The discipleship firmly stood on the Word

Introduction to Bible DTS

By Eun-Kyoung Jung/ School of Worship

We read God’s Word through the Bible and learn God’s heart and will. Many Christians have the idea that the Bible is difficult. But it is so crucial to take the time to discover the truth through God’s Word and build our faith upon it. Perhaps this is the most important for the Christians of today.

The Bible Discipleship Training School (Bible DTS), which had been suspended for a while, has relaunched in the fourth quarter of 2019 at the University of the Nations in Jeju. This is an introduction to the Bible DTS. This is how it started and how it works.

Bible DTS started “newly and intimately”

How did the Bible DTS get started?

Brief introduction of DBS

To Introduce the Bible DTS, it seems to require an introduction to DBS. DBS stands for Discipleship Bible School, which is one of the secondary schools and a school of the Word Ministry after DTS at the UofN. The student learns 66 books of the Bible through ‘Inductive observation’ for 3 months and how to live as disciples of God. It is a school that trains students to discover God’s characters that we should be like, and God’s salvation plan for us. Also, DBS is a school that does not stop at knowing the truths found in the Bible but applies it to one’s life and further helps the student teach the Bible in small groups within their community.

The Need for DTS (The Need for Discipleship on the Rock of the Word)

Since 2016, during the DBS, we had discussed ‘how we could improve our school.’ There was a thought that it might be a bit arduous for a person who is not intimate with the Bible to study the Bible inductively and to apply specific life-based applications in three months at the same time. And then, there was a request of a DTS which the student could study the Word more intimately. If such a DTS exists, then they could train the life of a disciple based on the truth more concretely and practically as they discover them from the Bible.

Meanwhile, DBS staff attended the DBS gathering in Kona, Hawaii. UofN Kona was where the first DBS started and was discussing the same issue that we had. As a result, they came up with a new curriculum that helps the students to study the Bible more intimately during DTS and to train deeper discipleship based on the Bible at DBS. We, DBS staff, when we heard about the new curriculum, thought that it might be a good solution for discipleship firmly stood on the foundation of the Word. And we began planning the first Bible DTS at UofN Jeju.

The training highlighted in Bible DTS

Changes in beliefs and thoughts through the Word

We seem to “believe in” God, but in reality, we are “knowing” things only in knowledge. That is why when we think or decide something, we choose to live with many things based on our knowledge of experience rather than on the truth we believe. Bible DTS is a school where we build ourselves on the truth that God speaks through the Bible, God’s Word rather than on the foundation of worldly values ​​that we have learned, heard, and experienced through people other than the truth, such as education, experience, family environment, and friendship.

Faith built on the foundation of the Word

Where did your faith come from? Do you live in intimate fellowship with God? Do you have your faith? or is it one of the parents around you or the spiritual leaders at the Church? God would find our faith on the final day.

Bible DTS is a school that firmly builds “my faith” on the written Word as well as personal experiences, not on beliefs taught by others. Therefore, Bible DTS teaches and applies meditation in a slightly different way than other DTSs.

Reading the text is not simply focusing on ‘feeling,’  ‘word’, or a ‘lesson’ that the reader feels right. But Bible DTS emphasizes consistent inductive conversation with God as the reader reads the text and knowing the whole content, flow, and what the Bible wants to say. This process would help the student to listen to what God says to them through the author and the original recipient of the text. By doing so, they will not only avoid errors in the interpretation that people easily make. As they focus on the “text” rather than “words” or “feelings” they can understand the original meaning of the Word and would be able to illuminate their lives with it.

Application of the Truth through reading and sharing the Word

Did you know that the Bible is written for us, but not to us? What thoughts did you have in your mind when you read the Bible? Have you read the Bible, thinking about what Genesis means and how many of the rituals in Leviticus have something to do with you today? Did you think that the Old Testament was no longer relevant to you because Jesus had already come?

In Bible DTS, the student would read 66 books of the Bible with an overview from an inductive observation, and learn why the author wrote the books and what it meant to the original recipients. 

Rather than reading the Bible literally or simply to fulfill a year’s reading plan, the student would read it with understanding how we should live as children of God by experiencing the Word that God has been speaking to us from the beginning until present, and stands forever. They would also discover how they have an intimate relationship with the Father through the Word.

Outreach to distribute the Bible and share the Word

In July 2019, after the closing of the DBS in April, several staff and students took a journey to Mongolia to join the End Bible Poverty (a Bible distribution ministry). The actual goal was to distribute the Bible in the language of the country to each Mongolian family. What we could do as foreigners in that ministry was just to listen to their stories and prayed for them. But God worked wonderfully in that ministry. It was also the time to experience God as a leader in greater than man’s plans and projects. It was an experience standing directly in God’s timeline.

When we returned to Jeju from Mongolia thanking the Father for those memories, God poured out His burden on us that the same ministry should happen in Jeju. So far, the U of N has been working hard for the community in Jeju cleaning up for the neighborhood, serving food at a nursing home, making good relationships in various ways, etc. But God told us that now is the time that the Word of God should be distributed to each household in Jeju. 

That’s why Bible DTS goes out to the neighborhood and distributes the Bible every Friday to preach the gospel of God. We may be rejected or perhaps receive criticism, but we want to obey God’s Word and boldly working to be His instruments standing on God’s timeline.

Within YWAM, many schools use special utilities for ministries (SUM) for outreach. But oftentimes SUM is limited in a few kinds. Bible DTS conducts SUM based on “Inductive Bible Observation,” which we practiced throughout the training period. We look forward to what God will do in the land where He sends us as we share the Scriptures that are the foundation of our training!

Expectations After Bible DTS

The Bible DTS, like other DTSs at YWAM, will raise disciples who love God and go where God sends them and influence the land by preaching and obeying the gospel. We hope to see the student would advance to DBS with the heart to know God more after Bible DTS and continually grow in faith standing firmly on the foundation of the Word.