Sam Rohrer: Well, from the beginning of our nation, the Bible was the foundational book from which students learned about life and living, about God and government, about life and death, about responsibility and duty, about freedom and liberty. The Bible was preached from the pulpits. It was memorized in the homes, and it was embraced by our leaders, our founders, and it became the foundation for all of our laws and our judicial system. It was that important. The Ten Commandments, a portion of the bible, then hung in our public school classrooms for a long time. Students knew what it meant to not murder, to not covet, to not lie and cheat, but now things have changed, haven’t they? Through the efforts of the National Released Time Program, and efforts like the Bible2School Program here in Pennsylvania, some children are beginning to learn again about such basic things as David and Goliath, Noah and the great flood, and a whole lot more.
Sam Rohrer: Today on Stand in the Gap Today, we’re going to talk about the Bible2School Program with executive director Kori Pennypacker of Bible2School here in Pennsylvania. With that introduction, I want to welcome you to Stand in the Gap Today. I’m Sam Rohrer, and I’m going to be joined by evangelist Dave Kistler and Dr. Gary Dull. Well, man, I know we were talking off the air before we got on here. All of us have had some knowledge of this effort of Bibles in the school.
Sam Rohrer: We’re going to get into more with our special guest Kori Pennypacker today, but Gary, let me go to you here first. If we could just put on our memory hats and think back a little bit, I’d like you to set the stage for our discussion with our guest, relative to this. I’d like you to think back to the time that you were growing back, because you went to public school, I went to public school, and I believe Dave, you did too. Just out of point of interest, Gary, because people like to know, where did you attend elementary school and high school, and do you remember incidences where Bible reading or reference to Bible or Bibles in school was something that was part of your normal day? What do you remember about that?
Gary Dull: Well, I went to elementary school in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, which is in Fayette County, and of course then in seventh grade right on through junior and senior high, I went to Connellsville. Of course, Mill Run was a part of the Connellsville School District. I graduated from the Connellsville High School there in Western Pennsylvania, Fayette County. But, as it relates to the Bible in school as well as prayer, we had it every day. Every one of our teachers, I can remember particularly in elementary school that every one of our teachers would read a passage from the bible every day. Then we would pray, and then we would stand and salute the flag and sing the national anthem or have the national anthem played. I can remember that right on up through until eighth grade.
Gary Dull: In eighth grade, I was announced that we are no longer going to be reading the bible, but that the principal of our school, his name was Robert [Patista 00:03:14], the principal of our school had written a book, it was a little blue book, I can remember it, with a bunch of secular sayings in it. Every page was a secular saying. Instead of reading the Bfdible, which is truth, we read a lot of secular statements, which by and large probably was not truth. I can remember that change as though it happened yesterday, and that was that period of time when prayer and Bible reading was taken out of the public school.
Gary Dull: I can say, and I think every one of us would agree, that from that particular time until now, we have seen a demise in our culture, because the Word of God is no longer influential in the public school, and that’s sad.
Sam Rohrer: It is sad, and Gary, just for the sake of those who are listening, because they can’t see us on radio, when you talk about when that happened, I won’t ask you to date yourself, but approximately when was that, when that was done on a daily basis that you can remember? What period of time?
Gary Dull: Well, that would have been about 1964, I think, that it actually came to our school. I was in the eighth grade, so that’s when that took place.
Sam Rohrer: Okay. Well, it puts it back a generation, but not all that long ago. Dave, let me go to you, because I don’t even know this question. Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? Basically the same information I asked Gary. What do you recall about Bible reading in your experience as you grew up?
Dave Kistler: Well, Sam, actually the latter part of my high school experience, junior high experience, I was in a private school, but back in 1965 and 1966, we lived in rural section, mountainous section actually, of the western part of the state of North Carolina, and I attended a public school. Remember in 1962, ’63 is when bible reading and prayer was taken out of public schools. So, this would’ve been 1965. So, two to three years after the decision was made to remove the bible, we still had bible reading and prayer. I remember our teacher led in prayer. She read a portion of Scripture. We also, kind of what Gary described, we had the national anthem played over the intercom system throughout all of the classrooms, a pledge that was said every single day.
