Why Bible

Dr. David Fraze: This guy just walked out on stage. Jeff, who was the boss first?
Who was the first boss?
All you youth ministry students, you are looking at my first ever youth intern on stage.
Please give Jeff a hand.
So now he's my boss.
And he makes me kiss his ring.
It's really odd. I have to walk into the office, kiss my ring, and I'm like, yes, sir.
No, that doesn't happen, does it?
That does not happen.
Okay, good. You took a long time to deny it.
So we're going to be talking about Bible, but I too, first of all, he's an incredible scholar, church history and theology.
He's the bomb in that.
He also is the preacher at Idalou.
Any Idlew people out there?
Represent Idalou.
Did you make them sit in the middle?
Is that part of the...
Dr. Jeff Cary: They're just dedicated.
Dr. David Fraze: They're just...
Oh, and they're over there.
That's so weird.
It's like a Disney.
Oh, over here too.
So you have a following.
Very glad.
Great, great story that I wish I could go into.
I will just say in front of everyone,
I'm so proud that when he started,
people told him,
please don't go to Idalou.
And half the classroom space,
if not all the children's space,
was literally boarded up.
It smelled like an old church.
And it's probably one of the most revitalized cool things on the South Plains.
And it's so authentic and real.
So if you can go out there and visit, Jeff will take you out to lunch.
Dr. Jeff Cary: President McDowell has a fund that he gives me for just that.
Dr. David Fraze: Awesome.
Okay.
Now, we got to make right on this.
I do have a confession to make since you are in charge of my tenure.
This right here, this picture I'm about to show, I showed to students.
And they're like, he was attractive.
So first of all, I want to give that to you.
Still am.
Yeah, it was in the past.
Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff Cary, early 90s.
Dr. Jeff Cary: I have to say that I think that was when I was a junior.
When I was a freshman, I looked like I was seven years old.
True.
I didn't plan to tell it.
Can I tell a short story?
It's your time.
So I looked like I was seven, and I thought,
there's no way I'm ever going to get a girlfriend.
here and I found this girl who looked as young as I did and so we found each other real quick
and at that this is getting really weird keep going please I at that time there was Lubbock
Christian school across the street would bring their little elementary kids oh my hey this is
chapel everybody settle down they would bring their elementary kids over and to eat in the
cafeteria and they would always come in holding hands and one day my little girlfriend and I were
leaving the cafeteria we were holding hands and some baseball players baseball players be cool to
to people who aren't like you this terrorized me my freshman year they said to me out loud in front
of the whole cafeteria y'all better hurry you're gonna miss your bus so by the time I was a junior
I was looking a little older at least.
Dr. David Fraze: It's kind of sad.
I'm doing therapy up here right now.
That's good.
That's good.
Now, you did find an incredible woman.
Okay, we're all surprised.
How many years you been married?
You know, it's 30.
Oh, no, no, no.
Just answer the question.
Dr. Jeff Cary: It's 32 years.
Dr. David Fraze: Okay, good.
Here she is.
That is saved by the bell.
They don't even know what that is.
Dr. Jeff Cary: I was wearing my hat backwards like our dean of students, Josh Stevens.
Dr. David Fraze: Which, boy, that's easy, low-hanging fruit.
Yeah, your hat was backwards.
And I called you the dean of students yesterday because I saw students.
And you were my dean.
You're an academic dean at the College of Bible.
All right.
So, yeah, she's awesome.
You married up.
Would everybody agree to that?
Yeah.
Somebody was very quick with it.
Yep.
All right.
Now, there is a point of fame.
You're in Alpha Chi Delta.
Where's my Alpha Chi Delta guys there?
They always applaud themselves.
And right here, I don't even know how to set it up other than for you.
I'm going to show this picture.
Great show.
Explain this.
Dr. Jeff Cary: This is circa 1993.
Circa means around.
Master Follies, you know, we do these singing and dancing shows up here.
And our club, we were the Musketeers, and as all good Master Follies shows happen,
you've got this group of people and they don't know what they're going to do,
they need a purpose, whatever.
So in that year, the Three Musketeers movie had come out, and Free Willy had come out.
And if you've ever seen Free Willy, you know that the theme song is sung by Michael Jackson.
And so one of my best friends at the time wrote this show that we were going to be musketeers who decide we need to go Free Willy.
And we're going to have Michael Jackson come out and sing about that.
And he knew that Michael Jackson, when I was like in the fourth and fifth grade, there was no bigger Michael Jackson fan than this guy right here.
And he said, would you like to be Michael Jackson?
I peaked in my life at that time.
This was the most amazing experience of my life.
Dr. David Fraze: Okay, it is amazing.
This is totally off script.
Can you moonwalk?
No, I'm not going to do it.
Dr. Jeff Cary: I'm not going to do it.
Dr. David Fraze: It's for the children.
Dr. Jeff Cary: I'm not going to do it.
