Dwaarkill Study Center

02/24/2023

Today is the day each year when the church remembers the death of St. Polycarp. Watch as Bill Spanjer discusses the life and legacy of the saint.

10/12/2022

Reminder: Dwaarkill's new class, "The Embattled Bride," starts tomorrow (10/13) at 6:30PM in Chapel Field's main building. We hope to see you there!

As the Christian church we are the “Bride of Christ.”  But as we await our coming bridegroom, we find ourselves under assault by his enemies and ours.  Since man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, it was told that there would be hostility between the people of God and the “offspring of t...

10/07/2022

We hope you'll join us this coming Thursday, October 13th, for Dwaarkill's new class, "The Embattled Bride." Taught by Bill Spanjer, the class will explore what it means for the Church to be the "Bride of Christ". Register at the link below.

As the Christian church we are the “Bride of Christ.”  But as we await our coming bridegroom, we find ourselves under assault by his enemies and ours.  Since man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, it was told that there would be hostility between the people of God and the “offspring of t...

02/21/2019

Chapel Field's Open House for prospective students. Go check it out!

Please Share! Open House Reminder:
Many parents are anxious about the state of their children's education. We at Chapel Field partner with parents to provide their children with a quality, Christ centered education which cultivates a love for truth, goodness, and beauty, helping them become articulate young men and women, grounded in their faith and equipped to serve God with their lives.
Come join us for our Open House on February 26th. We look forward to meeting you. Please share and invite your friends.

04/05/2018

Conclusion tonight:
As we wrap up our study of Christ in the Old Testament, we turn our attention to the pictures of of Christ’s work in the lives of the kings and the prophets of Israel. The last image we considered was that of king David, the unlikely champion of God’s people, who slew the “unbeatable” enemy and freed the people to plunder the enemy’s camp. In David we saw Christ who fights the battle we are unable to fight, defeating Satan, sin, and death and liberating us to charge the enemy’s camp with new courage and enthusiasm, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and making disciples of all nations. Tonight, we turn to the character of Solomon, the king of peace and great wisdom. Though he too was a flawed image of Christ, he prepares us for the appearing of the ultimate Prince of Peace and temple builder who is himself the source and fullness of all wisdom.

We will also consider Christ in the prophets. As the kings of Israel disobeyed and led their kingdoms into idolatry, God sent prophets to call them to repentance. When Jesus began his public ministry, he was identified as a prophet, and rightly so. Though he was much more than merely a prophet, he none the less came to call the people to repent of their idolatry and to seek the salvation of the Lord. Tonight we will reflect upon the prophetic ministry of Jesus and the ways in which he fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies.

03/08/2018

Looking forward to tonight’s class:
As we mentioned last week, we can more than identify with sinful Israel as they make their way out of Egypt, consistently grumbling against God as they go. We, like they, have received so much from the hand of God and yet are prone to whining and complaining about our circumstances at the first sign of distress. This is important for us to recognize and confess if we are to have a vibrant relationship with the Lord. In fact, it is only through the recognition of our sinfulness that we will ever truly appreciate His amazing grace and His enduring mercy. This is one of the benefits we have in studying the story of Israel in the Old Testament and all of their struggles. It allows us to observe as an objective outsider of sorts, discerning the faults of the people and the grace of God with great clarity. The true challenge is that of application. We must not attempt to remain distant critics, but rather to hold the Scriptures up as a lens through which we can discern our own sin and God’s amazing grace to us.

This week we come to the amazing story of Israel and Moses at Mount Sinai. It was there that Israel was confronted with an essential truth regarding their relationship with the Lord. As they camped at the base of the mountain, God told Moses to come up and meet with Him. He instructed Moses to tell the people that while he was to come up the mountain, they were not to follow him there, nor were they to approach the mountain or even to touch it lest they die. Just as Adam had learned when he was exiled from the garden, so now they would receive a vivid lesson that sinners cannot be in the presence of a holy God. Yet they also learned that God would not keep His people alienated from Him and that as He promised Adam prior to his exile, He intended to restore the relationship that our sin broke. It is here at Mount Sinai that we learn with great clarity just how God would accomplish this.

Israel was not allowed to approach the mountain, but Moses as the representative of the people was allowed to come up and meet with God on their behalf. Here God was teaching them and us that if there is ever to be a relationship with God, it can only come through the work of God’s chosen mediator. This is something that we have to come to grips with. It is not our nature to accept limitations. Israel themselves struggled with this. We know the story that as they waited at the base of the mountain they became discontented with the situation and rather than wait for Moses and accept grace of God through him, they decided to create a god they could relate to on their terms. So they made the golden calf. Like Adam and Eve, they did not want to accept the life giving restrictions that God had established for them. Yet once again, the sin of the people provided the context for the grace of God to shine and so it does. I look forward to seeing you all this evening as we dive into this story and explore the nature of the Gospel and the ultimate necessity of Christ as it is so clearly revealed there. We will also explore the pictures of Christ in the tabernacle and the sacrificial system. See you there.

02/22/2018

BEHOLD THE LAMB class cancelled tonight: Due to the inclement weather we will be cancelling class this evening. We will pick up where we left off next week Lord willing. See you then.

02/20/2018

"Jesus is not merely another chapter in a long story, but He is the story itself." Join us this Thursday for more of BEHOLD THE LAMB!

