July 6, 2026

Must Pastors and Church Leaders Go to Seminary? Is Online or In Person School Better? Plus: 666 OR 616: The Mysterious Mark of the Beast and the Earliest Manuscript of Revelation

Show Notes
Transcript

Pastors and Church Leaders: MUST You Go to Seminary? NO! But, Why SHOULD You?

Why Should Pastors or Church leaders consider a seminary degree? All about Gateway Seminary, Bay Area Campus.

What makes in person seminary training better than online seminary or online classes? Incarnate ministry training vs. online ministry training.

The benefits and drawbacks of fully online seminary or graduate school.

Upcoming Bay Area theology symposium on how churches should receive immigrants and deal with illegal immigrants.

Seminary is not necessary, but why should pastors and leaders go?

Seminary helps fill the gaps in training people to be competent teachers of the Bible and pastors in areas where some local churches don’t have the capacity to train.

Dr. Cameron Schweitzer is at Gateway Seminary as the director of the San Francisco campus and associate professor of historical theology. Today you will hear him talking about doing theology in the Bay Area, Jonathan Edwards, probably the best theologian America has produced, and his radical story of salvation.

Early on in the podcast, you heard Pastor Christopher and Dr. Schweitzer talk about the Mark of the Beast, 666, and then Dr. Schweitzer said something enigmatic when he said, or 616.” What was that all about? I know it was a light-hearted comment, but it is worth discussing in a slightly deeper way, because I myself am pretty fascinated by eschatology, or the study of the last things/end times. That number - 666 or 616 comes from Revelation 13, and then Revelation 14 describes its significance. Let’s read:

11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

Revelation 14:9-12 9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” 12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.

If you are an amillennialist, you probably aren’t very concerned about 666 or 616. The amillennialist view holds that the 1,000-year reign of Christ mentioned in the Book of Revelation is not a literal future earthly kingdom, but a symbolic representation of the present church age. In this perspective, Christ is currently reigning spiritually from heaven, and Satan has already been bound to prevent him from stopping the spread of the Gospel. This period of spiritual rule spans from Christ's first coming to his second coming. Ultimately, history will culminate in a single, glorious return of Jesus, followed by the general resurrection, the final judgment, and the eternal state. Amillennialists view the mark of the beast as a spiritual representation of allegiance to worldly, anti-Christian powers and the ideologies of Satan . They typically approach this concept in two ways:The Forehead: Represents a person's thoughts, intellect, and ideological commitment.The Hand: Represents a person's actions, deeds, and everyday labor.

Others view 666 and the Mark of the beast more literally. Many, many lines of ink have been spilled over the years talking about this ‘mark of the beast.’ There are so many theories about it ranging from the mildly plausible to the patently absurd. I recall in the 80s that many were convinced that UPC codes (the bar codes found on things you buy at the store) were the mark of the beast. Others believe it will be an injectable chip or something along those lines. The Greek word used for “mark” is ‘χάραγμα cháragma, khar’-ag-mah’ and it means a stamp, or a mark. It comes from a word that means ‘trench,’ so it very likely contains a connotation of digging, engraving or etching.

I suppose an implantable chip (possibly with circuits engraved on its boards) could qualify there, but that is a slight stretch. So – what is this mark of the beast? And the answer is, of course – WE DON’T KNOW! And once again, I am quite skeptical of those who claim to know exactly, because we aren’t given enough information to know. That said, we are given enough information to probably know the mark of the beast when we see it. I believe it will be very, very clear, and not something that you can be really duped into getting, like some sort of injection or thing that is given to you by deceit. Whatever else you think of the COVID vaccines, they are most certainly NOT the mark of the beast, and only bad exegesis of these passages can get you to that conclusion. The passage seems to indicate that the mark of the beast will be received with a conscious submission to it, and not ignorantly. Here’s what we know:

The mark will be on the right hand or the forehead.
The mark will be economic in some ways – there will be finance systems set up where you can’t buy or sell without the mark. As such, I kind of keep up with anti-fraud technology, because that is one possible way we could get to a mark of the beast. I could see a leader or government attempting to make currency obsolete somehow and requiring some sort of unique ID/payment method be somehow put onto every person.
The mark will somehow tie back into the beast/antichrist/man of lawlessness, and perhaps the kingdom/country/group of countries that individual is leading.
Even if we see the mark coming – WE WON’T BE ABLE TO PREVENT IT. God has ordained these events, and they aren’t written down in the Bible for us to try and stop them. We have no command to fight against the implementation of these technologies. Do so if you feel so led, but the point of this passage is very simple: Do NOT get the mark of the beast. The point is not – FIGHT AGAINST EVERY TECHNOLOGY or INNOVATION THAT COULD BE THE MARK. God’s Word will come to pass.

Bottom line: Don’t get a mark/chip/tattoo/engraving/implant on your wrist/arm or forehead that has anything to do with buying and selling.

One more thing to discuss – the enigmatic 666. What’s that all about? As you might imagine, Christians over the years have discussed this issue extensively and fiercely debated its meaning. Many believe that John intended the number to be used in a way as a code, and thus many use gematria – which is a way of assigning a number to letters and fashioning a sort of code – as a way to interpret 666. The problems with this approach are legion, as John never tells us exactly how 666 is the number of the name of the antichrist, and never tells us what code he might be using, and Christians have thus guessed for over a thousand years what he was thinking.