I can tell you that I practice moonwalking at recess every day for two years straight.
Dr. David Fraze: holding hands with someone who looked your age.
Okay, I'm just going to cut to the chase.
Why in the world do we have to take four Bible classes
at LCU that won't transfer to another college?
Why am I spending that money?
Dr. Jeff Cary: Well, so I didn't know.
I have no idea what he's going to ask me today.
I didn't think he was going to come out that hot.
Dr. David Fraze: I'm just coming right at you.
Dr. Jeff Cary: All right.
First of all, I want to say how thankful I am that you are all here.
I'm especially thankful to see all of you new freshmen on campus.
This is really a joy to see how many of you are investing in Christian higher education.
And the reason that we do Bible classes at LCU is because, as Dr. Fraze said the first day,
we actually really believe this stuff.
And we believe that if the greatest truth about the world is a truth centered in Christ, we want to expose our students to that.
And some of you come from backgrounds where that has been what you've known your whole life.
Some of you are brand new to this.
And we want to welcome all of you into this experience.
So we do it because we actually believe it, and we think it can have a tremendous impact on your life.
Dr. David Fraze: So how odd is it that, and we do have some adjuncts, you know, and our department's interesting because all of you will come through the CDC at some point, the big building down there.
And we get to talk to students about Old Testament, New Testament, Christian life, Christian heritage, all this.
It's awesome.
We have full professors teaching undergrad classes.
How unique is that in the academy?
Dr. Jeff Cary: Yeah, that doesn't happen very often.
I think at a lot of other schools, maybe their top tenured professors are going to be teaching graduate level courses and research courses and that kind of thing.
But all of our professors are involved in teaching our general Bible courses.
So we're very thankful for that.
And we have amazing adjunct professors working with us.
And we're super thankful for that, too.
Dr. David Fraze: It's pretty cool.
So what is your favorite, personally, what is your favorite class to teach, freshman, when you have that opportunity?
Dr. Jeff Cary: Well, the freshman classes are Old and New Testament.
Our general Bible curriculum includes Introduction to Old, Introduction to New Testament, and then Christian Heritage and Christian Life.
In my earliest years of teaching, I taught the Old and New Testament classes.
And then in later years, I taught more Christian Heritage and Christian Life.
and now I don't get to teach any of them unfortunately I miss that I think teaching
Christian heritage was maybe my favorite I teach Christian history and theology for our majors
curriculum and I studying Christian history and some of the intellectual tradition we have with
within the Christian tradition made an enormous impact on my life and helped me to think about
things very carefully. It helped me to realize I'm not alone, that I've got a cloud of witnesses
around me. And I hope that you will experience something like that in your Christian heritage
Dr. David Fraze: class. So I'm going to not just personify people who say, why do I got to spend money on something
that won't transfer? And by the way, liberal arts credits, it will transfer. I'm going to be that
kid who's grown up, gone to church their whole life. They know these stories are going to snooze
in the background. You know, whatever. Why do I have to do this? This is so boring.
What would you say to those students when they come into our class?
Dr. Jeff Cary: Well, I hope that you don't experience, let's say, Old and New Testament. I hope you don't
experience those as primarily factual data classes. What we try to do in those classes
is certainly expose people to what's in the Bible.
That's really important.
And to have a general sense for the contents of scripture.
But we are doing it for the purpose of formation.
And so what I hope is happening in those classes
and what I've challenged our faculty to do
and what they're challenging each other to do
is to engage the content of scripture
in a way that is meaningful to your lives,
where we will wrestle with tough questions,
but what we want to see you leave with, if at all possible, and we only hold out the possibility.
We're not going to force this on anyone, except you have to take the classes. I get that.
But really what we're holding out is an opportunity to step into that space and connect with God.
We want you to walk out of those classes saying, my faith is stronger because of this experience.
I have learned some things that are going to help me endure as a believer
there's so much like that that we want you to leave with it's not just have you heard this
Dr. David Fraze: your whole life and and and I'll say when he says translate a little bit we believe in the facts
you're going to learn things about the details but a lot of people they'll say okay we're going
to take this objective test we want you to know all this stuff all this stuff all this stuff
and you can get lost in note-taking if you're not careful.
So we intentionally, I think this is for all of us,
we will give you more information than you'll be tested on
because we want you to engage.
So, you know, human suffering, all kinds of stuff.
Dr. Jeff Cary: I might say that this also is not like a church Bible class
in some important ways.
This is an academic institution,
and so we're going to be engaging the study of Old and New Testament
from an academic perspective
so that you're intellectually formed as well as spiritually formed.
But we never want to lose sight of the ultimate goal is to grow in God.
Dr. David Fraze: So one of the big complaints about higher education is these people don't believe in God.
They don't believe in the Bible, yada, yada.
That's not true of our department.
Is that what you're saying?
We actually believe this?
