In a follow-up interview with Bible teacher Lee, we asked him some questions regarding his time in America, his experiences with the Bible and his plans for the future.
You’ve previously spoken about why you moved to Hungary, but what originally made you want to teach the Bible?
I became a Christian in 1998 and I’ll tell you what that means to me. That means that I committed my life to obeying the Bible. A year later, when I was 24, my Church sent some money and vitamins to a group of Christians in Russia after the Ruble had crashed. I visited these Christians and observed that they were obeying the Bible, but didn’t necessarily know much about it. For example, whilst I was there I heard the questions, “What do you mean I can’t lie? Why can’t I lie?” That seemed so basic, it floored me. Even people who don’t claim to be Christian or don’t claim to follow the Bible know that you just don’t lie. This is what initially made me want to teach the Bible, as there are people out there so without knowledge who I could help.
From your experience, have you found there to be any particular areas of the Bible that people are most interested in or struggle to interpret?
I find that people are most interested in life after death and what happens after we die, which of course is what the Bible is about. That excludes those who debate whether the Bible is authentic. I believe it is and I have my reasons to believe it is. Not everybody has done the homework and so they think it is just another book and that’s reasonable to think initially. But eventually you must research this.
There is also a general thought that it is okay for people to interpret things differently, which is how literature is approached. For example, what do you get out of Shakespeare’s plays when you read them? What do his sonnets mean to you? What do they mean to me?
The difference is the Bible teaches that it is written by God, so He is the one who gets to tells us what it means and we have to discover it. “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God”. (1 Peter 1:20) We don’t get to come to it and say “I think this is what it means to me”.
You’ve previously explained different extracts of the Bible, but what story or quote is your favourite and why?
I don’t have a favourite, but the one I’m going to use right now is “No-one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (John 1:18) There are two personalities here; the Father and the Son. Nobody has seen God, the Father, at any time; by definition we cannot see God. The only begotten God, the Son, who came and lived incarnate in the world, has explained Him. There is another passage which says that “God is love.” (1 John 4:16) For lack of a better description, God is a great ball of love. By that, I don’t mean a grandfather in the sky because God is just and has wrath and anger. But, He is a God of love. We have never seen Him and we don’t know what that means because we’re human beings. We fight wars. I want what I want and I’m selfish at times. God is selfless. We don’t know what selfless means unless somebody shows us. Jesus came and lived down on Earth and said look, this is what God means when He says He is love and we need to love each other.
What did you do in America before you moved, and where did you live?
15 years ago, before becoming a Bible teacher, I worked in telecommunications. I lived in New York State and I still own a house there.
Do you ever miss America and, if so, what do you miss in particular?
The only thing that I really miss in America is the property that my house is on, because it is a place where my children could play. However, Györ has beautiful parks and I take my children there all of the time.
How are you finding learning the language?
It sounds like you can speak it well! All of the foreigners say that I can speak it very well! We have a teacher who we study with twice a week for three hours a time. I measure my success in baby steps, but I’ve learned to appreciate the baby steps.
Apart from America, Hungary and Russia, are there any other countries where you have taught the Bible?
I’ve worked in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Canada, Italy and Belize. I’ve been to England before but I’ve never taught there.
Finally, are you planning to stay in Györ or will you travel and continue to teach elsewhere? If so, where are you planning to go next?
The Church that we left in the United States really wants us back and we are humbled by that. We would like to go back, but not if there is very obvious work to do here. If we can find people who want to study the Bible and commit their lives to it like I did, then they need to be grounded, which takes time. But it’s fun to teach people, especially when you see their eyes light up as they learn. Any teacher who loves their job experiences that. There are also some Churches in the Czech Republic that may want us to go and help them. It’s exciting.
To contact Lee to study the Bible: [email protected]
+36 70 216 5242
Jay Moore