(Please make sure you read the previous three posts “I was bad” before you begin this one.)
When I graduated from high school I went to the Prairie Bible Institute at what I thought was the leading of the Holy Spirit so that I could learn to become a better Christian. This had mixed results.
Years later I came to the conclusion that there were some serious theological mistakes with the deeper life teaching and with any other teaching that includes any kind of crises experience as the ultimate key to holiness. So the purpose of these posts is to deal with the whole issue of crises experiences, not to knock my former school. With that in mind I want to pause to sing the praises of the Prairie Bible Institute and the people who trained me back in the early 1970’s before I go back to the original argument I am attempting to make..
My first year it cost me $350 American for seven months of board, room, and tuition at PBI. A state subsidized University would have cost more than ten times that amount. One of the reasons that they could so this was the incredible sacrifice and dedication of the faculty and the staff. If I had graduated, gotten married, and joined the Prairie staff as a janitor, I would have made the exact same pay as the President and founder of the institute. Everybody got paid the same. Very little. So you could get a very inexpensive education there.
They taught me the Bible, they taught me a great deal about prayer, and they trained me for the ministry. I wonder if there has been a single day of my life where I haven’t used or applied something that I learned during those four years. I got to see idealistic adults really trying to live what they believed. Would I have ever taken the time to wrestle with the Old Testament prophets if I hadn’t gone to Prairie? I doubt it. And I wonder if anyone I studied with would have had the balance and good sense that Ted Rendall showed as he guided us through Isaiah and Jeremiah. Where else would I have spent the time I spent there pondering the relationship between law and grace?
It wasn’t only what I learned there, I got the foundation for almost everything I’ve studied ever since. I lift my eyes up from the computer screen to the wall of books behind it and I see names like Matthew Henry, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and JC Ryle. I got acquainted with them all at Prairie, and they have been my companions ever since.
And the people! I made some of the best friends I have ever had at Prairie. Wonderful people. Idealistic people. Some friends were students and some were on staff. Such lovely, lovely people. Three of my four years there my Uncle Forest and Aunt Minnie lived in Three Hills. Their home was always open to me. The fellowship was wonderful. And Aunt Minnie is one of the most accomplished cooks in the history of Western Civilization.
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