Everybody who teaches Bible believes in God.
Wow.
Can you say that again?
I think they heard it the first time.
Okay, just as for emphasis.
Oh my gosh.
So yes.
Dr. Jeff Cary: I will say this.
It's important.
That what you might experience in these classes at times is some deep questioning of things.
And for some of you that might instinctively feel like somebody's questioning the Bible or questioning God.
I don't want you to perceive it that way.
It's okay for us to ask questions to pursue truth.
We should never be afraid to ask the questions and pursue the questions wherever they go.
And that's part of what these classes will be about.
Dr. David Fraze: And it's one of the most unique things because the Old Testament and New Testament both do not hide the ugliness of their characters.
Many of you have been raised that the Old Testament is written as moral templars.
And then one of my first assignments, we've talked about this before, is you just read the book of Genesis.
And then we have a discussion.
So, and hands go up.
They're like, I didn't know this.
There's some real I mean, it's a standard joke, but if you were to take the Old Testament and making into a Netflix show
Kids could not watch it
There's a lot of stuff in that we've just never read the story
And that's one of the uniquenesses is we're presented with the good and bad and ugly of God and they ask questions about suffering
They ask questions about where's God when these things don't work out and it's it's I think it's transformational. I agree with you
Do I get tenure?
No. Okay. Dang. Already got a trick question. Okay. So here's for somebody else. So I'm a
transfer student and I just, it's crazy. I only have to take two classes. What's up with that?
I'm an adult. So why are you making me take these classes? Would you change your answer at all?
Dr. Jeff Cary: No, I don't think so. I think that what sets us apart as a Christian university is not that we teach Christian math. You know, math is math. It is because of our fundamental convictions that are at the heart of this institution.
And we want all of our students to be exposed to reflect meaningfully on their lives from that perspective.
And I would say that if you're not a Christian, I really want to invite you to try to inhabit the space.
I would invite you to try to resist approaching this like, I can't believe they're forcing me to do this.
I really want to invite you in to say, okay, this isn't really my thing.
But I'm going to try to step into those shoes and just see what it looks like from there.
One of the things that I tell our majors is if you sit down at a table with somebody that you disagree with and you're not willing to entertain that they actually may be right.
Let's suppose you're on two sides of an argument.
Then you're not going to have a meaningful conversation.
And so it's very hospitable to try to sit across from the other person and say, I just want to step into their shoes and try to see it like they see it as much as possible.
I actually try to do that with people who aren't Christian.
And so I would really invite you into that space just to see what it looks like.
Again, we're not forcing it on you, but we believe it's true, and we want you to at least have a look from the inside.
Dr. David Fraze: I appreciate you talking about the invitation because it is an invitation,
and nobody's going to check your card in the mail and say, you know, what church do you go to, stuff like that.
That is a cool thing about walking with people.
if Jeff and I changed positions even though we look like each other we would get a different
perspective you would see this side of the audience I would see that side of the audience
and sometimes that's all it takes and I think I can speak for all and tell me if I'm wrong all of
our Bible faculty and adjuncts welcome questions and exploring and expressions of doubt we wanted
to be done in civility but we've had students over and over again that report they say you know I
I don't even know if I believe in God, but thank you for the way that you listened.
And thank you for the way that you presented things.
Because as Jeff said in the onset, we actually believe in this.
So, all right, last shot.
Anything else you want to say about Bible at LCU, how we walk with people together in Christian love and unity?
What do you got?
Dr. Jeff Cary: Okay, I'm going to point to the Bible building then as a way of inviting you into this.
You may have noticed those gigantic wings hanging on the wall, and some of you may be thinking,
why do they have two sets of gigantic wings hanging up on the wall?
The imagery of those wings is the imagery of a box in the Old Testament called the Ark of the Covenant.
It was a small box covered in gold, and there were wings from, they were cherubim wings pointing inward,
and the space in between their wings on the top of that box was called the mercy seat.
That was the place where God's presence was focused.
And so it sat in the holy tent, the tabernacle, and it was in the back secret holy room.
Only the high priest could go in there because that was holy space.
What we wanted that imagery to do in our building was to create that open space between the wings to say not God's presence is only there and not down in the American heritage and certainly not in a business building.
um just speaking truth hard truth um what we wanted that to say is to you come in here
it's an invitation to engage the living god this is not dead religion this is the living god the
father of jesus christ who was raised from the dead and is the lord of all things and when your
life is lived in union with that God, it is a beautiful thing. It's the hope of the world.
That's what we want you to experience when you come in that building.
And we love and appreciate every one of you. Well said.
Dr. David Fraze: All right, you're about to dismiss us. And since you won't moonwalk, and it's, I don't know.
How would you like to dismiss this group today in the way you want to?
Okay?
It's like, how do you want to?
Don't be boring.
It's your turn.
It's your turn.

Dr. Jeff Cary: You're dismissed.