“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord (Proverbs 16:1). 

Spring semester did not end the way any of us planned. We made plans, as we should have, but God gave His answer. This spring would be anything but normal. Faculty, staff, and students all did their part to make the best of a tough situation, and all in all it went pretty well. But it wasn’t what any of us had planned. If we learned nothing else from these past months, it is that we should turn our eyes to what matters most. We turn to God, His Word, and His work in Christ.  

As part of my “Apologetics and Christian Thought” class, which is taught to second-year students every spring, I shelved part of my final test and asked students to make some specific connection to something they learned in class—any class, not just mine—to what God had taught them during their time away from campus. These students delivered, and I was proud to read their answers.  

Our students experienced loss. They all had made a sacrificial, counter-cultural decision to start their educational careers at FLBC. Not everyone invests two years in the spiritual foundation of their life. Some of them were mocked for doing so. Now they were glad they had made that decision, and in the middle of their final semester on campus, they were told they had to leave campus. Refunding room and board while delivering content online did little to take the edge off of their pain. Our students just hurt.  

Our students became deeply grateful for what God had taught them in His Word. Nearly three-quarters of the students told me how the “Minor Prophets” class helped them process their pain into hope. Let’s be honest, a lot of people never read the Minor Prophets, and some struggle to find them on day one of class. But an adjunct professor traveling more than two hours each way each week turned students’ eyes to the promises of Christ, and in this time of pain those promises came to life.  

Our students looked at time together on campus with a new sense of value. What we provide at FLBC isn’t just transmission of data or job training. We teach the forgiveness of sins, purchased at the cross, and delivered through God’s Word unto the salvation of our souls and the equipping of our hands for a life of service in Christ. This teaching is honed and modeled through life together on campus, and once they experienced that, it was hard to trade it in for online learning. 

We have a fairly large class coming in this fall, and a good-sized group of returning students. The Student Life Center will be ready for action in December. Our faculty and staff are prepared, focused, and ready to minister to students in September. God is the one who gives His answer to our plans. If variations on our plans become necessary, we trust Christ, who has made us ready.  

Dr. Wade Mobley [Bible College and Seminary President] 

Kinship is a magazine of the FLBCS. Stay up to date on the latest news, student stories, classroom highlights, and fun tidbits about life on the FLBC and FLS campus.

View the latest edition of Kinship here: Kinship Spring 2020 Edition