As we read the Scriptures we see that there aren’t many issues the Lord takes more seriously than the matter of leadership amongst his people. God holds pastors and teachers to a higher standard because their character and doctrine, in larger measure, determines the life of their community.
In the Pastoral epistles Paul lays out the blueprint for identifying, developing and multiplying church leaders to be faithfully followed in the household of faith. At the center of this task stands Paul’s solemn charge to his faithful disciple: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Not incidentally, this is the motto and the goal of the Italian Theological Academy. I am so grateful for the tremendous privilege to be involved in facilitating biblical training to those men who desire to be faithful to God’s call in their life through ITA’s church-based programs.
Earlier this year I taught a hermeneutics course to a group of men from Ukraine who are currently living, working, and serving Christ in Milan, Genoa, Perugia and Naples. By God’s providence here is a fairly large Ukrainian diaspora in Italy. As Ukraine has one of the largest Evangelical communities in all of Europe, there are a number of comparatively large and growing Slavic churches in Italy.
However, as just in Ukraine, there is a great need and demand for biblical education, discipleship, and leadership development, so is the case in the expat communities. Slavic churches in Ukraine, as well as abroad, typically do not practice Bible exposition, the concept of plurality of elders, have little theological knowledge, are tradition and sometimes work-oriented, and have almost no discipleship ministry. Although the churches are typically zealous for personal and organized Evangelism, new believers often remain spiritually immature and malnourished, since the whole council of God is not expounded for the people.
This is why biblical training is so necessary and sought after. A Ukrainian pastor who shepherds a Slavic Baptist church in Perugia approached the leadership of ITA which had just started a training program in the local church in Perugia. He has been trying to stir his congregation towards Bible exposition and discipleship, in part because of the influence of John MacArthur and Alexei Kolomiytsev. He has experienced the transforming power of God’s Word in his own life and ministry and was hungry for more training and tools to study and teach the Scriptures, according to the original intent of its Author and for the glory of Christ.
Although he, along with three other brothers from his church, attended the first class in Italian, he has expressed a desire to continue training in his native language, since reading, homework, and resources in his mother tongue would allow for a more efficient educational process, as he is, like most Ukrainians, a bi-vocational minister. Grigoriy also shared with ITA’s leadership that there are other men in Italy who are involved in ministry and desire to acquire the requisite skill to teach and preach God’s Word faithfully. After some prayer and consideration, the decision was made to offer the opportunity for Ukrainian brothers to study the Scriptures in their own languages.
Partnering up with TMAI’s training ministry in Ukraine lead by Greg White, who has faithfully and sacrificially served the Lord with his family in Kiev, Ukraine since 1992, ITA was able to arrange for a Ukrainian professor (who happens to be me!) to make the trip to Perugia in June and conduct the first weekend-long training seminar. The topic was general hermeneutics, principles for interpreting Scripture. I was glad to teach this subject not only because I taught biblical interpretation and exposition in our school Ukraine and written some on the subject, but also since the issue of biblical interpretation is crucial in one’s walk with the Lord.
With the approval of ITA’s leadership and the gracious hospitality of the Italian church hosting ITA’s training for Italian speakers, we’ve agreed to use a syllabus developed for the Russian speakers in another TMAI training canter in Russia, but comparable to the one used in the Italian language. As Massimo Molica taught in Italian, our group of six Ukrainian brothers, met in an adjacent room. We had coffee breaks, lunches and dinners together, though, sharing what we are learning and fellowshipping with one another in a common dining area, which was a wonderful opportunity for the Ukrainian and Italian brothers to get to know one another and develop relationships.
The class was somewhat of challenge not only because of the amount of the material (we had over 100 pages to cover since we had to catch up to our Italian brothers who were already one full weekend of training ahead of us) and an intense schedule, nearly a 12-hour study session on Saturday, bracketed by an evening session of Friday and an afternoon one on Sunday, but also because of the diverse educational background of the group.
Some men have had no formal training before, while others were more familiar with the subject. However, all have shared that they benefitted from the class immensely, as they were encouraged to be diligent students of the Word, as well as to faithfully apply it in their own lives and ministry. We emphasized such fundamental presuppositions of biblical interpretation as the definitive role of authorial intent and the principle of single meaning. We’ve also underscored the significance of context in studying Scripture. Ample examples of the use and abuse of grammar, culture, history were supplied for the students who joyfully engaged and dialogued with the instructor and repeatedly acknowledged past wrongdoings and plead guilty of numerous cases of eisegesis.
As a result, they expressed a common commitment to be men of God and men of the Word, as well as to strive persistently to discover what God has to say in this or that text, rather than relying on one’s own intuition and tradition. We are all thankful to the Lord and to our gracious Italian hosts for this wonderful opportunity and hope it will be used to strengthen Christ’s church and equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
By God’s grace,
Mykola Leliovskyi
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