T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
September, 1938
293
The Problem of the Bible Institute
Christian training is seldom paid for. It is a preparation for a voca tion whose workers’ talent is to be offered to any one and every one. There shall never be a financial side to its service. However, like any other profes sion, its study requires time and often great personal sacrifice. Young people called by God to this work seldom come from families of great means. Their ambition is to serve humbly and faithfully in far-away mission stations if possible, in city missions, in jails and hospitals, or in their home churches and Sunday- schools. Freely and unstintedly will they give of their knowledge and sympathy, and their very lives. Christians usually support such work sacrificially, but sometimes through a lack of appreciation of the great issues involved, their giving is haphazard, and occasional. Yet Christian training is a work that cannot be interrupted. Whether you believe that a great revival is im minent, or whether you look for ward only to the calling out of a small minority before the end, you will want to help to send laborers in to the harvest field. Untrained work ers are not usually able to present the claims of Christ effectively. From apostolic days to the present, separation from the world for prayer, meditation and study has always preceded revivals. The Bible Institute movement is neither more nor less than a modern form of this first century method. The selection of “seven men of honest report’’ (Acts 6 :3 ) to “serve
TH E MILLION-DOLLAR BU ILD INGS OF TH E B IBLE IN ST ITU T E BLOCK, LOS ANGELES: The central building long used for the Institute’s auditorium is now owned by the Church of the Open Door. The other two thirteen-story height- limit structures are the dormitories of more than six hundred rooms. The left-hand building is now leased to the Hotel Willard. The other will house the 350 students expected at the opening of the Fall Term.
tables,” is perhaps the first recorded instance of laymen’s help in gospel work: yet the whole New Testament fairly teems with such incidents. God unquestionably intended and works by the Holy Spirit at this time to call and dedicate young lives to gospel work and home and for eign mission fields. Surely there must be adequate training provided from year to year where, without cost, the sound gospel shall be You can search the world and not find (1 ) a better location for the op eration of a Bible Institute than in this city of Los Angeles, nor (2 ) a better equipped plant for this work than the steel and concrete, mid-city buildings built for this purpose in which the Institute is now housed. There are in this nation over 5,000 towns and villages (many of them in this section of the United States) where no form of Christian worship is provided. There are more than 27,000,000 children of Sunday- school age who are outside of all Sunday-schools. W e do not have to dread a rever sion to paganism. This country is pagan today. Godlessness reigns. Homes are split by divorces: the streets are filled with unevangelized youth: penitentiaries are crowded taught to these aspirants. The Opportunity of This Institute
with young men; crime is rampant, and class bitterness and civil strife are increasing. Again, Los Angeles is the door way to the Orient. O f all the Bible Institutes in the nation this one alone supports a sister Institute abroad, for the Hunan Bible Institute of China is maintained by the Bible In stitute of Los Angeles. Organizing for Action The reorganized; Bible Institute of Los Angeles, with its debts read justed, has only its annual budget to ¡study and to raise. Although the analysis is not completed at this writing, it would appear that an average annual contribution of $125,000.00 would carry forward the educational work of the Institute and enable the school to give Chris tian training to some 1,450 young people: 350 in its day courses and 100 in its evening classes, 500 in its Correspondence School, and 500 in the China Bible Institute. In addition to these requirements, there is an accumulated deficit of $48,000.00, leaving us with $173,- 000.00 to raise within the next twelve months. Part of this amount is already assured to us through the pledges in our Go Forw ard and Honor Roll campaigns, so that the actual sum that we must face is al most exactly $135,000.00. Consequently 135 subscriptions of $1,000.00 each, payable within a year,
W I L L I A M G. NYMAN , Chairman of the Board of Di rectors of the Bible Institute of Los An geles, a su cce ssfu l b u sin ess man. To this Board is intrust ed the reorganiza tion and financing of the new In s titu te program.
CLAUDE A. WAT SON , the eminent Christian a tto rn e y who d ev ised th e w o rk a b le plan for Institute reorganiza tion, after many be lieved the situation hopeless.
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