Many have definitely declared that Nero, Roman Catholics (Latinus), this or that pope, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald W. Reagan, Hitler, and others were the antichrist based on somehow making their name match up to 666.

Is the Number of the Beast 666, 616, or Something More?

But there is a fascinating wrinkle. Some ancient manuscripts read not 666, but 616.

That does not mean your Bible is wrong, or that somebody recently discovered a secret chapter in the basement of the Vatican. The manuscript case still favors 666. But 616 is a genuine early textual variant, not an internet conspiracy theory.

Papyrus 115 (P¹¹⁵): Dating to the late 3rd or early 4th century, this is the oldest surviving manuscript of Revelation. Kept at the Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum, it explicitly writes the number as 616 (χιϛ).

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Codex C): A 5th-century uncial manuscript located in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. It spells out the number in full: hexakosioi deka hex ("six hundred and sixteen").

Bruce Metzger, one of the great evangelical textual critics, explained why the two numbers may be related. He wrote that “the Greek form Nero Caesar written in Hebrew characters … is equivalent to 666, whereas the Latin form … is equivalent to 616.” In other words, a slightly different spelling of Nero Caesar could produce either number.

That leads to the first major theory: the preterist or first-century Roman view. Many scholars think John was pointing to Nero, or perhaps to Nero as a symbol of the persecuting Roman Empire. Nero became the original monster under the bed, so to speak, for early Christians. He was a ruler associated with brutality, imperial power, blasphemous claims, and persecution. The Nero explanation is especially interesting because it can account for both 666 and 616.

But it does not settle every question. Revelation was written to real first-century churches, yet it also looks ahead to the final victory of Christ. That is why many futurists see the beast as a coming final Antichrist, a real future ruler who will demand worship and wield political, religious, and economic power. Grant Osborne puts it well: “The coming Antichrist would be a Nero-like figure who would be the antitype of that evil anti-Christian.”

Historicist interpreters take another route. They see the beast imagery as unfolding through the history of the church, especially through recurring systems where political power, false religion, coercion, and persecution unite against Christ’s people. Historically, many Protestants applied this to the papacy or to corrupt church-state systems. Their warning is worth hearing, even where we may disagree with their identifications: tyranny does not always arrive wearing a villain costume. Sometimes it arrives carrying a Bible, a flag, a sword, and a demand for unquestioning loyalty.

Then there is the symbolic or idealist approach. G. K. Beale calls 666 “the completeness of sinful incompleteness.” Six falls short of seven, and three sixes may portray a counterfeit trinity, evil pretending to be divine but always falling short. The beast can look impressive, powerful, even miraculous. But he is never Christ.

And that brings us to the pastoral point. Whatever view you hold, the mark in Revelation is tied to worship, allegiance, and compromise. Craig Keener says John is writing “less to satisfy our end-time curiosity than to warn us about compromise.”

So do not panic every time technology changes. Do not assume a debit card, a barcode, or an app can accidentally separate a believer from Christ. But do ask the deeper question: What am I being pressured to worship? What am I being tempted to compromise? Whose name is shaping my mind, my work, my money, my loyalties, and my life?

Because Revelation is not mainly trying to make us afraid of the future. It is calling us to be faithful to Jesus in the present, and to be watchful and waiting for His return, doing the Great Commission work of the Master while we wait.

If the futurist perspective on Revelation is correct, then I believe when the antichrist/beast comes onto the scene, it will be much clearer how the number 666 relates to him. In this, I wholeheartedly agree with Andrew of Caesarea, a church bishop from the 500s, who wrote a commentary on Revelation:

For the sober-minded, time and experience will reveal the actual significance of the number and the truth of whatever has been written about it. For, were it necessary, as some of the teachers say, that such a name be clearly known, the seer would have revealed it. But the divine grace did not consent that the name of the destroyer be noted in the divine book

William C. Weinrich, ed., Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 213.

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WEBVTT

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Dr. Cameron Schweitzer is at Gateway Seminary, is the director of the San Francisco

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campus and associate professor of historical theology.

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Today, you're going to hear him talking about doing theology in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Jonathan Edwards, who's probably the best theologian America has produced,

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and his radical story of salvation, where he says...

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In a very serious and significant way, it was as if scales fell from my eyes.

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And for the first time, I saw the depth and gravity and heinousness of my sin,

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but the even deeper and richer and more beautiful grace of God in the person

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and work of Jesus Christ.

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Practical advice, soul care, and resources that work together to build up your

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local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.

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Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission

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Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry

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and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.

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Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 25 of the Every Church Flourishing

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Podcast, which is sponsored by the Great Commission Association of California.

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Today, we've got Dr. Cameron Schweitzer, who is the head of Gateway Seminary's Bay Area campus.

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Pastor Christopher Cole and I had a blast with this interview with Dr.

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Schweitzer, and we were honestly bummed out when it had to end.

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We're going to talk to him today about a lot of things over the next two episodes,

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but our focus is on this episode of

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training pastors and church leaders. Should, must pastors go to seminaries?

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Are there alternatives to training leaders?

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What about online classes and that sort of thing?

