The Truth for Today World Mission School began its first online program, throughthescriptures.com, on Sept. 1, 2015.
Truth for Today is a nonprofit organization dedicated to world evangelism. With its biblical education courses now available online, the gospel is now in all the world and available to everyone via the Internet.
“It’s exciting to see the gospel being shared in this way,” said sophomore Wesley Hargon, a Bible and family ministry major who interned with Truth for Today during the summer of 2015.
Truth for Today began in 1983 as an answer to the question, “What is Harding University doing to help preaching students once they graduate?” Eddie Cloer, a professor of Bible and preaching at Harding University, directed the creation of the organization, and still oversees much of its work.
The nonprofit organization provides in-depth commentaries on every book of the Bible in 23 languages, and mails them to 30,000 people a month.
However, these commentaries were available only in physical book form, and it became increasingly difficult to manually send commentaries across the organization’s selected 146 nations, according to Cloer. Truth for Today began reevaluating its non-digital relevance in the world, and three years ago started researching the possibilities of Internet evangelism.
“If we’re trying to reach out into all the earth, we have to get with it,” Cloer said.
After three years of work and research, throughthescriptures.com was launched to students worldwide, with commentaries and education programs on the New Testament and 70 percent of the Old Testament ready from launch.
“It’s cool to know that you’re a part of something big, a vision that, at times, might seem unattainable,” said sophomore Abby Kilgore, who interned with Truth for Today during the 2015 summer. “The practice behind it, and the ideals, are really cool, so it’s nice to know that maybe it was just a small part, but it helped towards a much bigger goal.”
According to Cloer, the online program is scheduled to have the entire school online in all 23 languages by 2020. In addition to global evangelism, Truth for Today hopes to give students at secular universities and home-schooled organizations an opportunity for a Christian education.
Harding students are welcome to participate in the organization’s online program as well. Available classes range from courses covering the entire Bible to courses on specific books. A course costs $35, and is fully customizable depending on the student’s academic level.
Cloer said students can also help by spreading the good news that Truth for Today makes accessible.
“This very thorough study of the Bible, there’s nothing like it on Earth that we know of,” Cloer said. “The problem is that no one knows about it, and that’s how students can help us.”
