Dr. John Evans is one of the newest members of the NEGST faculty. He began lecturing in Old Testament last month in the biblical studies department. His research interests are in Old Testament prophets, hermeneutics, Old Testament theology, and theological bibliography for the Old and New Testaments.

What is your teaching philosophy?
Long ago, I ran across a quote from the poet, Yeats. He wrote, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the igniting of a fire.”
I later discovered that Socrates had said much the same thing around 400BC. Though I seek to give to give my students the best content and as much content as I can, I am more concerned to ignite in students a passion for learning-especially God’s Word-which they will carry with them for a lifetime.

Tell us about your writing.
Along with several articles and reviews, I have written a guide to biblical commentaries that has been published in eight editions by my old seminary. Currently, I am revising my dissertation for publication; and hopefully the book will be ready in another eighteen months. I’m playing with different titles for the monograph. One idea is, “You shall know that I Am Yahweh: An Intertextual and Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Ezekiel’s Recognition Formulae”.

What do you like to do when you’re not teaching?
I enjoy different kinds of music, watching African wildlife and birds, cheering for a few sports teams like Chelsea FC, Zambian football and the Indianapolis Colts, and reading church history and biographies. Having been a competitive runner in high school and college, I love watching Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate the distance events in worldwide track & field.

Dr. John Evans has a Bachelor of Arts from Calvin College, an MDiv (1989) and ThM (1995) from Covenant Theological Seminary, and a DTh (2006) from the University of Stellenbosch.

Evans is married to Elizabeth, and they are now in their 25th year of marriage. They are blessed by God with three children: Martyn (1988), Beth (1990), and Daniel (1992). The older two are in college in the USA, and Daniel expects to graduate from Rift Valley Academy next year.