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And then we're going to end today talking about the upcoming San Francisco Bay

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Area Theology Symposium that Dr.

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Schweitzer and Gateway are putting on, which is going to discuss immigration

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in the church and how churches and pastors should handle illegal immigrants

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as well as Christian nationalism and

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Several other honestly explosively controversial topics.

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So you get to listen to Dr. Schweitzer today while he is in one piece and relatively

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healthy. He might be a little bit at risk after that theology symposium.

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I tell you more about Cameron Schweitzer, but we do a pretty good job today

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of introducing him in the interview. So let's jump over to it now.

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So we are here today with special guest, Dr. Cameron Schweitzer.

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And Cameron is the director of the Bay Area campus of Gateway Baptist Theological

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Seminary and the associate professor of historical theology there.

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He's a 2022 PhD graduate of Gateway Way Seminary, where he wrote his dissertation

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on the always exciting Jonathan Edwards, in particular Edwards' academic interests, right?

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So you have academic interests in systematic theology, biblical theology, historical theology,

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philosophy, apologetics, and ethics. So that's like your aficionado type field.

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We're going to get into other things that you love too later.

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But Cameron has published several articles and book reviews in the Puritan Reform

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Journal, the Jonathan Edwards Study Journal, the Studies in Puritanism and Piety

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Journal, the Calvin Theological Journal, and Thamelios.

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So he's been quite busy like all the time, like you write all the time.

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And he's also published several chapters in the second and third volumes of

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the Jonathan Edwards Miscellany's Companion. So welcome to our show,

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to every church flourishing.

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Yeah, this sounds like a really important, smart guy. I forgot to take my ginkgo

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biloba this morning, so I hope this Coke Zero is enough to keep my brain firing.

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Let that artificial caffeine boost.

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Yeah, it's got to do something.

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Your artificial brain cells.

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So is there anything we missed in that introduction to you?

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The only thing I need to add, of course, would be familial, that my wife and

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kids would be very upset if I didn't say that I have another life outside of

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my life with Gateway Seminary.

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Namely, I'm married to a beautiful woman named Sandra. We've been together since,

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well, married since July of 2019, dating since 2018.

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We have two little kiddos at home, Malachi, who just turned four,

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and my daughter Haven, who's a year and a half.

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Outside of Gateway, I mean, they're my everything. I've been following Christ

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since, I only wasn't bringing this up because we had talked about what we may

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talk about. So I know you're going to bring up my conversion.

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So I kind of assumed it, but yeah, of course, I've been following Christ since

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I was just on my 18th birthday when I was converted really radically when a

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friend invited me to church in February, 2009.

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One other thing, though, you said one other thing I need to add,

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and the publishers of my forthcoming books would be remiss if I did not promo

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them that in the next year I will have three books coming out.

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That's a lot. It is. Thankfully, I'm co-doing everything. So you can do more

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when you do it with other people. Yes. Right. As the saying goes,

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if you want to get there fast, go it alone. But if you want to get there and

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finish, what? Go with a crowd, right? Or go with others. However that old saying

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goes. I just made that up. I parodied it.

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Now it's going to be an old saying.

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Now it's an old saying as of two minutes ago when I thought of it.

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But there are going to be, you're going to ask about the Nicene Creed conference

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that we did last year in the Bay Area that some of your listeners would have been to, hopefully.

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And there is a book coming out by B&H that will be released,

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Lord willing, at the SBC next year on the Baptist celebration of the Nicene

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Creed that I'm co-editing with Ryan Rippey, who's a pastor up in Benicia.

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There's another book I'm co-editing on Edwards with a man named Rob Boss who

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leads the Jonathan Edwards Society, and it's a book called The Integrated Edwards,

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How Edwards Can Shape and Inform Modern Conversations on Theology,

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Philosophy, Ethics, and Pastoral Ministry.

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Then the third book, I'm co-authoring with a friend of mine named Ben on how

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to succeed, thrive, and survive in the hardest to reach places in ministry.

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And Whitvenstock will be publishing that one, but those all should come out next year. Okay.

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So I need to pump those numbers up. Yeah.

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Anyways. This podcast is a significant driver of Christian bestsellers.

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I'm quite sure. Yeah. So I came on.

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You're in the right place.

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Totally self-serving.

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The next Rick Warren, you know, Billy Graham of publishing.

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So let's lead off with these three most important questions we have for you today.

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And the rest of them are just more secondary.

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And the first one is, what is your favorite cereal?

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Well, as I was saying earlier, I'm kind of a health nut.

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So I see your first two questions. And I know you ask a lot of people about

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soda as you drink a Coke Zero.

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Cereal-wise, I've not, you know, had like typical cereal in a very long time.

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But there is a healthy cereal I like called Catalina Crunch.

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I'm familiar.

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Which I eat as a snack, but I'm very rarely over breakfast eating a bowl of

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cereal. For breakfast, I'm either eating something called Teff,

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which very few people have ever heard of, or...

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I have not.

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I'm going to pump the health of Teff on this podcast, but it's the ancient grain

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of Ethiopia. It's very good. It tastes like cream of wheat, but way better for

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you. So my favorite breakfast cereal is probably Teff, but that's a warm brown porridge.

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Okay. Catalina Crunch is a favorite.

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I don't drink soda, but I do like myself a spindrift or a poppy.

