I want to read two passages of Scripture, and the point of each one is to highlight a distinctive, or let’s just say a trait or characteristic or a mark, of Bethlehem College and Seminary. I tend to move away from the word distinctives because it sounds like you’re supposed to have it by yourself, and that would be the opposite of our dream. We would like our traits, our characteristics, to be multiplied and not distinct to us. So you get the idea.

Two Marks of Bethlehem College and Seminary

These are two marks, or characteristics — things we love, things we believe in, and things we love to see happen in students. I’m going to read both of these texts but I’m not going to say what the point is at first. I want you to take a test and think, “What’s he going to say? What is the trait, or mark, or characteristic of this school in that text that he’s going to draw out?” And then I’ll tell you what they are. See if you’ve got it right, or if you agree with me.

The first one is John 21:20-23, which says:

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

The next one is John 7:16-18, which says:

So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

1. Precision with God’s Words

Let’s go back to the first one. In that little interchange between Jesus and Peter and the rumor that spread, I draw out this value of Bethlehem College and Seminary: We should seek for ourselves, and for the students we raise up, to listen and read and speak and write with accuracy and precision, especially when handling the word of God. That’s my lesson. Jesus said to Peter about John, “If it is my will that he remains until I come, what’s that to you?” and somewhere in the process of hearing and speaking, I don’t know if it was Peter’s fault or not, those words experienced one small change: A two letter word in English (three letters in Greek, ean) was dropped — the word if.

So the words, “If it is my will that he remains until I come, what is that to you?” became, “It is my will that he remains until I come. What’s that to you?” It’s such a tiny change from a conditional clause to a declarative clause, from possibility to actuality, from perhaps to promise, and from truth to falsehood. It was true that if it was Jesus’s will, John would stay alive until the second coming. That’s a true statement. But it is false to leave off the if, dramatically false.

Little words matter. All words matter. Word order matters, clauses matter, phrases matter, and conjunctions matter. They matter when listening to each other in conversations. They matter when studying Shakespeare. And they matter, especially and most importantly, when reading our Bibles. Bethlehem College and Seminary believes this and teaches in a way that tries to instill this into students. John, the writer of this Gospel, was not happy about this. John said, “He did not say what everybody is saying he said.” He was not happy about this little change that turned the meaning on its head, and we’re not either.

We care about words — little, teeny words. And we try to instill in students precision and accuracy in listening and reading and speaking and writing. That’s the first point.

2. Passion for God’s Glory

We better go back and remind you of the text. It’s more difficult. It says:

So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

There’s a few different ways to say this. First, you could say: In order to recognize the self-authenticating divinity of Jesus’s teaching you must love the glory of God more than your own. Or you could say: Seeing the certainty of Jesus’s words requires savoring the God-exalting will of God. Seeing requires savoring. Here’s a third way to put it: Knowing the divinity and truth of what Jesus taught, presupposes a heart that exults in the God-centered will of God. And here’s the last way to put it: A human will that exults in God’s God-exalting will precedes knowledge that Christ speaks the truth of God.

John 7:17 is amazing enough when it says, “Knowing truth presupposes willing truth.” I’ll read it again:

If anyone’s will [the inclination of the soul] is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

It’s amazing enough just to hear that, that willing precedes knowing, or knowing presumes willing. That’s amazing enough, but it’s the connection with John 7:18 that blows everything apart. It says:

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

What marks a person as true, and not false, is his devotion to the glory of God. Jesus is so submitted to the glory of his Father that he’s willing to die for it. He’s willing to lose his life for it. He’s willing to lose all of his earthly glory for it. He is so undevoted to his earthly comfort, his earthly security, and his earthly fame, and so fully devoted to his Father’s glory, that his teaching shines with a kind of wonder, unlike anything merely human.

So when he says in John 7:17, “You must will God’s will in order to know God’s truth,” he means, “You must join me in willing the Father’s glory above your own.” That’s the will you will. It’s not left general. It could be, but it’s not. It’s made specific. Jesus is saying, “The willing that I’m talking about is my will of the Father’s glory. That’s true. That’s unmistakably divine and true. That degree of devotion that you see in me is true and divine.” So when he says in John 7:17, “You must will God’s will in order to know God’s truth, or my truth,” he means, “You must join me in willing the Father’s glory above your own.”

Glory from Men or God?

This is confirmed, by the way, in another place in the Gospel of John in case you want to search this out. John 5:44 says:

How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

That means you can’t. It’s the same point in John 7:17 and John 5:44. There’s your thesis topic. It needs a lot of work. These are weighty, weighty things. So Bethlehem tries to cultivate, and I pray we will continue to cultivate a heart that has a will. It’s the willing side of our students — the heart side of our students. It’s not just about precision, right? We started with precision, but we want to cultivate wills and hearts that are so radically God-centered that this is not just for the sake of preaching and teaching, but for the sake of knowing. You cannot know the word without this.

You can’t know that the word is gloriously, beautifully, and divinely true without this will. Therefore, at a school that cares about the goal of this text, you can’t ignore the heart. You can’t ignore the will. You can’t ignore prayer or dependence on the Holy Spirit. You can’t know what is really there, and the divine certainty of it, if your will is not humbled to treasure the glory of God above your own.

Precision and Passion

I love these two points. I’ll state them again and I’ll be done. First, we’re committed to raising up generation after generation of Christian leaders who listen, read, speak, and write with accuracy and precision, especially when handling the word of God. And second, we’re committed to raising up generation after generation of leaders whose minds can see God-centered truth because their wills savor God’s God-centered will.