Dave Kistler: But what I remember most vividly, Sam, is this. We got a new teacher going into my sixth grade year. I remember my mom and dad had some almost immediately conflicts with her because of the things she began to teach, and she was the one that ceased the Bible reading in our classroom. That would’ve been about 1966. So, two to three years after the decision was made nationally, we were still doing that. It’s vivid in my memory, Sam. Wish we still had it.
Sam Rohrer: That’s interesting. Now, in my case, gentleman, I was in school, I grew up in rural Ohio, a small country school. My elementary school I was in there in the ’60s, early ’60s, and so forth. But at that point in time, my teachers did refer, not all of them, but some of them, definitely and repeatedly referred to the Bible, and there was a point when I first began when there was over the loud speaker when all the announcements were given the first thing in the morning, it did occur. Then for my upbringing, then it remained conservative during the school system and all that, but there was no official leading in Bible school, but there were many Christians in my class, of which my high school class there were 90 of us in a classroom. There were 15 of us in our class who were born again believers. It was an amazing thing.
Dave Kistler: Wow, that’s amazing.
Sam Rohrer: We had one teacher in particular who always had a Bible on her desk, and she regularly interacted with her students. It wasn’t something that was condoned, it wasn’t forced, but it was there, and I distinctly recall that as something that was there. The class who came after us had no one in our class who was born again. At that point, things began to change, but just to get another point how things have changed, Gary, you say we see things change. During that transition in our public school, when I was in high school, up until about my sophomore year and all the way through junior high, even up through that point, we actually had a dress code in the school.
Gary Dull: We did too. Yes, sir. We did too.
Sam Rohrer: Can you imagine that? Guys would have their hair off their ears. Can you imagine that today? How things have changed.
Gary Dull: We actually had to dress up. I wore wing-tipped shoes and a tie a lot of the times. I just want to jump in here and say … You talk about the change. I graduated in 1970, but right after that, there was a lot of drugs and alcohol in our school that there was not before that, and I think again, it’s because of the absence of the Word of God.
Sam Rohrer: Gary, the same thing, I can say the same thing for our school, and it was remarkable, and the timing of it was not coincidental.
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Sam Rohrer: According to historical reports, the first official discussion of the concept of released time, released time, that is where students in public schools could step aside from their formal academic instruction for the purpose of religious instruction, but that first real discussion occurred in 1905 in a school conference in New York City. Well, that proposal then included that schools be closed one day per week in addition to Sunday for the purpose of religious instruction. Well, that idea was later implemented by a Dr. William Albert Wert, an educator and superintendent of the school district of Gary, Indiana, in 1914.
Sam Rohrer: In the first years of Dr. Wert’s implementation, over 600 students participated in off campus religious education. Most released time programs were held outside school property; the public school system had no involvement in the religious programs that were being taught there. Now, it is over a hundred years later since that occurred. The released time model goes on, and it operates under many different names in all 50 states. We’re going to learn about one of these models here that operates extensively in Pennsylvania: the Bible2School. That’s Bible2, the number two, Bible2School program. We’re going to talk about that in the next segment here, and our executive director of that program, Kori Pennypacker, will be with us. And Kori, thank you for being with us on the program today.
Kori P: Thank you, Sam, for having me.
Sam Rohrer: Well, we’re glad you’re here, and in this commonwealth here in Pennsylvania, Gary and I are here, Dave is calling from North Carolina. These kind of programs are all over the country, but this one specifically, I want our listeners to know. Bible2School is a specific model that’s here in Pennsylvania, but I want you to tell me just a little bit more about what I said. I tried to give a little bit of a background, but tell me a little bit more about the released time model, and from your information, the extent to which you are finding that it’s actually being used across America today in the public schools.
Kori P: Sure, sure. The national released time law, like you said, it’s from 1914. It has three basic premises that you have to do to be legal, and that would be, you have to be off site, you have to have parental permission, and it can’t cost the taxpayer any money. So, mostly all privately funded. We’ve been around since 1979, and we have quite a few schools, but across the country, they’re saying there are between 1,000 and 2,000 released times independently working teaching the bible to our public school kids, and doing that with those three things that they needed to do in order to be legal.
