless verses about the Holy Spirit coming upon people and bringing them power.

The most interesting verse we went over that I still am trying to fathom and make sense of was: Matthew 9:20-22, Luke 8:42b-48

What we've discussed and what I’m guessing is that Jesus himself did not have the power to heal the woman being fully man. But It was the Holy Spirit within Him that healed her, the side of Jesus that was fully God. It was because of her faith that the Holy Spirit granted her freedom from bleeding. I’ve never thought of this before. It’s the Holy Spirit who has given the power to Jesus.
A question I came upon with another student is did Jesus know who was touching him or did he really not know and need to ask? The Holy Spirit might have known but did Jesus really not know?

We've asked so many questions today about the Holy Spirit and his role in Jesus' life. It's amazing how many more questions can generate from a group of twenty students compared to just myself when I read the Bible alone.

We were in class today for three hours; however, I was only in class for two and half. We had class from 9 to 12:30 then had lunch. We had an assignment to do before our next hour of class at 4:30. So, I did the assignment after lunch. Then, I decided to take a nap. Well, I didn't hear my alarm so I missed the first half of our class at 4:30. Janelle Lambert, one of the other PacRim students came and woke me up and said class had started. So, feeling ridiculous that I missed class I walked in with 25 minutes to go at 5:05. But Matt didn't mind and our leader Brent just found it funny.

So, with today be our first day of one of our classes it has gone pretty well. It was a rainy day today, a bit gloomy. Perfect weather for staying in and doing homework which is what I've been doing and what I plan to do for awhile yet tonight.