This week: Over the past few weeks we have worked to train ourselves to see Christ in the stories and images of the Old Testament. We have learned that while these stories have an immediate lesson for the original reader, they also point well beyond themselves to the reality of Jesus. Jesus is not merely another chapter in a long story, but he is the story itself. He is what the whole plot has been driving toward. He is the seed of the woman who alone is able to crush Satan and restore man to a right relationship with God. He is the one who alone is able to deliver us from final judgment and give us rest in a glorious new creation. He is the one who left his place of glory in obedience to God his Father in order to achieve a land occupied by enemies that he might bless all nations. He is the one who has come to fulfill both sides of God’s covenant with man through Abraham, having his body broken that we might be blessed. He is our substitutionary ram in the thicket, the only son of a Father that did not hold back the knife of judgement, but gave him up for us all. Of course, our study has only been a survey, and yet each story has allowed us to hone in on a particular facet of the person and work of Christ.

This week we turn to the stories of Joseph and Moses. Joseph, the youngest of all the sons of Jacob, excluding Benjamin, was none the less, the child of prophecy, destined to rule over his brothers. We know the animosity this created among his proud and jealous brothers and the heavy consequences that their jealousy brought upon Joseph. However, Joseph’s story is not finally about the awful realities of his suffering, but about the surprising irony of God’s salvation. The God of Jacob surprises us with His amazing providential works of deliverance, saving his sinful people not only from their sin, but through their sin. No where is this irony so clearly manifest as it is upon the cross where our suffering savior, sent there by the fomenting crowd, suffers at the hands of the sinner and yet on behalf of the sinner. How humbling it is when we discover that the one we crucified is in fact the Lord of glory?

Finally, we will consider Moses and the story of the Exodus as a whole. There is no story in the Old Testament as formative for the writers of the New Testament as that of God’s delivering Israel from the tyranny of Pharaoh and His bringing them into the promised land. It is this story which sets the stage for the delivering work of our savior. Jesus is the greater Moses, come to deliver us from the greater pharaoh through the blood of a greater passover lamb that he might bring us to a greater promised land. This week we will begin to explore some of the amazing pictures of Christ that fill this story. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening.

02/15/2018

Join us tonight for Behold the Lamb:
Though we have just begun our trek through the Old Testament, we have already seen a pattern beginning to develop. The pattern we see is a pattern of hopeful, but ultimately failed saviors. Perhaps Adam and Eve had thought that Cain was the “seed of the woman” who would rise up and crush the head of the serpent to deliver humanity, but instead Cain rose up and crushed the head of his brother Abel. We might have thought that Noah was going to be the man to fulfill the amazing promises of redemption. He was a man whose obedience delivered his family and God had made him the father of a new humanity. But as with Cain, Noah proved to be a failed champion. Rather than kicking off the new creation with blessedness and righteousness, Noah was found drunk and cursing his dishonorable son. Will there be a faithful champion, a man who will finally fulfill the promises of God? Of course we know that the answer is yes, but in order to appreciate His appearing, we must track along with the Scriptures and feel the growing anticipation of the arrival of the true seed of the woman.

This week we will consider the story of Abraham. As with Noah, Abraham is the man of God’s own choosing. Abram was called to leave his home and all he had ever known and go to the foreign place that God would show him. Faithful Abram, like Noah, did all that the Lord commanded and God promised that He would be the one through whom all the nations of the Earth would be blessed. But this raises a serious question. Namely, how is it possible for God to bless nations whose sin demands judgement. It is a question that is left somewhat suspended throughout the Old Testament, but for which we receive hints and clues along the way as to its answer. Some of those clues are beautifully and wonderfully given in the stories surrounding Abraham. From the establishment of God’s covenant with Abraham, to the appearing of that mysterious figure Melchizidek, from the symbolism of circumcision, to the dramatic act of substitution on Mount Moriah, the lord is focussing the picture of the coming reality of Jesus Christ. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow night as we study this incredible section of Scripture in our continued pursuit of beholding the Lamb.

01/21/2018

Join us for our Behold The Lamb class with Bill
Spanjer Jr. beginning on Thursday, January 25th at 7:00 pm at Hudson Valley URC. In this class, we will study unfolding revelation of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. We will let the categories of the Old Testament help us better understand the ministry of Christ and let the finished work of Christ help us understand the full significance of the Old Testament stories. We look forward to seeing you there. Hudson Valley United Reformed Church

As John the Baptist looked out amidst the crowd while he was baptizing at the Jordan River, he saw Jesus coming toward him. He stopped, pointed and exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” What an amazing response. We are familiar with those words, but in the mo...

12/15/2017

The Chapel Field family is saddened by the news we received yesterday afternoon of the death of Dr. R.C. Sproul, founder and president of Ligonier Ministries. Dr. Sproul’s teaching ministry played a formative role in Coach’s life, and was one of the chief inspirations for the establishment of Chapel Field Schools. Shortly after the school was formed, Coach asked R.C. if he would consider serving on our advisory board, which he graciously agreed to and on which he served for two decades. in the early nineties Bill Jr. spent three years at Reformed Theological Seminary where he had the privilege to study under R.C. who was his role model of what it meant to teach theology. There is no one who has the gift to make the difficult things of the Scriptures so clear as R.C. Sproul. His passion for theological clarity, the gospel, and for the holiness of God were infectious. We thank God for him and his ministry. We pray for the Sproul family and for Ligonier Ministries. May they carry the banner of the gospel high in memory of their president and friend.