Bethlehem Bible College Offers a Course about Jesus’ Life and Teachings to the Community

Our Academic Office offered a course to the local community entitled “Jesus’s Life and Teachings.” The idea for the course came after we became aware of the need for society to learn more in-depth about the life of Jesus. The course was not the first of this kind. During the Corona pandemic, we started online courses for the community, and we are planning to do another course in Autumn.

The course was divided into four lectures. Mr. Ala’ Qassasfeh presented the first one on the cultural context of Jesus’s life and ministry. Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac gave the second lecture about the teachings of Jesus, especially the Kingdom of God. Mr. Yousef Al Khouri spoke in the third lecture about why Jesus had to die. With historical evidence of Jesus’ death, how is this theologically important? Finally, Mr. Haytham Dieck spoke about Jerusalem today in the last class, especially the Holy Sepulcher.

About the course, Mr. Yousef Al Khouri, Faculty of Biblical Studies and Tour Guiding, and Academic Dean Assistant for Extracurricular Programs, said: “A lot of our Christian society have the faith but not the experience. They don’t know the historical or cultural background of the people in the time of Jesus. This specific course came after many people started asking us to give them more detailed courses about the life of Jesus. The goal was to teach them about the life and teachings of Jesus through the cultural, social and historical context around it.”

“Interaction from people was more than great, people are thirsty and want to know and learn more. Through the course, they discovered that there is a lot of knowledge and information that gives depth and colors to the Bible, and they started to connect the events of the Bible with what they learned. For example, Mr. Ala’ Qassasfa taught them that children at that time were prone to die early and he explained why. So now they know and understand why Jesus especially loved children and they were significant to Him.”

He added: “We live in a Muslim society that rejects the death of Christ, so when I spoke about the crucifixion and death of Jesus, I gave historical evidence from outside the Bible, from historical documents that prove that.”

Mr. Yousef finished: “We tried to reconcile the full Christian faith with their faith because we felt that there is a historical gap, and through this course, we connected the past with the present.”