On April 21, the Columbia Bible College community joined together to celebrate our 76th Graduating Class. With 147 students in caps and gowns, it was our biggest graduating class ever. Over the past 4 years our community has been blessed to have several outstanding individuals. Nicholas Pope, a Biblical Studies graduate, is an extraordinary student with a deep passion for social justice and a genuine love for his neighbour. Nicholas shared the following part of his story with his friends and family during the graduation banquet.
"Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Great is his power, infinite is his wisdom, and relentless is his love.
I came to Columbia four years ago, and I am now a very different person than I was back then. My life has been affected by the community around me, my thinking has matured, and my understanding of what it means to truly follow God has become more accurate.
In my first year of Columbia I was readily embraced by a community. I was in Quest, where the idea of being fully known and fully loved was emphasized, allowing me to be vulnerable and make good relationships that spurred me on to seek God and love others more. In this community, I was encouraged to face the challenges I had not wanted to deal with, including the challenge of relationship with my family. It was here that I started to realize that I should not just leave them behind as a part of my past life, that it is so important to try to reconcile those relationships. This started a slow journey of trying to change old habits and ways of relating with them, and it’s still an ongoing process that might take a while, but God has brought me this far. He has convicted me, guided me and given me people to support me as I seek to live out the ministry of reconciliation and ethic of love that he has given us.
This community he gave me was so good, yet I valued his gifts above him, the giver. The summer after Quest, I realized that I was loving relationships with people more than relationship with God, and this was idolatry. Community is great, but not when it is relied upon more than him. People are not God, and they will fail us. Trying to get my fulfillment in life from having good relationships with people did not work out, and even caused some harm in relationships as I expected from my friends what only God could give. So, I asked God to help me put him first, and he answered.
Returning to Columbia, I found myself without many good relationships as nearly everyone I knew from the year before had not returned. From this position of aloneness, God drove me to seek him and find my fulfillment in him. I was blessed by the many opportunities there were to join with others in trying to seek God and be in relationship with him through prayer. In this time, though I often found it hard to see or hear God, somehow, in the very act of seeking I think I may have found him. And although I often felt alone, through seeking God I found community with others who were seeking him as well.
This community has been so important to me especially in my later years at Columbia. Throughout my time here, I have been on a journey of seeking the truth - seeking the truth about God, about life, about who I am; about ethics, the Bible, relationships, history - seeking a truth that is useful and guides me into a better way of living. This has led me to ask many questions. I have had to ask questions about the very core elements of my faith, and challenge my most basic presuppositions about life. This has at times been very unsettling, leaving me confused and uncertain about my beliefs, yet this community has helped me through the process. At Columbia I have enjoyed the safety a place where I can be completely intellectually honest without fear of rejection or condemnation. I have been surrounded by others who are going through the same process, giving me a sense of normalcy in the my tumultuous journey. And I have been provided with many different voices from books, students and profs, so that I could make informed decisions and be cautioned when my thinking is leading me to be less loving. It has been so freeing to be able to be intellectually honest and seek the truth no matter how unsettling it may be.
In my seeking of truth, I have been led to a much better understanding of what it means to truly follow God. Coming into Columbia I had no desire to pursue a secular profession because I wanted to follow him fully with my whole life. I did not want to seek my own gain during the day and only seek him on Sundays and evenings, or just live out my faith by doing something as trivial as being nice to people. But, in my time here, I’ve seen how I do not need to be in a traditional ministry position to live a life of ministering. I have been shown how important faith is to every aspect of the world, not just the parts traditionally labelled “spiritual.”
I have been shown that true faith requires having such a trust in God’s salvation that I take the risks and act for the purposes of his kingdom in such a way that would be considered foolish by the world - That would be considered foolish if not for the reality of a saving God. That true faith is not having all of my systematic theology figured out, but is seeking justice, loving people, and walking humbly in the will of my God.
And so, I see my faith leading me into the ministry of the legal profession. To help protect the rights of the oppressed and be part of a movement for justice. In these four years I have learned more of the character and will of God. Now I hope to clothe this knowledge with fitting action and go to law school to learn another skill which I can use to take part in the inbreaking of his kingdom into this world. I want to be open to be someone God will use to bring freedom - freedom to those enslaved in the chains of physical oppression by humanity’s greed, and freedom to those enslaved in the chains of the North American myths that say that consumerism and entertainment will bring them fulfillment in life.
In all of this, I confess to you, that I do not really know what I’m doing. I’m just a fool searching for his father. I am still seeking to try to know him and love him, and to love people both those who are close to me and those who are far. I do not have a grasp on God, but I believe that he has his grasp on me.
I am so thankful for my time at Columbia. It has had its confusions and struggles, but there have also been so many simple joys. Communal meals in the dinning hall, unit meetings, Vespers, talent shows, camping trips, coffees, sunny days, snowy days, walks, games, study parties, Greek, and all the crazy things we got up to in guys’ dorms - God’s hand has been over it all.
Blessed are you, oh Lord our God, king forever!"
Nicholas graduated in April with a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies. This summer he will be working on a leadership team for the camp he has served at for several years before pursing his vocational goals in Law. Nicholas is pictured here at Petra last summer on a trip to the Holy Land as a part of his Biblical Studies degree. To learn more about Biblical Studies at Columbia visit www.columbiabc.edu/biblicalstudies.