Kori P: Each state, though, has their own requirements. In Pennsylvania, it’s 36 hours a year. So, you can do this up to 36 hours a year. In some of these states, like Ohio, their school boards actually have to approve that they can have a released time program. So, it’s different in each state, but ours is 36 hours a year.
Sam Rohrer: Dave, if you go ahead, you got a question for Kori?
Dave Kistler: Yeah, I do. Kori, great to have you aboard. Let me ask you something about Bible2School, the entity with which you are specifically involved. When did you get involved with that? How many schools in the state of Pennsylvania are part of Bible2School, and can you tell us how many students are actually being impacted with Bible instruction because of the efforts of Bible2School?
Kori P: Sure. We started in 1979, so 40 years ago. A group of pastors, a ministerium in one school district, in one town, Manheim, Pennsylvania, started this. Wanted to impact the community, wanted to have Bible teaching available to the kids during the school day, to children, and my role in it is that I was a volunteer first, and I used to be a children’s ministry director. We waited for the kids, everybody came to us on Sunday. Well, it’s not that way now. People are not attending church regularly, and so we actually get to go to the kids. When I found out about that, I signed up, and so right now, we lead about a team of close to 200 people that we serve 15 schools in our state. Last year we served about 700 children. The big thing, though, is Dave, is that 49% of our children have no church affiliation. So, we were teaching them about Jesus for the very first time, and we see that over and over again every year.
Dave Kistler: Wow.
Sam Rohrer: You know, Kori, it’s a delight to have you with us, and thank you for being with us today. That’s quite a figure, 49% of the children in the public school have no church affiliation, which means that they have no real bible education. We reach into the inner city where a pastor in some of the stories that we’ve heard from those children, I remember one child said, “We didn’t know anything about a bible until you came and picked us up with your bus.” I remember one child asking what this idea of Easter was, some man coming out of the grave. This little boy went on to say all that I know about Easter is bunnies and candy. It’s sad what’s going on in our homes today where there is no Word of God, and it shows us that we’ve got a great responsibility.
Kori P: We had one class this year that actually there was none of the children went to church, not one, and when they got to Christmas, just like you were saying, they didn’t know any Christmas carols. They had to teach them Christmas carols. By the end of the year, they played a Bible Jeopardy game and they knew all the answers, so they were very proud of themselves. They were very excited.
Sam Rohrer: Well, absolutely, and that’s the teaching that goes on there with Bible2School. Now, we were talking about the fact that there are different released time programs across the country. A dear friend of ours here at Stand in the Gap, Jim O’Brien, has been involved with some of that down through the years. What’s the difference between Bible2School and some other released time programs that we have here in the nation?
Kori P: Sure. Other released time programs are wonderful. All of them are wonderful. We’re all doing the same thing. We’re giving Jesus to the kids. What makes us kind of unique, and what I really got involved with, is our curriculum. We really hit the kids at second, third, and fourth grade. As you know, George Barna talks about that 63% of people accept Christ before the age of 14. Well, that’s elementary school. So, we do second grade Old Testament, third grade New Testament, and fourth grade discipleship, and we do age appropriate. So, we don’t actually lump them all together. We actually teach on the second grade level Old Testament, and all the rest, because we feel that if math … They do that with math. They don’t lump people together with math. We think that the Bible is very important to do on an age appropriate level.
Kori P: The other thing, it’s very interactive. We designed our program to be over lunch and recess, because we respect the schools, we respect that they have instructional time, and they have lots of things that they have to get done. So, that’s why we want to partner with the schools. So, it’s interactive; there’s games and experiments. There’s even a giant 30-foot whale. They get to go inside the belly of the whale when they learn about Jonah and they remember that. So, we want it to be fun. We want kids to be excited. They remember those things.
