COLLEGE CHAPLAIN

Students Handling the Truth

This week College history was made as students preached for the first time at Chapel. Fellowship Captains, Meg Graham and Rebecca Scott, have been meeting regularly with myself since their appointment to the role and have complemented their ministry gifting with guidance in how to establish the context of a passage of Scripture, exegete verses, extract key themes and words and then craft the homiletics of their message. 

This pattern of training and charging the next generation of preachers emerges from pastoral letters of Scripture such as 2 Timothy where the elder Paul commends Timothy the younger to ‘Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth’ (2:15). 

Later Paul emphatically charges: ‘In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction’ (4:1-2). These are aspirations that I prayerfully hope to attain through the Spirit’s equipping in my ministry as College Chaplain, and I am confident that Meg and Rebecca pursue these ideals too. Certainly, the result was evident in their honest, humble and heartfelt preaching on Matthew 28:16-20, a passage known as The Great Commission:

‘Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”’

I was particularly encouraged by Meg and Rebecca's willingness to not only preach for their peers, but to have their message broadcast on YouTube. Both girls have expressed a desire to step up to the pulpit again and I personally give thanks for God’s kindness in the growth of godliness in these and many other students on campus. I am prayerfully excited to see how the Gospel will be made known by our students in the times ahead.

You can watch Meg and Rebecca's Chapel message at the link above or subscribe to the podcast.

Gareth Tyndall | College Chaplain