About
Background:
The Bible is God's revelation to the World about His will and plan for humanity: the jewel and purpose of Creation. That record shows that mankind - in the first couple, Adam and Eve - rejected His will, broke the relationship with the Creator, and since then ushered into all of mankind the consequences of this open rebellion: sin, death, brokenness and all sorts of evils (both personal and societal). Yet God made provision for healing both the relationship and the consequences of sin - the brokenness and incompleteness that we experience - by the gift and sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. He entered human history, being both human and divine, and bore on his shoulders the consequences of sin - he took the blunt force of our sin, and even its ultimate consequence: death, and a humiliating, torturous, and unjust death by Roman crucifixion. He defeated both sin and death when he was resurrected on the third day. Trust in His propitiation for sin, and His guidance for life is the path to a right relationship with the Creator.
This website is dedicated to those who seek both this propitiation (atonement) for sin and a right relationship with God. As a Bible teacher, I seek to help students wrestle with Truth, and find The Way of Jesus. In addition, there are many Christian leaders and Bible teachers who desire to hone their knowledge and skills, this website too is dedicated to providing resources for them too.
My background:
I am not a seminary graduate but rather a lifelong, serious student of the Word of God. It is not that I reject the benefits of a graduate education but rather never had the opportunity to obtain one. As such, I have had to work extra hard to understand and grasp many issues and ideas. For this reason I provide links to resources such as commentaries, dictionaries, charts and graphs. It is strongly recommended to buy these books and resources, those that are available free online are provided here for those who can not afford to do so. Collecting these resources is a tireless pursuit, but I hope they are helpful to others.
My particular concern, which motivated the creation of this website, is the lack of theological training that is accessible to Latino/Hispanic pastors in the US (and outside of the US). There are few Graduate seminaries that teach in Spanish (despite the large number of Hispanic theologians in the US, see Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana - AETH.org) and even those that exist are out of the reach of many local Hispanic pastors and ministry leaders for economic, geographic and academic reasons. There are, however, numerous local Bible Institutes that supply these needs. Hopefully, this website can be a resource to them. Outside of the US, in Latin America, there are many seminaries but usually for mainline or larger denominations. Smaller groups or independent churches or ministries have less access to theological training - this was my experience when preaching and teaching in Cuba. This is another reason why this website (and a planned future program: Instituto Teológico Móvil) is created to fill this need.
As a local church pastor of more than 14 years, I see the need to teach lay leaders and church planters the skills and knowledge base for leadership in ministry. Without knowledge, the growth of the Christian Church - particularly in the Hispanic/Latino community - will be stunted, unhealthy, open to theological or cultural errors and influences, and suffocated. Church growth (and I mean in more than numerical measures) will be held back. The Gospel and Great Commission needs to be reproduced and extended by every generation. This website, aspires to help those who feel likewise. More than a pastor, I am an educator. I have been (and currently am) a public and private school teacher for over 35 years (bi-vocational pastor) and that has helped me develop a thirst for learning as well as methods of teaching that help reach students.
Methodology
Currently, I teach Bible Institute classes to church and ministry leaders. As I teach a new course in the program list (see Spanish list), the resources researched or created are added to this website. Eventually we hope to continue adding more of these courses each year. In addition, special topic courses may be added as well. Since I currently teach Spanish language courses, these are the first added to this website. The Bible version used throughout this webpage is the New Living Translation (Nueva Traducción Viviente in Spanish) because of its modern scholarship (with the use of older, newly discovered manuscripts) and its readability. For a more detailed discussion about the relative values of Bible translations, and the process of translation, see the Hermeneutics course resources. It is highly suggested to compare different versions since they illuminate passages with varying degrees (use webpages such as Biblegateway.com). The Bible courses are taught in the order in which they appear in the Protestant Scriptures with the exception of the Pauline Epistles that are taught in the order in which they were probably chronologically written.
The Bible is God's revelation to the World about His will and plan for humanity: the jewel and purpose of Creation. That record shows that mankind - in the first couple, Adam and Eve - rejected His will, broke the relationship with the Creator, and since then ushered into all of mankind the consequences of this open rebellion: sin, death, brokenness and all sorts of evils (both personal and societal). Yet God made provision for healing both the relationship and the consequences of sin - the brokenness and incompleteness that we experience - by the gift and sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. He entered human history, being both human and divine, and bore on his shoulders the consequences of sin - he took the blunt force of our sin, and even its ultimate consequence: death, and a humiliating, torturous, and unjust death by Roman crucifixion. He defeated both sin and death when he was resurrected on the third day. Trust in His propitiation for sin, and His guidance for life is the path to a right relationship with the Creator.
This website is dedicated to those who seek both this propitiation (atonement) for sin and a right relationship with God. As a Bible teacher, I seek to help students wrestle with Truth, and find The Way of Jesus. In addition, there are many Christian leaders and Bible teachers who desire to hone their knowledge and skills, this website too is dedicated to providing resources for them too.
My background:
I am not a seminary graduate but rather a lifelong, serious student of the Word of God. It is not that I reject the benefits of a graduate education but rather never had the opportunity to obtain one. As such, I have had to work extra hard to understand and grasp many issues and ideas. For this reason I provide links to resources such as commentaries, dictionaries, charts and graphs. It is strongly recommended to buy these books and resources, those that are available free online are provided here for those who can not afford to do so. Collecting these resources is a tireless pursuit, but I hope they are helpful to others.
My particular concern, which motivated the creation of this website, is the lack of theological training that is accessible to Latino/Hispanic pastors in the US (and outside of the US). There are few Graduate seminaries that teach in Spanish (despite the large number of Hispanic theologians in the US, see Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana - AETH.org) and even those that exist are out of the reach of many local Hispanic pastors and ministry leaders for economic, geographic and academic reasons. There are, however, numerous local Bible Institutes that supply these needs. Hopefully, this website can be a resource to them. Outside of the US, in Latin America, there are many seminaries but usually for mainline or larger denominations. Smaller groups or independent churches or ministries have less access to theological training - this was my experience when preaching and teaching in Cuba. This is another reason why this website (and a planned future program: Instituto Teológico Móvil) is created to fill this need.
As a local church pastor of more than 14 years, I see the need to teach lay leaders and church planters the skills and knowledge base for leadership in ministry. Without knowledge, the growth of the Christian Church - particularly in the Hispanic/Latino community - will be stunted, unhealthy, open to theological or cultural errors and influences, and suffocated. Church growth (and I mean in more than numerical measures) will be held back. The Gospel and Great Commission needs to be reproduced and extended by every generation. This website, aspires to help those who feel likewise. More than a pastor, I am an educator. I have been (and currently am) a public and private school teacher for over 35 years (bi-vocational pastor) and that has helped me develop a thirst for learning as well as methods of teaching that help reach students.
Methodology
Currently, I teach Bible Institute classes to church and ministry leaders. As I teach a new course in the program list (see Spanish list), the resources researched or created are added to this website. Eventually we hope to continue adding more of these courses each year. In addition, special topic courses may be added as well. Since I currently teach Spanish language courses, these are the first added to this website. The Bible version used throughout this webpage is the New Living Translation (Nueva Traducción Viviente in Spanish) because of its modern scholarship (with the use of older, newly discovered manuscripts) and its readability. For a more detailed discussion about the relative values of Bible translations, and the process of translation, see the Hermeneutics course resources. It is highly suggested to compare different versions since they illuminate passages with varying degrees (use webpages such as Biblegateway.com). The Bible courses are taught in the order in which they appear in the Protestant Scriptures with the exception of the Pauline Epistles that are taught in the order in which they were probably chronologically written.