Robert Lowery

Dear Readers,

It’s been a good summer for me, and I praise God for the time. First off, I was able to get significant rest (Doctor’s orders!). I feel the best I have felt in many months. My weight remains stabilized, my color is good, and my energy level, though still not up to where it was two or more years ago, is pretty decent.

Second, for the eighteenth summer I had the privilege of teaching at Haus Edelweiss, just outside of Vienna, Austria. This year I taught on the subject of eschatology to students from Russia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. What a marvelous group of people to study with!

Third, near the end of July our three families (Marilyn and me, Brian and Sarah and Eden, and Joe and Rachel, along with Carissa, Jocelyn and Dawson) spent a week together in beautiful Door County (Wisconsin).

Fourth, we returned from Wisconsin on Saturday, July 24, and departed for Brown County in southern Indiana on July 25 and stayed until July 30. A gracious friend provided funds for me to rent a small log cabin in the middle of the woods (a cabin built in the 1830s, by the way) so that I could have a getaway to write. And write I did. I praise God that I was able to finish the commentary up through Revelation 19, and I got a good start on Revelation 20-22. I ask you to join me in praying that, Lord willing, I will complete the work by the end of this calendar year. God provided the place for me to write and the funds to underwrite the project, and I am deeply grateful.

Finally, classes begin for me on Tuesday, August 31. For the twenty-seventh year I will be team-teaching Scripture in Context with my colleague and friend, Dr. Gary Hall. I have learned much from him over the years, and I am looking for joining with him once again. I am teaching I-II Thessalonians during the October intensive week and then Dr. Jeff Snell and I are teaching a class on preaching from the New Testament. We meet four times, one Thursday a month from September through December.

I am eager to begin and covet your prayers that I will teach with strength and clarity.

On Tuesday, September 7, I return to the hospital for a scan to see if the cancer has progressed any. Please pray for Marilyn and me and our family. We will be told the results on September 9. Frankly, I am praying for continued respite, but whatever the news, I hope that I may continue teaching and writing.

Your eternal friend,

Bob

In late July our three families took a vacation together, our first ever: Brian, Sarah, and Eden, along with Joe, Rachel, Carissa, Jocelyn, and Dawson, and Marilyn and me. We journeyed to beautiful Door County (Wisconsin) where we stayed a week. I loved the time together—the stories, the boat cruises, the miniature golf outings, the shopping, trying new restaurants and revisiting familiar ones, the laughter around the dining table, and countless conversations.

Marilyn and I had decided to take Carissa (6) and Jocelyn (4) with us a day or two ahead of the others. The first night we were scheduled to stay in the Milwaukee area. We had printed out directions but we got lost. We had rented a van, and the girls were sitting in the middle row and heard a rather spirited conversation going on between Papa and Grandma! Jocelyn piped up: “Papa, have you ever considered getting a Garmin GPS?” To which Carissa added, “Mommy and Daddy say that it has saved their marriage. Maybe it will help yours!” We all started laughing. The discussion was ended, and we found the hotel, at last. Marilyn had been right about what exit to take.

A few days later, I was sitting out on the deck of the house we had rented, enjoying the cool breeze coming off Lake Michigan. Jocelyn opened the sliding door and came out to join me. We were alone. She sat down beside me and reminded me of an encounter she and I had with a neighbor of ours in Lincoln just a few days earlier. This gracious neighbor had said to Jocelyn and me: “Bob, we pray for you often.” Jocelyn replied: “Well, we pray for papa every night!”

As we were sitting out on the deck, Jocelyn asked me how I was feeling. It had been a particularly demanding day–too much walking. I told her, and I asked her to pray for me. The darkness was coming on. Jocelyn grew silent, and I could barely make her out even though she was sitting right next to me. She was silent for several seconds. I asked her: “Jocelyn, what are you doing?” She replied: “Papa, you asked me to pray for you, and that is what I was doing. Daddy always tells Carissa and me that whenever someone asks us to pray, we should do so as soon possible.”

Amen!

By the way, late last week we bought a Garmin GPS. Our marriage is getting stronger.

Amen!

On August 1 I began my thirty-sixth year of teaching in the Seminary of Lincoln Christian University. I am blessed! The title of this posting describes how I have felt over the years. Of course, there have been ups and downs, but that is to be expected in ministry, isn’t it? But again, I am blessed!

I wish I could write that whenever I stepped into the classroom or whenever I met with students one-on-one or in a small group around a lunch table, I always did my best. That has not always been the case, but my students have been, for the most part, forgiving. Sometime ago I commented about a student who has either taken for credit or audited every class I have ever taught, “She has been to more of my classes than I have!” I confess that sometimes I showed up or phoned in a session. But I hope that has not happened often. The point is that after teaching all these years, each August I am re-energized to begin once again, and this year is not different.

But I begin this new school year with a request. The requst is awkward for me to raise, but here goes. As most of you know I have been an Adjunct Professor for TCM International Institute, a ministry committed to equipping Europeans and people living in Central Asia for ministry. I began my ministry with this outstanding organization in 1993 and have returned each summer to teach. I am blessed! Some of the finest students, faculty, administrators, and support personnel I have ever met are a part of TCMI.

Over the years I have tried to be a disciple-maker, both in the States and throughout Eastern Europe. My passion is to be a practioner-scholar and to help make more and better disciples of Jesus. I learned this from my mother and from my home church in Indianapolis, Indiana (Fairfax Christian Church), and numerous other Christians, from preachers to professors to students to friends to colleagues. In April of this year I found out that the TCM Board of Directors’ Meeting unanimously adopted a resolution to create the Dr. Robert Lowery Faculty Chair Endowment Fund. This endowment will be used to recognize and select a faculty member by supporting his or her base salary, teaching, and research activities that will directly relate for further development of international disciple makers throughout Europe and Central Europe. I was and remain humbled by this recognition. May I say again, I am blessed.