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Those are good. Yeah. But I'm not drinking, drinking, drinking.

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I'm not drinking any soda for a long time, guys. The good grammar.

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That's good grammar. Okay.

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I speak goodly sometimes. You do.

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You do. And the third question, what theologian would be the worst companion on a desert island?

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Oh, no question. My dead mentor, Jonathan Edwards.

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Okay. Yeah. I think, I thought you might say that. That's why I threw the question

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in. And just very briefly, why would he be so bad?

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Well, he was not the most personable of people, as the old saying goes,

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to talk about more old sayings, unless he was very close to you and comfortable.

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He was very aloof or seemingly off-putting in his whole situation.

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He didn't say a lot, which is why he didn't endear himself to a lot of people.

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So unless I earned his trust, he would not be the warmest of companions.

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And then secondly, his wife very famously was the one who took care of the house

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along with their slaves.

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So he was of so heavenly mind that he was of no earthly good in a very literal sense.

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So you probably would have to do all the work.

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I'd have to do all the work. And the problem is, is I very much am like Edward

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and I can't do anything to save my own life.

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So I can't, I've held a gun like twice in my life. I've never built a fire.

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I don't know how to fish. So it's like, I would not be much more helpful.

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We would just be like begging for our lives that God would send someone to save

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us. Yeah, it was said of Edwards that he at any time didn't even know how many

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milk kiln he had in his house who spent, you know, 12, 13 hours in his study.

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Nice. Yeah. So Edwards, no question, I think would be the worst companion on

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a desert island. The other would have been Martin Luther, just because you never

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know what that hothead would do from one day to another.

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Yeah. Okay. Great answer. Well, I'm going to kind of step back and lick my wounds

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over my guilt about eating so much cereal and consider my life choices.

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And drinking a lot of soda.

00:09:19.241 --> 00:09:22.811
That too. That too. This has not been a good start for me. So,

00:09:22.811 --> 00:09:25.811
Pastor Chris, why don't you lead us into the promised land?

00:09:25.811 --> 00:09:31.731
Yeah, let's go into something that you did just mention about crying out to God for salvation.

00:09:31.731 --> 00:09:36.431
And you mentioned this earlier, that you had a radical conversion at the age

00:09:36.431 --> 00:09:41.691
of 18. Tell us about that and what made it so radical? How many minutes?

00:09:42.719 --> 00:09:45.100
You have up to 170 minutes.

00:09:45.100 --> 00:09:48.274
Got it. Okay. 70 times seven, it would seem.

00:09:48.565 --> 00:09:52.010
I don't even want the short version or the long version in our podcast format.

00:09:52.010 --> 00:09:56.950
So the short version is that in my senior year, my best friend of the time,

00:09:56.950 --> 00:10:00.070
Jeremiah, was dating this girl named Brianna Dickey.

00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:04.960
And Brianna Dickey's family were the godliest, kindest people I'd ever met.

00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:09.428
And when they met me for the first time, it was the summer before my senior year of high school.

00:10:09.544 --> 00:10:12.840
And I was very lost, very lost, even though I was going into a Christian prep

00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:16.440
school, I was very clearly lost. And I was the worst of all sinners.

00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:19.030
I was proud, arrogant, foul-mouthed.

00:10:19.370 --> 00:10:22.270
Name the sin I would have been pursuing it. They met me for the first time that

00:10:22.270 --> 00:10:25.810
summer at the beach, and they just realized quickly how lost I was.

00:10:26.250 --> 00:10:29.760
And like Rosaria Butterfield has said in her very famous book,

00:10:29.760 --> 00:10:31.210
the gospel comes with a house key.

00:10:31.210 --> 00:10:36.950
And for me, their hospitality proved to be one of the two means that God used

00:10:36.950 --> 00:10:38.480
in his sovereignty to draw me to himself.

00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:42.390
The other being my high school senior year Bible teacher, Dan Rice.

00:10:42.390 --> 00:10:45.840
But the Dickies in particular, the ones who then led me to church where I heard

00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:47.000
the gospel and was converted.

00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:52.310
But suffice to say that over my senior year, they began to invite me and Jeremiah

00:10:52.310 --> 00:10:54.360
over every Tuesday night for dinner.

00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:57.870
And having grown up with a single mom who was a nurse who didn't know how to

00:10:57.870 --> 00:11:01.900
cook. Sorry, mom, as you listen to this. Her Kraft blue box mac and cheese mixed

00:11:01.900 --> 00:11:03.604
in with frozen corn and ground beef.

00:11:03.848 --> 00:11:08.190
You know, good, but not all that appetizing. And I compared it to Miss Dickey's

00:11:08.190 --> 00:11:12.880
cooking. And so she made amazing dinner. So it made my saying yes every week

00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:15.220
to go over to their house for Tuesday night dinner is very easy because she

00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:17.043
made a new and amazing meal every week.

00:11:17.444 --> 00:11:21.529
And when I was there, they took an interest in me. They asked me questions about my life.

00:11:21.529 --> 00:11:24.439
They prayed. They cared for me as a person. They showed hospitality.

00:11:24.439 --> 00:11:27.489
Paul said, seek to show hospitality, and that they didn't.

00:11:27.489 --> 00:11:30.479
They weren't overtly preachy to say that.

