My Lunch Date Yesterday

Somehow she talked me into taking her to Wendy’s again.

WeWork

  At PIU most of our students are involved in the school “WeWork” program. WeWork allows the students to earn up to $750 each semester by doing up to 7 hours of work each week that is then applied to school costs. The student work also allows us to keep costs down so that a PIU education remains financially accessible. But WeWork is not just a financial aid program. Our students get valuable practical work experience that will go on their resume and will pay off after graduation when they try to find a job. The students work on campus in many capacities and in several departments. They work in the office as receptionists, maintenance, cleaners and office aides. A few work in the Advancement Office on the web site, publicity or as part of the student recruiting team. Some work in the Academic Department as tutors or teachers’ aides. One of our biggest group of WeWorkers is the library team. Other groups work off campus out in the community. This year we have several students working at the Guahan Academy Charter School as lunchtime supervision workers and in after-school care.

One of our off-campus WeWork groups works at the Palmridge Hotel, supervised by our Executive administrator Nino Pate. These guys are able, not only, to help take care of their tuition bill, but are getting an opportunity to learn the tourist business. In addition a couple of our students have been hired as regular employees at Palmridge. Our partnership with the Palmridge is a real blessing to the school and we plan to offer a few seminary classes there in the near future.

Joyce is one of our WeWork supervisors and is in charge of two teams: The Special Projects Team and the Campus Beautification Team. She really enjoys working with the students and, of course, getting to use the chain saws, water blasters and other power tools.

One recent project involved cleaning and painting the campus roofs with reflective paint to make the rooms easier to cool.

They are also working on beautifying the flower beds and planting more fruit trees. In the tropics there is always something that needs to be trimmed, mowed, or pruned.

Esther Sermon

I had the opportunity to preach on Esther today at Agana Heights Baptist Church. It was the second on my series of “Unsanitized Bible Stories.” My take on Esther is that the main point deals with the returned exiles in Jerusalem, who have no idea what is going on in the story, who God saves (working behind the scenes) through a pair of unfaithful Jews: Esther and Mordecai. Mordecai is part of the Jewish majority who disobey the prophetic word to return to Jerusalem and separate from Babylon. Nevertheless, God places them in positions of authority in the Persian government, despite their unfaithfulness (Esther even denies her Jewishness), and then God brings them to a crisis point where they finally make the right decision to stand up for their people. The returned exiles are saved and God’s plan is preserved.

The book of Esther is an intricate and beautiful festal song with an amazing outline. The outline is a very deep chiasm in which Esther and Mordecai go in as faithless deniers and come out as faithful heroes. Things begin to change when Mordecai begins to think of his people instead of just himself. Here is the outline which I adapted (added a lot more detail) from the Believer’s Church Bible Commentary.

Power and Greatness of Xerxes 1.1-2        
  Xerxes Banquet 1.3-8
    Vashti's Banquets  1.9-12
     Vashti Deposed/Esther's Opportunity 1.13-2.1-7
        Esther Acts Like a Gentile 2.8-18
          Haman Elevated 3.1
            Mordecai refuses to bow 3.2-4
             Haman's plot against the Jews 3.5-15
                  Mordecai appeals to Esther 4.1-17
                    Esther's First Banquet 5.1-8
                     Haman's Gallows constructed for Mordecai 5.9-14
                            Mordecai Honored 6.1-14
                   Esther's 2nd Banquet 7.1-7
                     Haman Hung on His own Gallows 7.8-10
                  Esther Appeals to Xerxes 8.1-8
               The Jews plot against Haman 8.9-10
            Jewish Resistance 8.11-14
          Mordecai and the Jews Elevated 8.15-16
        Gentiles Act Like Jews 8.17
      Triumph of the Jews 9.1-17
    Mordecai establishes feast of Purim 9.18-28
  Esther confirms a second Purim 9.19-32
Greatness and Power of Mordecai with Xerxes 10.1-3

The returned exiles, who were wondering if God had abandoned them, were encouraged that God was working to accomplish His plan for them, without their help or knowledge, and was even using the power of their enemies to benefit them. All the coincidences that came together to save them illustrate Michael Fox’s comment that a “coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to remain anonymous.”

Despite their lack of past faithfulness, Esther and Mordecai receive another chance to serve God’s people and both come through as heroes.

Haman finds out the hard way that, no matter how much political, or other, power you have, opposing God’s people and God’s work is always fatal in the end.

