Berean Baptist Church

SEMESTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO BIC AND ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

This introduction to the BIC is the first lecture in all four subjects. This introduction only needs to be listened to once for an overview of the course as a whole. It is included in each first semester so regardless of what subject you start your course of study it there for your convenience.

INTRODUCTION

The outlines in this book are written for the purpose of accompanying the lectures identified at the beginning of each outline. They are not intended for quick or light consideration, and will not yield satisfactory results if so approached. Each taped lecture should be heard several times. At least one of those hearings, and with most students, at least two, should be accompanied by careful consideration of the corresponding outline. Many of the illustrations in the outline will have no application for the student without the hearing of the tape. This is only one of several reasons why your coordination of these outlines and tapes is absolutely necessary.

A common mistake for students is to think that correspondence is an easy way to get a Bible education, and nothing could be more wrong. You must be your own disciplinarian. If you do not force some kind of a schedule upon yourself, and work hard at this course, you will not complete it. You will find it to be hard work, but if you will do that work, you will get a good Bible education from this material. Some correspondence students have found ways to cheat on tests etc. They should know, however, that they are only cheating themselves. I hope you will approach this study with the integrity of the course you are studying, and more importantly, the integrity of the holy Word to which the course is dedicated. Each of the four courses in this institute leans hard on the other three, and they should be studied together. May God bless you in this effort.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Throughout the entirety of the work on Ecclesiology and Bible Survey, I have written and lectured essentially without direct use of any published aids, except for God’s word. However, in Theology and Soteriology, only in semesters one through four, I used the help of some very able men, to whom I have previously given credit. In semesters five and six I am using no such publications in the construction of any of the four courses. However, I must acknowledge that all the profitable published work I have previously read, indirectly contributes to this work, and those men who have, in days gone by, labored in publication, have contributed indirectly. I hope, when my time on earth is completed, that this small labor shall long survive me and help many others, both directly and indirectly, as these men I have mentioned before have helped me.

I further must give credit to Bethel Baptist Church, of Lawton, Oklahoma. As a church, they have shared the vision of this need, along with me, and have gladly allowed me, and Brother Lester Ogan, my assistant, to labor many, many hours, printing etc., on church time, in order to produce the printed portion of this work. I thus consider this effort, for what it is worth, to be a ministry of Bethel Baptist Church.

Finally, and perhaps most of all, I owe gratitude to my dear and faithful wife, Mary. She has labored so many hard hours to type outlines, questions and tests, and set the type for reproducing outlines, and reproducing my tapes. Without her patience and perseverance, I could have never completed this work. May God bless it as He sees fit.