Kori P: Then, the other thing is the relationships. We have a think about it question every week, and we ask them, one of them was, does God answer prayer? We used a stop light, and we said, yes, God does answer prayer. Red means no; green means yes; and yellow means wait. We had a little boy raise his hand and say, “I’m yellow, I’m yellow.” Big smile on his face. And his small group leader said, “What do you mean you’re yellow?” And he said, “My mom’s in jail, and I’ve been praying for her to come home safely, so I know I’m wait. I know I’m yellow.”
Kori P: That just speaks volumes to getting the concept of prayer. I can’t even get the concept of God answering prayer. These kids get it, and they’re hungry for it, and they want to know. They want to know three things. They want to know where they come from, what’s my purpose, and what happens after I die, and the Bible answers those questions. So, we try to make it as fun as possible, and we try to really connect with them on their level so they can apply it in every day life.
Sam Rohrer: Kori, let me just follow up, and this is really exciting and encouraging information. When you give examples of kids that come there who have never heard about the Bible, all of this is totally unknown, what’s the first thing that you find a positive response to when they hear for the first time that God is there, and God loves them, and Jesus Christ is there? Where do you work that in, and tell me some of the responses that you see, when that message is delivered for the first time.
Kori P: That’s a really good question. These kids, one little boy said, “I didn’t know I was loved.” He actually said that. “I didn’t know I was loved. No one ever told me they love me.” They don’t feel valued. It’s a relief. Honestly, kids are spiritual beings, and I think that that’s why the legislators back in 1914 said, “Okay, we’re taking the Bible out of here, we’re taking faith out of here.” Spiritual part. But kids still have spiritual questions. Their mind, body, and soul. So, people need to have those questions answered.
Kori P: So, released time in essence takes once a week, makes a space for these children to get those questions answered, and they feel valued, because they want to know what happens when I die. I had a group where we were learning about Esther, and they were acting out upfront. We went back to our small group, and I said, “What’s one thing you learned about Esther?” One little boy raised his hand and said, “Well, her parents died.” The other little kid said, “Well, my grandfather died.” They wanted to talk. They were all one by one were just zeroed in on the fact that what happens when you die, when people die in our lives.
Kori P: So, they really have some serious … They’re exposed to a lot in our culture, and they need to get those questions answered.
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Sam Rohrer: Well, ladies and gentleman, you’re listening to Stand in the Gap today. I’m Sam Rohrer, and Dave Kistler and Gary Dull, our special guest, Kori Pennypacker. She’s the executive director of Bible2School located here in Pennsylvania, and we’re talking about the released time program, which is a national program, allowed by law, to instruct our students in our public schools off site about the Bible and about who God is. Kori, some of what you just shared there is an amazing, amazing thing.
Sam Rohrer: Let me change gears here. Now we’re going to continue with our guest Kori Pennypacker. I’m going to set up by doing this. When students and children learn about God, his love for mankind, his plan of redemption through Jesus Christ, God’s model for society and what the bible teaches about it, and when they learn about biblical standards, moral principles of life and living as the bible instructs, then lives are changed. Families are changed. Entire nations are changed. This contact with the bible and learning of God was essential according to our founding fathers. They knew that it had to happen if freedom was to exist in the United States. Our pulpits preached it regularly.
Sam Rohrer: As we’ve walked away from God in our nation and we have, and our dependence on him is really no longer, we depend on other things, so has God’s blessing been removed, because they go together. The lives of our people, the lives of our family, reflect that void of biblical instruction. Well, Bible2School here in Pennsylvania and other similar programs across the country through the released time effort have helped to fill that void. They can’t do it on their own. The churches and the pastors and [inaudible 00:20:05] and our families have to be that primary communicator, but they’re doing a great job of putting it forward.
Sam Rohrer: You can find the website of, here, Bible2School, on their website, of Bible2School, that’s two with a number, Bible2School.com. Let me bring back in Kori Pennypacker, the executive director here. Kori, let me continue the discussion here.
Sam Rohrer: In the last segment, we were talking about really what happens in the setting of the school. You were sharing a lot of wonderful testimonies. Walk through just a little bit here about how an hour program or whatever it is that you normally set up for a time away with the kids, you referred to stories, you referred to other things, but walk us through just briefly what a child would experience in the setting of what you have and offer to them.