00:11:30.479 --> 00:11:33.919
They were just kind and loving. And fast forward several months,

00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:37.089
they invited me to church for the first time.

00:11:37.089 --> 00:11:41.199
And now by this time, Jeremiah and her had broken up. And much to his chagrin,

00:11:41.579 --> 00:11:44.269
they all wanted me to remain in their lives.

00:11:44.269 --> 00:11:47.569
And so each of them, after they broke up, the father, the mother,

00:11:47.569 --> 00:11:49.949
and then Brianna each called me and said, hey, we'd understand why you still

00:11:49.949 --> 00:11:52.239
wouldn't come around, but we still want you in our lives. Please come around.

00:11:52.239 --> 00:11:54.639
They'd so endeared themselves to me that I couldn't say no.

00:11:54.979 --> 00:11:59.109
So now February 2009, I'd known them, I don't know, eight, nine months at this time.

00:11:59.109 --> 00:12:01.689
They said, hey, do you want to go to church with us? And at that time,

00:12:01.689 --> 00:12:04.459
they were going to Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside,

00:12:04.459 --> 00:12:07.809
California, where Greg Laurie is the senior pastor, a very famous megachurch.

00:12:07.809 --> 00:12:10.869
And they would go to their Sunday night service, which was called Sundays at

00:12:10.869 --> 00:12:15.539
7, which was led by a pastor named Steve Wilburn, who used to be their youth

00:12:15.539 --> 00:12:18.069
pastor, but then took on their Sunday night service.

00:12:18.069 --> 00:12:21.129
And now he pastors the last time I heard a church he planted in L.A.

00:12:21.129 --> 00:12:24.259
Called the Core Church. So nevertheless, we show up on Sunday night.

00:12:24.259 --> 00:12:27.639
I still remember where I was sitting in the middle of the sanctuary next to their sound booth.

00:12:27.639 --> 00:12:32.359
He preached a sermon on 1 Corinthians 5, and the refrain of the sermon was.

00:12:32.739 --> 00:12:35.919
You know what you're doing is wrong, and you need to repent and turn to Jesus.

00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:39.889
And now he had allegorized that image that Paul uses of yeast working through

00:12:39.889 --> 00:12:43.936
the dough, like this idea of corporate sin in the corporate body of a local church.

00:12:44.052 --> 00:12:47.339
And he made it, you know, sin in your heart and how it infects your whole person.

00:12:47.339 --> 00:12:49.868
So, right doctrine, just not really what that text was talking about.

00:12:50.310 --> 00:12:53.796
But every word of that sermon hit me personally.

00:12:53.796 --> 00:12:57.636
In that church of several thousand people, it was as if God was alone speaking.

00:12:57.636 --> 00:13:01.736
And now to give my Christian school credit, I went to Arrowhead Christian Academy,

00:13:01.736 --> 00:13:04.676
which is now Redlands Christian School. It's a very fine Christian prep school

00:13:04.676 --> 00:13:08.206
of the Dutch Reformed tradition. We had good Bible-believing Bible teachers.

00:13:08.206 --> 00:13:12.248
We had chapels that, for the most part, had really solid speakers.

00:13:12.520 --> 00:13:15.166
And so I had heard the gospel. I'd read the gospel. Like the Bible says,

00:13:15.166 --> 00:13:17.276
I had eyes and didn't see and ears, but didn't hear.

00:13:17.276 --> 00:13:21.146
I had a heart that didn't believe. But that night, as is typical in a megachurch,

00:13:21.146 --> 00:13:23.256
they, you know, would have done the altar call.

00:13:23.256 --> 00:13:26.256
And in the altar call, I remember they brought out the guitar player,

00:13:26.256 --> 00:13:28.726
you know, the whole, there's one more person out there, that sort of thing.

00:13:28.726 --> 00:13:33.136
And it was in those final moments that God came after me.

00:13:33.136 --> 00:13:36.976
The only way I can describe it is analogically to say that like what you see

00:13:36.976 --> 00:13:40.986
of Lydia's conversion in Acts, that was similar to mine. And that as he's giving

00:13:40.986 --> 00:13:45.660
the gospel, there's just this weight of my sin was becoming ever clearer.

00:13:46.090 --> 00:13:50.894
And in a very serious and significant way, it was as if scales fell from my eyes.

00:13:50.894 --> 00:13:56.144
And for the first time, I saw the depth and gravity and heinousness of my sin,

00:13:56.144 --> 00:14:01.624
but the even deeper and richer and more beautiful grace of God in the person

00:14:01.624 --> 00:14:02.704
and work of Jesus Christ.

00:14:02.704 --> 00:14:06.724
And whether you want to say it was my spirit, it was God speaking to me very

00:14:06.724 --> 00:14:08.994
clearly, I've paid for your sins.

00:14:09.314 --> 00:14:12.044
I've risen from the grave. You need to turn and believe in me.

00:14:12.044 --> 00:14:15.674
And in that moment, I just wept profusely as a 17-year-old. And I,

00:14:15.674 --> 00:14:19.494
you know, I didn't raise my hand to like, you know, I want to say the sinner's prayer.