God is going to accomplish his plan and nothing can stop that. God turns the banquets of this world into a great banquet for his people in the end.

My 2013 NFL Predictions

I suppose before we get to the 2nd game of the season I should make my NFL picks. Just for sake of my credibility, last year I picked six of the eight division winners and correctly picked the 49ers to be in the Super Bowl. Sadly, I was not correct on them winning. So here are my picks for this coming season…

NFC: Division Winners: 49ers, Saints, Packers, Giants Wild Cards: Seahawks, Falcons

AFC: Division Winners: Broncos, Ravens, Texans, Patriots Wild Cards: Chiefs, Colts

I am going with the same Super Bowl pick as last year: 49ers over the Texans.

We will revisit these picks in about 6 months and see how I did.

PIU Student Statistics Fall 2013

We now have the official student numbers for the Fall 2013 semester. We are happy to have a total of 85 students enrolled this semester. Of these 80 are enrolled in our traditional campus classroom programs and 5 are enrolled in distance education courses. Of the 85, 58 are full-time (taking at least 12 units), 24 are part-time and we have 3 students auditing classes. 46 students live on campus in the dorms and 39 are commuter or DE students. This is a small increase for PIU in “total head count” from last semester, but a very large increase in full time students, dorm students and for credit students. The chart below shows the significant increase in our “full-time equivalent” count for this Fall over the semester.

The FTE is the number that we must use to make our annual budget. You can see from the chart that our FTE has increased by over 16%. This is a tremendous answer to prayer. We are praying for continued increases like this in future semesters.

Here are a few more interesting statistics about our students (thank you Nino Pate for the graphs)….

And of course, as you can see, each one of these “numbers” is a uniquely gifted student that has been placed by God in our care. We appreciate your prayers for them.

The Owen’s Are Ready for Some Football

Well the NFL season starts tomorrow (we don’t count that the season has really started until the 49ers play their first game) and we are ready for some football. We took our annual 49er pictures with the grandkids (it was also grandparents day and we had a good time!) and played a little front yard football. Tomorrow morning the games will start about 3 AM but we will DVR the games and start about 6.30 AM. Several of the PIU staff will be here and we will enjoy breakfast and NFL football together before we head over to school for meetings and classes. Go 49ers!

We took a couple pictures with our 49er red car

We played a little front-yard tackle football and keep away.

An Evening with Irenaeus

Last night was the second session of our Readings in Theology class at the PIU Seminary. The reading for the evening was Irenaeus’ “Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching.” The discussion was led by Dr. M. James Sawyer. Irenaeus is one of those guys I have read about in my seminary education but I never actually read one his works. I knew that he was only two generations removed in church history from the Apostle John  and that he was less concerned with being an original thinker than passing down apostolic teaching to the next generation. This makes him very important for understanding and interpreting apostolic teaching. The book was basically a catechism that could be easily used today with minor modifications.

Here is what stood out to me from reading Irenaeus….

First, though the doctrine of the Trinity was not yet fully formulated, his theology was thoroughly Trinitarian,

This then is the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation: God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith. The second point is: The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the dispensation of the Father:through whom all things were made; who also at the end of the times, to complete and gather up all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible,in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce a community of union between God and man. And the third point is: The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers learned the things of God, and the righteous were led forth into the way of righteousness; and who in the end of the times was poured out in a new way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man unto God.  Chapter 6

His theology of salvation sometimes sounded almost reformational, “we also are justified not by the law, but by faith, which is witnessed to in the law and in the prophets, whom the Word of God presents to us,” but his picture of the atonement was less judicial and more focused on the restoration and recapitulation of the image and likeness Christ in humans.

He also placed heavy emphasis on the Old Testament as a typology of Christ and prophecy in symbol of who He would be and what he would do. Most of the content of the book was focused on the Old Testament and how Christ fulfilled it.

As Irenaeus’ summed up his book: “This, beloved, is the preaching of the truth, and this is the manner of our redemption, and this is the way of life, which the prophets proclaimed, and Christ established, and the apostles delivered, and the Church in all the world hands on to her children. This must we keep with all certainty, with a sound will and pleasing to God, with good works and right-willed disposition.”

I think the students and staff have enjoyed the first two discussions very much and we would invite anyone interested to come join us next Thursday at 6.30 PM in the Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary classroom as we discuss On the Incarnation by Athanasius.