Kori P: Well, an elementary child that we have, second, third, or fourth grader, they would … Their small group leader, their volunteers would come to the school and pick them up either in the cafeteria or wherever the school would like them to be picked up. They would either ride on a bus or they would walk, but the whole lesson starts right away. Those volunteers, their leaders are talking to them about, “Hey, how was your week?” It’s very relational. “We prayed for your grandma last week. How’s she doing?” So, it all starts with that, that transportation part.
Kori P: They go back to a school … I’m sorry, a church, or another youth center or something like that, wherever they’re having it, and they sit at tables, and they crinkle all their paper, bring their lunches, whatever, and then they teach for about 20 minutes a Bible lesson, a very interactive Bible lesson. The kids are very involved. Then they meet with their small groups then, and small group time, which is really where it’s at, where the questions are asked and where they really get to the meat of things. They do a worship song at the end, because it is over lunch and recess and the kids got to get out, and we actually teach them how to worship. A lot of them have no idea how to worship God, that you can do it through song.
Kori P: So, that’s all done in one hour, and it doesn’t sound like on paper you could get a lot in there, but man, it’s really impactful. It changes lives, like you said.
Dave Kistler: Kori, let me ask you this. There’s an event that takes place annually in Washington, DC. A lot of people don’t know about it, just like they don’t know about released time nationwide. It’s called the National Bible Reading Marathon. It’s been held for about 28, 29 years. The Bible is read nonstop for about 75 hours, from the West Plaza steps of the United States Capitol. Last year while we were there, because we’re part of the organizing team that puts all that together, I needed something from a Capitol Hill police officer. He was more than willing to help. As I was expressing thanks to him for his willingness to help us, he said something like this. This is almost a direct quote. He said, “Man, you’re thanking me.” He said, “We need to thank you because when you guys are here for this entire week reading the Bible,” he said, “the crime rate in the city of DC drops precipitously.” I found that to be very, very interesting. The impact of the scripture on a city that is normally overrun with wickedness and evil, but just the presence of the bible being read there causes the crime rate to drop.
Dave Kistler: Now, what I’d love for you to do is talk a little bit about what you’re hearing from those in authority. I’m talking about parents of students that are participants in Bible2School, teachers, what they’re saying as far as testimonials about the impact of what you’re doing.
Kori P: Sure. I was in a meeting with a group, and one lady raised her hand. I was giving a presentation on Bible2School, and she said, “I used to be a teacher’s aide, and I saw the difference in the kids when they came back. They were more respectful, they were kinder, they got it.” Those are God’s stories for us, that when the kids get it. We had one story from a volunteer from a leader that said that their little girl, they were doing the Ten Commandments the week before, and she came back and said, “This really works.” Leader’s like, “What do you mean this really works?” She said, “Well, I was in the school store, and there was a pencil, and it was a dollar, and I really wanted it. So, I went home, and I saw a dollar on my mom’s dresser. I didn’t have a dollar, so I went over, I picked it up to take it, and I put it back down, and I said,” she said, “I knew that this is not God’s best for me.” So, she left and she told her mom, and her mom was so excited she made the wise choice that she gave her the dollar. Then they told the babysitter, and the babysitter gave her the dollar. So, she’s like, “This really works.”
Kori P: Now, we told her, that’s not exactly how it works, but she got it. She understood that the bible is about God wanting our best for us, and Jesus Christ is the answer to that. So, those are the kind of things that happen. I had parents telling me that … hugging me and crying and saying, and out in public they’ll come to me and say, “Hey,” one of them did, said that, “Thank you so much for this program, my whole family now goes to church because our daughter asked us to do that. We were busy, we just got out of this practice, and now they’re back at church, and their whole family, five kids in their family, are reconnected to God. The other one that got me was another mom who said, “My son, I knew …” She was crying too. She said, “My son, I knew he knew Jesus, I know he did, but he led another boy who attended Bible school on the bus, led him to Christ.” So, children, we teach them how to do that, and children are leading children to Christ.
Kori P: So, what the people are saying about this, school administrators, as long as you make it legal and get it on their lane, in their parameters, you can partner with them and they understand that this is a good thing for kids, because they can’t teach it.