00:14:19.494 --> 00:14:22.544
I didn't walk the aisle. I didn't go down to the front. I didn't even pray the

00:14:22.544 --> 00:14:26.374
sinner's prayer. I just remember sitting in the pew weeping as Brianna and her

00:14:26.374 --> 00:14:29.184
mom, Brenda, put their arms around me and they prayed for me.

00:14:29.184 --> 00:14:32.614
And I remember praying, Lord, save me. I'm sorry for what I've done. Save me.

00:14:32.954 --> 00:14:36.544
And my life was radically changed to such an extent that when I went back to

00:14:36.544 --> 00:14:39.994
school over the next couple of weeks, people thought that I was now faking that

00:14:39.994 --> 00:14:43.724
I was a Christian to like make fun of all the Christians, that my mockery had

00:14:43.724 --> 00:14:47.904
entered a new stage of like in character, you know, method acting, I guess.

00:14:47.904 --> 00:14:52.534
But it was Dan Rice who, like Barnabas with Saul, took me by the hand,

00:14:52.534 --> 00:14:55.734
so to speak, and extended me the right hand of fellowship and helped to show

00:14:55.734 --> 00:14:57.074
other people, no, Cameron's legit.

00:14:57.074 --> 00:15:00.364
Like this is a legit conversion. And so much so that a couple months later,

00:15:00.364 --> 00:15:04.574
as we had the senior chapel, they then asked me to be the one who gave the little Bible message.

00:15:04.574 --> 00:15:07.574
And that was probably the second step in my call to ministry,

00:15:07.574 --> 00:15:10.364
where then I had all my, You know, teachers come up to me after and say,

00:15:10.364 --> 00:15:13.674
you know, that was so good. You need to go into ministry. God's calling you,

00:15:13.674 --> 00:15:16.535
young man. I have no idea how bad that message probably was.

00:15:17.172 --> 00:15:19.928
But it was good enough that at 17, 18 years old, everyone said,

00:15:19.928 --> 00:15:22.998
you know, God's put this calling on your life. And that was the beginning of

00:15:22.998 --> 00:15:26.398
then my eventual call to ministry. So that's the short version of that story.

00:15:26.398 --> 00:15:32.578
That's a fantastic story. And I note that it started with regular people,

00:15:32.918 --> 00:15:35.488
not pastors, not somebody on a church staff.

00:15:35.488 --> 00:15:41.638
So many testimonies start out that way, that people come to Jesus through the

00:15:41.638 --> 00:15:46.868
ministry of non-professional pastors and ministers.

00:15:46.868 --> 00:15:50.243
Well, like Jeff Orge did in his great book just a couple of years ago, Shadow Christians.

00:15:50.365 --> 00:15:53.138
The way Christianity expanded was through shadow Christians,

00:15:53.138 --> 00:15:57.668
nameless Christians, shadow faces that just faithfully do the work of God as

00:15:57.668 --> 00:16:00.348
they go about their lives, as they travel, as they start businesses,

00:16:00.348 --> 00:16:02.438
as they raise a family. And that was true for me.

00:16:02.818 --> 00:16:04.738
And now, mind you, I just want to put it like this. Trust me,

00:16:04.738 --> 00:16:08.668
at 17, 18 years old, no one in my life would have thought I'd be where I am

00:16:08.668 --> 00:16:12.238
today. No one. Because of just my plan in life was to be a lawyer,

00:16:12.238 --> 00:16:15.598
to make a lot of money and go live at the beach and live a playboy lifestyle.

00:16:16.318 --> 00:16:20.158
That was the height of my existence as someone who grew up in the hot Inland

00:16:20.158 --> 00:16:24.948
Empire. And the fact that now I'm, you know, in my mid-30s, I'm a seminary professor

00:16:24.948 --> 00:16:27.991
with a PhD in theology, no one would have thought that.

00:16:28.235 --> 00:16:32.828
It's just a testament to the reality of conversion and to the truth of the sovereignty

00:16:32.828 --> 00:16:36.176
of God and salvation and the reality of conversion and sanctification.

00:16:36.391 --> 00:16:41.760
Fantastic. Well, let's shift a little bit to Gateway and your role now.

00:16:42.022 --> 00:16:47.648
You are the third Gateway professor we have had on in the past month or two.

00:16:47.648 --> 00:16:48.908
Really? Yeah, literally.

00:16:48.908 --> 00:16:49.638
Who else has been on?

00:16:50.078 --> 00:16:51.513
The Doctors Ferguson.

00:16:51.652 --> 00:16:52.918
Really? Both of them?

00:16:52.918 --> 00:16:58.098
Yes, both were on and back to back, I think. Tell us what it's like to be the

00:16:58.098 --> 00:17:04.718
director of the San Leandro Gateway campus to do that, to lead that ministry.

00:17:05.158 --> 00:17:10.118
Yeah. So I need to be clear and specific with language. So it is a regional

00:17:10.118 --> 00:17:12.566
campus and not an extension center. Okay.

00:17:12.846 --> 00:17:16.599
And that's an important distinction to make because in a creditor's eyes,

00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:17.919
that makes all the difference.

