A Short Story of the Los Angeles Bible Institute
"A Short Story of the Los Angeles Bible Institute" is a historical sketch of the founding of Biola that appeared in The King's Business volume 1 issue 11, 1910, pp 171-173.
Here is the text of the article:
A Short Story of the Los Angeles Bible Institute
Why a Bible Institute?
Bible Schools are a product of the times –an outgrowth of certain conditions; they are God’s agency for an emergency. God foresees a need and supplies it. He laid the foundations over a quarter of a century ago, when the work of undermining the faith in the Word of God began to take definite shape in this country. God must have workmen and they must be trained in His Word. At present comparatively few men are entering the ministry. Many large seminaries are destitute of students. Hundreds of small churches are without pastors. Other hundreds are closed entirely. There are thousands of unoccupied fields throughout the land, and more than half of the earth’s inhabitants have never heard the Gospel. There are constant calls for men and women who can do things for God. The Church needs Sunday School teachers, helpers, evangelists, and leaders who know the Bible, and it is to meet this demand that God has raised up in different sections of the land Bible Schools where men and women can be trained in a knowledge of the Bible and practical work in the saving and sanctifying of souls. These schools are not theological seminaries; they are not designed to be competitors –they could not be. The Bible is the book of the common people, and a working knowledge of the Bible is the first great requisite in equipment for service among the people, and to give this instruction is the task committed by God to Bible Institutes.
The Los Angeles Bible Institute is an incorporated institution with an uncompromising Bible standard, for which it makes no apology. It is fair to those who are in any way interested that its doctrinal position should be clearly stated.
We hold to the historic faith of the evangelical church, and teach:
The Trinity of the Godhead.
The Deity of the Christ.
The Personality of the Holy Spirit.
The Supernatural and Plenary authority of the Holy Scriptures.
The Fellowship of the Church.
The Substitutionary Atonement.
The Necessity of the New Birth.
The Maintainance of Good Works.
The Second Coming of Christ.
The Immortality of the Soul.
The Resurrection of the Body.
The Life everlasting of Believers.
The Endless Punishment of the Impenitent.
The Reality and Personality of Satan.
Our position is INTERDENOMINATIONAL.
All of the above doctrines are held by many members in good standing in the various evangelical churches. We hold no fads or fancies. The text book is the English Bible. We seek to present truth in its proper proportion, as the Spirit has given it in the Word.
Many denominations are represented on our Board and Faculty. The Dean of our school, Mr. W. E. Blackstone, is an honored and greatly beloved layman of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and our students represent almost all evangelical denominations.
The Purpose
The Institute has but one purpose in its work –the qualifying of men and women f or service in any field to which the Lord in His providence may call them. There are no charges for tuition; the work is a labor of love. We seek to be a real blessing to every evangelical church, and to the largest number of individuals possible. We are under no obligation to any denomination, and will not curry favor with any sect or individual.
The Officials
The foundation of the school has been laid upon broad lines for large and permanent usefulness. The faculty is composed of strong Bible men, who bring to their service a large, practical experience in definite Christian work; men who have been successful as teachers, preachers, evangelists and leaders in aggressive business for God.
The School seeks to give in a two years’ course a practical working knowledge of the whole Bible. The curriculum includes: Books of the Bible, The Great Doctrines, Chapter Studies, Homiletics, Church History, Practical and Personal Work, and Missions. The Course is thorough and the examinations are rigid.
Extension Work
The Institute work is not confined to the work within its building, but conducts classes in different sections of the city, and in the surrounding cities and towns.
Theory and Practice
The breadth of the work can only be comprehended by personal touch with all of its departments. The Institute has become a rallying center for the study of the Word, and a radiating center for various forms of aggressive Christian work. The Institute has supported eight Bible Women, who have been engaged in house-to-house visitation and the conducting of Bible classes in churches and homes; a successful Mission among the twenty thousand Mexicans; two workers giving their whole time to service among the Jews; two workers in the shops and factories where successful meetings are held every week in the year; one worker working among the men on the aqueduct and two men among the oil fields; three evangelists have held services from San Diego to Washington; and these combined workers have held in the last year over 3000 meetings, and over 2000 have confessed conversion.
The Young People
No part of our service has had greater significance than has our touch with the young people of the city. Hundreds of them are enrolled in our Monday and Tuesday evening classes, and the monthly meeting of these combined classes with the young people is one of the most impressive and blessed meetings ever held in our city.
The entering wedge of paganism is in this fair state of ours. Our sister city on the North, with more than 400,000 inhabitants, has but 12,000 evangelical church members –one out of every thirty-three of the people are strangers to the evangelical Gospel. There are great fields throughout the State without any Gospel privileges. Many of them we have visited. The near future will bring to us through the Panama Canal, thousands of unevangelized people. We must reach this people with the Gospel or they will reach us and our children with their infidelity. This State is the hot-bed for all sorts of fads and fancies which deny the Deity of our Lord. These are not new but as old as the devil himself, and fraught with awful danger to all of our institutions. The followers of these devilish systems are indefatigable in their efforts to sow the seed of destruction, and we must evangelize the State with the Gospel of God or be evangelized with the doctrines of devils. This condition makes it imperative upon the people of God, who are true to the Truth, to unite in an effort to stem the tide.
The Ideal Place
Los Angeles is the logical place for a great Bible Institute. Our wonderful climate affords the privilege of living out doors all the year around. The living is cheap, the cosmopolitan character of the city makes possible the study of the peoples from all sections of the earth, and gives opportunity for practical work in their midst.