50 Years Building His Kingdom - Far Eastern Bible College

Life
Bible-Presbyterian
Church
Kenya Ghana Liberia Ethiopia
Rev. Dr Timothy
Tow, MDiv, STM,
DD - Principal, and
Lecturer in
Systematic
Theology, FEBC
Page 112
India
England Scotland
Nepal
“Our
sons and
daughters
hail from
countries far and
near”
Myanmar
Thailand
Malaysia
Indonesia
Norway
Cambodia
biblical scholarship. The first and most
important period of the day is the morning
chapel. Besides their private devotions, students
also keep morning devotions in small
groups. Prayer meetings are held every
Thursday night. All students serve in some
capacity in a local church to practise what
they have learned in
school. The
student
China
Vietnam
Brunei
Korea
Taiwan
Philippines
Australia
Japan
Palau
New Zealand
Canada
USA
Argentina
body
goes out
tracting every Wednesday
afternoon, culminating in a Gospel rally towards
the end of the semester. During the
college holiday, students engage in shortterm
missions, or teach in church camps
and retreats. Foreign students usually return
to their home countries to contribute
to their respective home churches. Practical
courses are offered regularly to teach
students the “how” of ministry. Of all such
courses, homiletics (i.e. how to preach) is
by far the most important. Every student
will have to preach ‘live’ in the principal’s
homiletics “swimming pool,” the
highlight of the college week. Sink or
swim, budding preachers are thrown into
the deep end. Fellow trainees participate
by giving constructive comments, under
the careful supervision of the principal.
As regards biblical scholarship,
FEBC offers a Bible-centred curriculum,
based on Greek and Hebrew. In an age
when seminaries are minimising the importance
of the biblical languages, FEBC
maintains the traditional requirement of
three years of Greek (14 credits), and two
years of Hebrew (10 credits) in its Master
of Divinity programme. Bachelor of Theology
students are required to take two
years of either Hebrew or Greek. A thesis
is required of all degree candidates. Besides
the standard programmes of BTh and
MDiv, the college also offers the DipTh,
BRE, MRE, ThM, and two certificate
courses for the laity. The certificate courses
can be pursued externally. We are glad to
note the increasing interest and attendance
in our “Basic Theology for Everyone”
night classes. Many lay people are taking
these evening courses for credit, steadily
working towards the Certificate of Religious
Knowledge or Certificate of Biblical
Studies. Although FEBC is established
to train full-time ministers, it nevertheless
considers the training of the laity to be an
essential component in her role as the
church’s handmaid in fulfilment of the
Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20).
FEBC was constituted to propagate
the Reformed and premillennial faith which
we believe is closest to the truth. This Reformed
and premillennial system of theology
the college inherited from Faith Theological
Seminary (USA) where our founding
principal studied under such theological
greats as Carl McIntire, Allan MacRae,
J O Buswell, R Laird Harris, and John
Sanderson. It may be said that FEBC is the
Faith of the Far East. Indeed, a pro-Israel
premillennial view of the end-times is most