00:17:17.919 --> 00:17:22.739
So the regional campus has full accreditation, both nationally from the Association

00:17:22.739 --> 00:17:25.789
of Theological Schools, that's ATS, and then regionally from WASC,

00:17:25.789 --> 00:17:27.699
the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

00:17:27.699 --> 00:17:32.269
So that a regional campus is a full-fledged campus able to offer in-person full

00:17:32.269 --> 00:17:35.209
degrees, or an extension site or an extension center

00:17:35.509 --> 00:17:39.159
is not recognized as a legitimate, quote-unquote, campus in the eyes of the

00:17:39.159 --> 00:17:42.709
accreditors, and so then is derivative of a fully accredited campus,

00:17:42.709 --> 00:17:47.484
whether it's a regional campus or the main campus, then offer a part of a degree or part of training.

00:17:47.676 --> 00:17:50.429
Okay. So that's an important distinction to make so that people know as they're

00:17:50.429 --> 00:17:53.619
listening to this, that if you live in the broader San Francisco Bay Area,

00:17:53.619 --> 00:17:58.589
you have the capacity to come to the Gateway Campus now in San Leandro and earn the full MDiv or the.

00:17:59.069 --> 00:18:02.649
MA in Theology or what's known now as the MTS or the smallest degree being the

00:18:02.649 --> 00:18:04.459
MTE or the Master of Theological Essentials.

00:18:04.459 --> 00:18:07.099
And I could describe each of those degrees if you really wanted to get into

00:18:07.099 --> 00:18:09.189
the weeds and I can bore you to tears with that information.

00:18:09.509 --> 00:18:13.259
But someone could come and earn that entire degree over the course,

00:18:13.259 --> 00:18:15.879
the MDiv over four or five years if they went full-time.

00:18:15.879 --> 00:18:19.039
So that's a significant thing to recognize is that though we're not the main

00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:23.439
campus in Southern California or the former main campus up in Marin off seminary

00:18:23.439 --> 00:18:25.899
drive, that someone can still earn a full degree.

00:18:25.899 --> 00:18:29.719
It's just, we're not going to have as many classes offered per semester or as

00:18:29.719 --> 00:18:33.219
many different kinds of professors that you may want to take at the regional

00:18:33.219 --> 00:18:34.919
campus versus the main campus.

00:18:34.919 --> 00:18:39.469
But I will say this, that I've been here now for three years and I am now the

00:18:39.469 --> 00:18:42.169
third director. So we're just talking in threes. I'm the third person,

00:18:42.169 --> 00:18:47.251
third director, third year here. I'm just going to highlight the three as I'm into numerology.

00:18:47.872 --> 00:18:51.797
This is by far, and this is to not see- So you're half of 666.

00:18:51.797 --> 00:18:54.017
That's true. Whoa, whoa. Number of the beast. Yes.

00:18:54.397 --> 00:18:58.557
That's 616. We could talk about that either. So I'm not in any way trying to

00:18:58.557 --> 00:19:01.167
downplay what has happened over the last few years,

00:19:01.167 --> 00:19:06.367
but I would say that this fall is by far the strongest professor lineup we've

00:19:06.367 --> 00:19:09.637
ever had since I came here in the spring of 2023.

00:19:09.637 --> 00:19:12.717
I mean, the lineup is stellar. And so what I tell folks is that you're able

00:19:12.717 --> 00:19:16.367
to get a high quality education here in person at the regional campus in the

00:19:16.367 --> 00:19:19.667
Bay Area and have no lowering of the academic bar.

00:19:19.667 --> 00:19:21.967
Of course, there is a difference, like you said, from the main campus.

00:19:21.967 --> 00:19:25.673
We don't have as many students. We don't have as many extracurricular festivities

00:19:25.934 --> 00:19:30.184
as Dwight Schrute would have said on the office without all the pomp and frills, so to speak.

00:19:30.375 --> 00:19:32.977
Has all the necessary things, but without all the pomp and frills.

00:19:32.977 --> 00:19:36.827
So we have chapel once a month rather than every week. We have a couple events

00:19:36.827 --> 00:19:39.877
of a year versus an event every month like the main campus does.

00:19:40.257 --> 00:19:43.657
So that's some of the important differences. Now, being a director of a regional

00:19:43.657 --> 00:19:48.701
campus is quite interesting in that I have to wear a lot of different kinds of hats in my role

00:19:48.835 --> 00:19:52.207
so that unlike someone who's, you know, full-time faculty, they just focus on

00:19:52.207 --> 00:19:55.767
teaching, on research, on writing, preparing to teach grading.

00:19:55.767 --> 00:19:56.917
I don't have that luxury.

00:19:57.277 --> 00:20:01.177
I teach a reduced course load, and then I have many other responsibilities on

00:20:01.177 --> 00:20:04.057
my shoulders, like recruiting, you know, prospective students,

00:20:04.057 --> 00:20:06.877
networking with pastors and people who.

00:20:07.397 --> 00:20:12.077
Lead in ministry, who can send us students, raising money, managing the campus,

00:20:12.077 --> 00:20:13.977
recruiting faculty, raising money.

00:20:14.297 --> 00:20:17.937
There's a lot of different things that my role entails beyond just teaching,

00:20:17.937 --> 00:20:21.337
which I do need to do, and beyond research and writing, which I do need to do.

00:20:21.337 --> 00:20:26.317
So I have to do a lot of different things in my position. So to that end,

00:20:26.317 --> 00:20:29.270
you were talking about part of your role is recruiting. Yeah.

