Edinburgh Bible College
Biblical Training
EBC is committed to training that produces men and women who are steeped in the Scriptures and whose lives are shaped by their teaching
The need of the unbelieving world, the need of the local church, the need of the world of missions – now more than ever – is a generation of men and women who are
- conversant with the whole Bible
- convicted by the truths of the Bible
- convinced of the inerrancy, infalliblity and sufficiency of the Bible
- captivated in their own mind and heart by the Bible
- conformed to the teaching of the Bible
- committed to the ultimate authority of the Bible
- confident in the supernatural power of the Bible
- competent in teaching and preaching their Bible in such a way that doesn’t rob it of its supernatural power
Using the phrase ‘Bible Training that is Biblical’ ought to warrant an accusation of tautology, of repetition of words; yet sadly today it is possible to get training that is described as Bible Training and yet is not truly biblical – either because it has little real biblical content or because much of the teaching is not truly consistent with the Bible.
- take the student I know who graduated with a theology degree after three years at a leading evangelical college and estimated that he had spent less than 20% of the course actually studying the Bible and that there were large areas of the Bible he had not studied at all
- take another student known to me who said that she had been at Bible College for nearly a month before they opened their Bible in a class for study
- take the graduates I have interviewed for mission work who, after three years at Bible College, didn’t really know their Bibles and couldn’t clearly explain what they believed and why
I am a great believer in keeping things simple and so when we began to consider a new Bible College and were thinking of a name, it didn’t take much thought to come up with Edinburgh Bible College:
- Edinburgh, because that’s where we started life
- Bible, because that’s the focus of our training
- College, because that’s the usual name for a centre of training
You see, the clue is in the name. We do what it says on the tin. We train people in the Bible. Edinburgh Bible College.
Partly, but not exclusively, because of the pressure of secular academic regulators, too much time these days is taken in too many courses in studying subjects that may be about the Bible or related in some way to the Bible, but not enough time in actually studying the text, the content of the Bible itself. There are many subjects that need to be covered at Bible College, subjects like church history and missions, ethics and apologetics, biblical languages and doctrines. But the most important subject that needs to be fully and comprehensively covered is the Bible itself.
A student that leaves Bible College without having, to some extent at least, looked at the whole Bible, without having discovered the Bible’s big story line and chronology, and without knowing the basic message and application of each individual book of the Bible has been failed by the college and should seek a refund of their fees.
Tragically, after more than three decades of the current trends in Bible and theological training in the UK, the consensus, without exception, among everyone I have ever spoken to on the subject is that the church in general and Christians in particular are much less biblically literate than in previous times.
At Edinburgh Bible College we believe that the Bible itself has to be the basis and centre of all we do and teach. During a full two year Diploma course, students will be introduced to the every book of the Bible and will become familiar with its individual structure, theme and message as well as discovering how it contributes to the overall theme and unified message of the Bible.
Students will only be taught by men and women who are uncompromisingly committed to the inerrancy, infallibility, sufficiency and supreme authority of the Scriptures and who, in their teaching model a heart and life that is transformed by, saturated with and committed to the supernatural power of the Scriptures.
After all, that’s the point of Bible College, isn’t it?