Global InSights

Christopher M. Hays

Like Luke

Over my years of graduate work and missionary service, I have been cobbling together a picture of Luke the Evangelist. It is slow going. The historical data is sparse. Unlike the Apostle Paul, whose personality and biography are easily identifiable on the surface of his epistles, Luke keeps himself mostly off the page. Still, with

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Global InSights News

Tekle Belachew Nigru

Paschal as a Pillar of Mystery: A Reflection from Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Orthodox catechetical tradition, which has been developing since the 15th century, is expressed through “The Five Pillars of the Mystery” or “Amstu Aemade Mistrate.” The pillars include the Holy Trinity, Incarnation, Baptism, Eucharist, and Resurrection. In a commentary on this creed, known as “Tselote-Haymanot,” the meaning of the resurrection is articulated as follows:

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Global InSights

Matthias Gergan

Who Am I? Where Do I Belong?

We rattled along the road to a centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist monastery in a rickety Japanese van. The latest hits on the U.S. charts blared on the stereo. We shouted in a mix of Hindi, Urdu, English, Nepali, and Ladakhi, trying to be heard over the racket of the music and the van bouncing over the

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Global InSights

Grace Al-Zoughbi

Why Should Theological Education Include Women?

It is six o’clock on a Friday morning in Bethlehem. The sky is breathtakingly clear. The bright sun has risen, but the streets are still quiet. I acknowledge afresh how blessed I am that I can see, across the skyline, the Church of the Nativity – the site traditionally considered to be Jesus’s birthplace –

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Global InSights

2021 ScholarLeader of the Year

Redeeming Suffering: A Profile of Elizabeth Sendek

“God defeats Satan, evil, and sin through suffering. Is that not the case in Jesus’s acceptance of the most shaming and cruel death of his day? He triumphed over the ultimate enemy precisely by surrendering to it,” Elizabeth Sendek writes in Christianity Today (2010). Rather than conquer suffering by escaping it, Christians conquer suffering by

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Global InSights

Taras Dyatlik

Speaking of Pain & Waiting

Editor’s Note: The following essay presents meditations from Taras Dyatlik that he originally posted as bite-sized pieces on Facebook in January and February 2021. A Ukrainian with long experience in the eastern area now occupied by Russia, Taras knows firsthand about pain. He has lost family and friends to violence yet rejects the bitterness that

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Global InSights

Oriental Theological Seminary Staff

Living Theology: The Seminary as a Quarantine Center

The coronavirus pandemic has not spared even a remote place like Nagaland in northeast India, where Oriental Theological Seminary (OTS) is located. When India’s government announced a lightning lockdown on March 23, 2020, millions of migrant workers suddenly left large cities for their hometowns. Those from Nagaland who were either studying or earning a living

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Global InSights

“The Only Place of Peace”: The Seminary as Refuge

In English, “sanctuary” means both “place of worship” and “place of refuge” – a double meaning that many Majority World seminaries live out. During COVID-19, several Majority World seminaries housed students trapped by lockdowns. Sudanese students in Lebanon were ten minutes from the airport when it closed; they returned to Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (VSI).

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Global InSights

Why a Christian University?: David & Kaswera Kasali

“We experienced the gift of lamentation,” David Kasali says, remembering the “Great African War” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). When it began, David was working in Kenya as Vice Chancellor (President) of Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST). He had rescued NEGST, uniting a fractured faculty and rebuilding finances and facilities.  But

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Global InSights

“I’ve Never Seen Myself So Beautiful”: Marcio & Michelle Carvalho

In 1988, Antonio Barro began a Doctorate in Missiology at Fuller Theological Seminary. On his scholarship application to ScholarLeaders, he wrote, “The church [in Brazil] is [awakening] for missions…. The preparation that we get… gives us confidence in developing our own ministry.” Over thirty years later, Antonio’s PhD, supported by ScholarLeaders, has yielded the “hundredfold” fruit of

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Global InSights

2018 ScholarLeader of the Year

You Are Human When You Serve Others: Emiola Nihinlola

Decisive Leadership In 2016, Emiola Nihinlola gathered the staff of Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary (NBTS) in Ogbomosho, Nigeria. They had just finished months of planning alongside the ScholarLeaders Vital SustainAbility team to create a strategy for strengthening NBTS. Just one facet of that strategy – a solar energy project – would take over two years to

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