00:20:29.619 --> 00:20:32.439
So let's give you the opportunity to make a pitch right now.

00:20:32.439 --> 00:20:39.409
We have a lot of non-pastors, active church leaders that are listeners of this podcast.

00:20:39.409 --> 00:20:43.639
So in addition to the pastors, and there are pastors that listen to this podcast

00:20:43.639 --> 00:20:47.979
that are throughout our association that don't have a seminary degree.

00:20:47.979 --> 00:20:54.609
So why should a church leader or a pastor that has not yet received a seminary

00:20:54.609 --> 00:20:57.929
degree, why should they consider obtaining a seminary degree?

00:20:58.229 --> 00:21:02.879
And, you know, in fact, we'll even let you pitch that a little bit more specifically.

00:21:03.111 --> 00:21:09.084
Why should they consider Gateway when they could do so many other online programs

00:21:09.212 --> 00:21:14.066
at other schools or other places and stay in the Bay Area as well or in Central California?

00:21:14.066 --> 00:21:17.009
That's a great question. I mean, I get that question all the time,

00:21:17.009 --> 00:21:20.819
whether it's explicit or implicit over the last 11 years of recruiting on behalf

00:21:20.819 --> 00:21:25.269
of the seminary. Now, I want to first say something that will sound odd,

00:21:25.269 --> 00:21:28.209
but I do mean it, but I've been saying it for a long time.

00:21:28.549 --> 00:21:30.629
Seminary is not necessary. Wow.

00:21:31.109 --> 00:21:34.609
So that's the thing that- We have that on the record. You have that on record.

00:21:35.049 --> 00:21:36.839
Title. That'll be the title for the podcast.

00:21:36.839 --> 00:21:41.989
Seminary is not necessary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see the AI generated image

00:21:41.989 --> 00:21:43.816
right now. This is going to be so good.

00:21:44.569 --> 00:21:47.799
So let me nuance that, but I was going to give you guys some bold statements

00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:51.937
for clips. So there's a sense in which seminary is necessary and is not necessary.

00:21:52.680 --> 00:21:57.104
So in the sense of seminary is not necessary, it's not necessary to go to a

00:21:57.104 --> 00:22:00.624
school to learn how to do ministry or to learn theology, right?

00:22:00.624 --> 00:22:04.034
Because, you know, you've studied, you've studied that throughout church history

00:22:04.034 --> 00:22:07.334
and even in places in the world now, there's not the capacity or the ability

00:22:07.334 --> 00:22:08.834
to go to seminary, right?

00:22:08.834 --> 00:22:12.444
So you wouldn't say that in order to be a faithful pastor or a faithful missionary,

00:22:12.444 --> 00:22:14.554
you have to go to seminary, it's necessary.

00:22:14.554 --> 00:22:17.118
No, it's not necessary. People have been doing it all throughout time,

00:22:17.367 --> 00:22:19.494
faithfully, and not having gone to seminary.

00:22:19.494 --> 00:22:24.124
What is necessary and what is not negotiable is what Paul says in 2 Timothy

00:22:24.124 --> 00:22:27.954
2.2, where he says, Timothy, what you've heard me say in the presence of many

00:22:27.954 --> 00:22:30.674
witnesses, entrust to faithful men who can teach others also.

00:22:30.674 --> 00:22:36.164
And in that, there is a summary of what seminary ought to be or what biblical

00:22:36.164 --> 00:22:38.854
training in a college ought to be for ministry to Bible college.

00:22:38.854 --> 00:22:42.524
Namely, there has to be, if I can theologically synthesize that verse for you,

00:22:42.524 --> 00:22:46.454
there has to be a learning of truth, right?

00:22:46.454 --> 00:22:48.674
What Paul says, what you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses,

00:22:48.674 --> 00:22:50.964
which we know from the rest of Acts, he says from, you know,

00:22:50.964 --> 00:22:53.954
canon to canon, I've not ceased to proclaim the whole counsel of God.

00:22:53.954 --> 00:22:57.514
He's faithfully divided the scriptures for his protégés so that you have to

00:22:57.514 --> 00:23:00.534
learn what the Bible is, what it teaches, its main doctrine.

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That's theological training. That's worldview training. Like we talked about

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earlier, Chris, that people have to know.

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The doctrines of the Bible to be able to pass on the faith because the faith

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is codified in propositions.

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Even though people hate propositional theology and propositional language,

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we talk about that, but all of this is propositional.

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You have to know the propositions of the Bible. That doesn't happen by osmosis.

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That has to happen by learning. It's not like that episode, Jimmy Neutron Boy

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Genius I watched as a kid, where he came up with an invention where he made

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books in a gum. You chew the gum, you learn the book. That's not how it happens.

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You have to learn it from someone else. You have to read yourself.

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You have to learn. But then secondly, Paul says to Timothy, you have to be able

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to entrust it to faithful men who can teach others also.

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As you know, that's multiple generations. Paul, Timothy, men, other men also.

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So four generations of ministry there. So then you also have to be trained in

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the capacities and in the aptitudes or the abilities to be able to replicate

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and pass on what you've learned in terms of faithful doctrine,

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faithful practice, right?

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So that's what is not negotiable. You have to, as a Christian,

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