So here is my request. Should you or a congregation you know be looking for an opportunity to support one of the finest para-church ministries I know of, would you personally give or encourage others or other congregations to give? It is not like me to make such a request, and this is the first time I have ever done so on this site. Should you choose to give, it is not to honor me. Far from it, it is to honor God.

Please contact David Wright at TCM International Institute, Inc., 6337 Hollister Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46224 or call him at 1:317-299-0333. His e-mail address is david@tcmi.org.

May we be grateful to God that each of us can write: I am blessed.

News of the upcoming festschrift for Dr. Lowery (first announced here) was recently featured in the Springfield, Illinois, Journal-Register.  You’ll find the piece here:

Beloved professor subject of ‘writing party’

Dr. Lowery is taking some time this month for vacation and a brief writing sabbatical.  Look for new posts at the beginning of August.

A few days ago I had what I call a Deuteronomy 28:66-67 moment:

Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread, and have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening, you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your heart shall feel.

I tip my hat to the context: God is warning Israel about what will happen if the nation is not faithful to the covenant. But on this particular day, I applied the two verses to my life.

It had been a rough day. One of my friends had been wounded, and I did not know what to say or do. Ministry is like that on occasion. I was down about my physical and spiritual struggles. The night did not bring peace whatsoever. The Tempter stole his way into our house. I was alone, and I was overwhelmed by anxiety, frustration, and anger. So I got up out of bed and began cleaning—dusting, running the sweeper, putting things away, even doing a load of laundry. And I was still restless.

Around 1:45 I decided to listen once again to Northern Ireland’s Robin Mark. His newest recording is entitled Year of Grace and it is marvelous. One song especially brought comfort, “All is Well” (listen to the song on YouTube):

He lowers us to raise us
So we can sing his praises
Whatever is His way all is well
He makes us rich and poor
That we might trust Him more
Whatever is His way all is well
All my changes come from Him, He who never changes
I’m held firm in the grasp of the Rock of all the ages
All is well with my soul
He is God in control
I know not all his plans
But I know I’m in His hands
He clothes us now then strips us
Yet with His Word equips us
Whatever is His way all is well
And though our seasons change
We still exalt His name
Whatever is His way all is well

Some put their hope in chariots and princes. Others put their hope in the wisdom of oncologists, the cathedrals we call hospitals, and the nourishment we find in the latest medications. God can certainly use all these to bring healing. But they are worthless without faithful praying and hopeful living. Ultimately, I must place my faith in Jesus.

And so after listening to Robin Mark I went back to bed, prayed some, cried some, and remembered some, and then I fell asleep in Jesus. But the last song I thought of before I closed my eyes was a psalm that Jesus sang at the end of the Passover Meal as he was heading to the garden: I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. . . . This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:17-18,24).

One of my colleagues received a message from the Lord via one of our former seminary students:

The Lord said concerning Dr. Lowery that he is constantly receiving the glory that belongs to Him and that is why He will increase his infirmity. That dust he will come, dust he will go. He needs to repent. . . . I reluctantly did not want to deliver this message because I know that you and your colleagues might not receive this message, but I am doing this now because . . . as I go on my knees to pray, these words of the Lord are still heavy upon my heart. The Lord constantly asked me to deliver this message to you and this is why I am doing it right now to be free of any guilt. . . . If you and your colleagues have any questions regarding this message, I advise you to direct it to God for I am just the messenger and I do not have any answer.

In the last several months I have received many messages, but never one directly from the Lord via a self-styled prophet. I have received words of encouragement, challenges to examine my walk with the Lord, written prayers, and even counsel concerning remedies for the cancer.

Is this truly a message from the Lord? When I had the word passed on to me, I recalled I Thessalonians 5:19 where Paul writes: “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” The context clearly indicates that we must discern any prophetic messages and accept the good and reject the evil.”

I have concluded that the message is an evil word from a false prophet.

Read more…

Colleagues and friends–

I went to see my oncologist Thursday, June 17, after having had a scan earlier in week. The scan showed no new growth of additional tumors and no growth of the tumors already there. My doctor told us that given the kind of cancer I have, it was a delight for her to share with us that the cancer has not advanced in the last three months. She said this is quite remarkable. Praise the Lord! Of course, this does not mean that I am cancer-free, but at least it appears as if the current treatments are having some benefits. Her recommendation is that I continue taking the special cancer medication, continue getting a monthly injection to help minimize the symptoms, continue getting sufficient rest, and continue to monitor what I eat and drink. The key word that the doctor kept repeating is that I am currently stable. (For anyone in the Lowery family to be stable is quite remarkable!)

She encouraged me to do what I love to do: teaching, preaching, writing, mentoring students, spending time with family and friends, and in her words, “enjoying God’s goodness.”

Please join us in praising God for this respite, no matter how long it lasts. We thank you for being on this journey with us.

Dr. Lowery closed out the Seminary’s spring chapel sermon series with this message entitled, “Culmination: Our New Home.” His text was Revelation 2.

Audio (MP3) link to Lincoln Christian University

This piece by David Brooks, “Who is John Stott,” appeared in the November 30, 2004, edition of The New York Times. John Stott has been one of the most influential people in my life, even though from a distance. The first book I read by him was Basic Christianity, and I believe I have read every publication of his since the mid 1960s. I have heard him speak and briefly met him many years ago. He is a disciple of Jesus who models servant-leadership. May God raise up more men like him.