About John Claeys

John Claeys

Lead Instructor, LeTourneau University

Doctoral work, Phoenix Seminary

Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary

B.A., University of Northern Iowa

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After growing up on a farm in the heart of rural Iowa, John headed to the big city of Cedar Falls where he attended the University of Northern Iowa. After graduating with a B.A. in English, John taught high school English and coached football and track. Things were going well, and John had a comfortable life surrounded by good friends. However, he had such a strong hunger to know God’s word and teach it accurately that John risked it all and left everything behind by heading to Dallas, Texas to study at Dallas Theological Seminary.

While in Dallas, he obtained a Th.M. in New Testament Greek and gained much deeper insight into the word of God. In addition, God awarded him with a beautiful wife, as he met Connie at the beginning of his final semester in seminary. Thus, the risky move to Dallas became very well worth any sacrifice made to get there.

Though John loves all of the Bible, he has always had a special interest in Biblical prophecy—so much so that he spent untold hours writing his thesis on a specific area of prophecy. And since his graduation from DTS in 1984, John has spent more time than he could calculate (but that may be because he is not good at math) continuing to study eschatology. (Though John originally thought that eschatology was the study of eschats, it is actually a fifty-cent word for the study of future events predicted in the Bible. [This theological mistake is the only one John ever made—with the exception of two others: Early on, John thought that epistles were wives of the apostles; and he thought he made a theological mistake.])

Besides the study of the Bible, John’s other major love is his family. He likes to brag about Connie and his two handsome and phenomenal sons (of course, John is not biased), Scott and Jason. Special people must live in a special place, so they have made their home in Marshall, Texas where John has been serving as associate pastor at Cypress Valley Bible Church since 1997. In addition, he has been an adjunct instructor of Bible at LeTourneau University since 1993.

All of this—his life work and his wonderful family—was made possible by John’s risky move to Dallas (and God’s grace). That risk paid off more than John could ever have imagined!

Writings

15-workbook Bible curricula for Christian high schools

Bible studies for adult small groups & Sunday school classes (www.289design.com)

Book reviews appearing in theological journals