Sam Rohrer: That’s right. We’re sort of running out of time here, Kori, but this is a tremendous ministry, Bible2School, and I’m just wondering if you could share with our listeners, because I’m certain we’ve got many listeners across the country right now who are saying, “How can I get involved? What can we do in our school district, in our town?” I’m just wondering if you could address that question, how can listeners get involved? Maybe you can give your website, phone number, contact information, but share a little bit of that in the last minute or two that we have before we have to leave this segment, please.
Kori P: Yes. Well, I’m happy to announce that this month we have launched that we can make our program available to anybody in the country. So, we can equip churches to activate a Bible school program in your local public school. We’ll teach you how to talk to principals and school administrators. We’ll help you mobilize your community. We’ll help you partner with the community to do this. You can reach us at Bible2School.com, that’s Bible2School.com, and what we have is something called a Bible2School membership, and again, it has the curriculum, it has everything you need, plus our coaching, and we can help you make it happen.
Kori P: Our vision is that every school in the nation would have one of these, that God would be, the bible, the truth, the hope would be in every school in America, public school in America. You’re right, that will change our communities, it’ll change our families, it’ll change our nation. And we’re seeing it in Pennsylvania.
Sam Rohrer: Kori, let me ask you just one follow up question here. Most of our listeners, because of the fact that there are more people in the pew than in the pulpit, is this something that somebody in the pew of a church can take the initiative with you? Should they go to their pastor? Can pastors call you, or both?
Kori P: Both. Anybody can call us, and we’ll tell you how to make … what the next step is.
Sam Rohrer: Fantastic. All right, well, Kori, thank you for being with us today. This has been a really exciting and encouraging program, and thanks so much for what you’re doing. We’re going to pray for you and hope that people who are listening contact you and other similar programs across the country, for the sake of our country, for the sake of our families.
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Sam Rohrer: Well, ladies and gentleman, as we now move into our final segment, this has been a very, very fast hour, I want to give you the phone number for Bible2School. I gave you the website before, Bible2School.com, but I know many of our listeners don’t use the internet, so here is their phone number. It’s 717-615-2944. It’s 717-615-2944. And I’ll repeat that one more time before we close out the program, so that you can take advantage of that and contact them.
Sam Rohrer: All right. Well, I tell you, from the beginning of our days as a nation, when our students, our children, were learning to read, the New England Primer was the book of choice. It was actually used up until the late 1800s in any schools. In that book, they actually taught the ABCs from the Bible itself, so that A was referring to a verse that had an A in it, like in the case of the primer, A stood for Adam, and it was a verse built around that, and then B, and so forth, all the way through, so that children were learning to read and learning their ABCs from the bibles. They learned Bible verses. It became the framework for all of their academic instruction.
Sam Rohrer: They then learned the Ten Commandments as a part of it, and the Ten Commandments hung on the walls of nearly every public school classroom up until the middle of the last century. The Bible did form the basis for our ideological understanding of freedom. It defined what law is and justice and duty to God and duty to our flag. The impact was enormous.
Sam Rohrer: With this remaining segment today, I’d like to recount just a few of the reasons why we must reacquaint our nation with the Bible, and the God of the Bible, if we’re going to maintain our freedom, and that quick slip from freedom that we’ve been seeing for a long time. Dave, let me go to you, here, with this question. Give me, from your perspective, one major reason … I know you can build an entire sermon on this. We all could. But give me one major reason why our children and students in America must know about the Bible and the God of the Bible, and what it says, if we’re to maintain the freedom that we’ve come to so enjoy in our country.
Dave Kistler: Sam, a lot of places I could go. Let me just quote from our first president, George Washington, in his farewell address, said this. Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. In other words, we cannot expect to be a prosperous nation without morality. We cannot expect morality if we try to divorce morality from where morality comes, and that is from God’s holy word.
Dave Kistler: So, Sam, the only way we can enjoy the freedoms we’ve enjoyed now for 200 and almost 43 years, is if we have a reintroduction of the scripture back into those places where our youth are learning, and that primarily is going to be not just the home, but certainly public education as well. So, we’ve got to get back to that, Sam, or we will not maintain the freedoms that we’ve enjoyed.
Sam Rohrer: Dave, that’s a great one, because that ties in with what a lot of the other founders said as well. William Penn here in Pennsylvania made it very clear. He said that self-government, the concept of self-government … and others said this. He wasn’t the only one. Could only occur if people learned to discipline their own actions according to the Ten Commandments of God. Self-discipline, moral code applied, known and applied, had to be there if we were going to maintain freedom, and that’s exactly what you’re saying. Without a common understanding what is moral, what’s true, what’s false, what’s good, what’s bad, we can’t survive. So, freedom hinges on that. That’s a great one, Dave.
Sam Rohrer: Gary, let me go to you, and ask you as well to say about the same thing, because let me take you this direction. We talk a lot about world view on this program, a lot. How does learning about the Bible affect world view and the importance of world view in regard to maintaining freedom in this country?
Gary Dull: Well, we talk about the world view, and I have a short definition of it, and that is seeing everything through the eyes of the Scripture. What does the Bible say? Then inculcating that into our lifestyle. It is true that the bible is the perfect law of liberty, and if you want to talk about freedom, freedom certainly is grounded in the truth of the scriptures. But let’s allow the Word of God to speak for itself, concerning the effect it has upon our own world view. In Isiah 55:11, it says that the Word of God will not return unto God void. In First Thessalonians 2:13, it says that the Word of God works effectually in the lives of those who believe it, and in Second Timothy 3:16-17, it talks about the fact that the Word of God is inspired and is profitable. That means it is relevant to us today, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God might be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Gary Dull: So, it’s God’s word that brings people to faith in Jesus Christ and then builds the individual Christian into the person that God would have them to be. So, when the Word of God is brought back into our life, church, family, home, school, et cetera, culture, we find that it has a great impact upon the world view of the people, of those who follow it, those who believe it, those who teach it.
Sam Rohrer: Dave, let me go back to you right now, because I’ve asked both of you the questions here about the importance of the Bible and helping to develop a mentality, a world view, a thinking, a moral structure, in order to maintain civil freedom, which is something that we all feel and sense. Our founders talked about it, but Dave, it would be remiss if we didn’t go here, because civil freedom results from spiritual freedom, and learning the Bible has advantages not just for the present, but for the future, eternity. Take and put those together, and why the Bible, taken together, is so critically important, not just for now, but for the future.
Dave Kistler: Well, Sam, let me just quote a verse of Scripture from First Timothy 4:8. We are a health conscious culture. I want you to listen to this verse. Bodily exercise profiteth little. It means it profits for a little while. It does benefit, but Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life which now is and of that which is to come. So, in other words, Sam, we can exercise. I’m an exercise buff. I’m all in favor of that, but the benefit of that is only in this life, but Godliness that comes from God’s word, from an interaction with God’s truth, not only brings blessing now, which it most definitely does, it gives us a life worth living now, but it also translates into the life to come. Only through our relationship with Jesus Christ can we even be assured of an eternity in heaven, and Sam, that’s really what all this is about.
Dave Kistler: So, the connectivity there, not just from this life, but to the next life, is most definitely a component of all of this.
Sam Rohrer: Well, ladies and gentleman, I hope that you’ve just liked this very brief commentary here at the end about the Word of God, the power of the bible. Gary’s laid it out and quoted some verses. Dave’s talked about it. Our founders understood this. For us to talk like this, it’s not new thing for us. We talk about it on this program a lot, but for the culture, it seems almost a strange language. As we heard from Kori Pennypacker, when they go into the public schools, how many times they will have an entire group of kids who have heard nothing about the bible, nothing about God, and therefore, how can we be coming up with a generation who if they don’t know God and they don’t have moral truth can in any way do what needs to be done to raise a family, to be self-disciplined, and our freedom, understand what duty and responsibility … They can’t. It’s got to be from the Word of God. That’s why this is so important.
Sam Rohrer: Now, I said I’d give the number for Bible2School. 717-615-2944. Call that number.
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