Jim Bartsch grew up in Newton, Kansas, the son of the late John T. and Florence M. Toevs Bartsch.  A Godly home graced by two parents who loved each other, loved God, studied the Bible, were faithful in church attendance, and who loved and taught their six children was the Sovereignly - bestowed blessing I inherited.

Jim attended Newton Public Schools through Grade 7, then attended an excellent Christian High School, Berean Academy, 12 miles east of Newton in Elbing, Kansas.

Jim attended Grace College of the Bible (now Grace University) in Omaha, NE, where he met his dedicated wife Esther, herself the daughter of a committed Mennonite Pastor, Abraham H. Schultz and his dedicated wife Catherine.  Jim completed the Pre-Seminary Course,  and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1969.

In 1974 Jim completed a Master of Theology Degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, in Dallas, Texas.  He majored in Bible Exposition.

From 1974 to 1978, Jim served as Pastor of Rexford Community Church of Rexford, Kansas, a small town of 300 on the Golden Plains of Northwest Kansas.

Jim and Esther, along with their two oldest sons, flew to Adelaide, South Australia June 15, 1978.  Jim served as Youth Pastor of Edwardstown Baptist Church from 1978-82.  During his last year there, he and several other pastors, led by Rev. Ian Dunn and Rev. Paul Hoogenraad, helped found Adelaide College of Ministries, which continues as an excellent "hands-on" ministry-oriented Bible College that services not only Klemzig, South Australia, but the broader Pacific region.  Graduates now serve in twelve different countries.  The Bartsches' third son and only daughter were born in Adelaide.

Between 1982 and 1986, the Bartsch family lived in Omaha, NE.   Jim sold sanitation supplies with Levenson Industrial Supply, Inc. briefly pastored Grace Bible Church, and helped paint apartments for such managing firms as NP Dodge.

From 1986 to 1991, Jim taught Bible classes for Grades 7-12 at James Valley Christian School in Huron, South Dakota.  Teaching at that level forced him to simplify the Bible and to develop some easy ways to teach theology.

Returning to ministry in a local church, Jim served as Pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Newell, Iowa from 1991 to 2002.

In 2002, Jim and Esther left Iowa for the beautiful Flint Hills of East Central Kansas to pastor the Flint Hills Community Church in Cottonwood Falls.

I grew up in a home where the Scofield Bible was standard fare.  My church roots, my Christian High School, my Bible College, and my Seminary training all reinforced that persuasion.

I am not particularly hung up on how many dispensations there are.  The important point is to understand that God works with different peoples in different ways at different times.   That is the simplest definition of dispensationalism I know.  In other words, just because God worked with Adam and Eve a certain way in their innocence does not demand that He work the same way after their fall.  Clearly, when God began to work with Abraham, He started a whole new trend.  The difficulty comes when Bible students and teachers employ a Replacement Theology, which maintains that the Church replaces Israel.  That theology simply cannot be supported by a consistent hermeneutic (method of interpretation).

The five books of Moses (Torah), the historical narratives, certain Psalms, and the Old Testament prophets are unanimous in their view that God made certain promises to Abraham, to his son Isaac, to his son Jacob and Jacob's twelve sons that can only be explained by a literal people, Israel, in a literal land with specific geographic boundaries, the land which I deliberately choose to name Israel (not Palestine and most certainly not "occupied territories").  One cannot read the Old Testament in an objective way without concluding that God has a future for His chosen people,  people which, unfortunately, have largely forsaken their God over the past centuries.  One cannot make any rational explanation of Romans 9-11 other than to conclude with Paul that God has temporarily placed Israel on the shelf (so to speak) in order to bring in the Gentiles (nations of the world) into His blessings through Jesus Christ.  But that temporary turning of God to the Gentiles is designed to provoke Israel to jealousy.  One day God's tactics will be successful.  God's chosen people, the Jewish people, will one day understand that Yeshua is their Messiah.

At that time the Jewish Messiah will begin a reign over the entire earth!  It will come about that the peace and  prosperity the world yearns for will finally have arrived!  I can hardly wait for that time!

Only when Israel is rightly related to her Messiah will there be peace and prosperity for us Gentile nations.  To me it is impossible to make sense out of the Bible without this framework.

My view of the Scripture is a high one.  I believe that the Bible is "God-breathed" (2 Timothy 3:16) and therefore accurate and unassailable as the Word of God.  Our Lord said the following about the Scriptures:

I know, of course, that we do not possess original manuscripts.  However the care that the Hebrew Masoretes took in preserving the accuracy of the Old Testament Scriptures is nothing short of miraculous.  We have massive New Testament manuscript support, and even though there are minor variations in the text in places, there is no significant doctrine that is in question.  For all practical purposes, we can hold a word for word translation of the Scriptures in our hands and say, "We have the Word of God."  

Version of the Bible

Predilection for Accuracy

The Names of God

WordExplain.com has arisen out of my intense desire to communicate God's Word to people.  It is my desire that God will use these humble reflections of mine over a number of decades to bring glory to Himself.

Dr. Howard Hendricks challenged us, years ago in Dallas Seminary, to study a book of the Bible a paragraph at a time.  He encouraged us to use those wonderful working questions of WHO?, WHAT?, WHEN?, WHERE?, and HOW?.  The last question, WHY?, I have found is perhaps the most instructive question AFTER the others have been used.  It often affords striking insight into God's ways.

Dr. Hendricks encouraged us to give a title to each paragraph we studied, and to spend a month in a particular Bible Book.  After I finally gave heed to his advice in 1980, six years after graduating from DTS, I discovered two things.  (1) I couldn't get by with only one month, particularly in the lengthy books.  So I ignored his advice and took as long as necessary to go through a book.  (2) After I had given titles to each of the paragraphs in a book, I felt somehow short-changed.  So I began to go further.  I grouped paragraphs that had related titles into a group and gave that group a title.  Then I began to group groups and gave that new group a title.  Finally, I found I had constructed an analytical outline of the entire book, with titles to at least the paragraph level and sometimes deeper.

I found these analytical outlines to be enormously helpful when I would later go to teach or preach from a book of the Bible.  After awhile I began to make a policy that I would not teach or preach from a Bible book until I had first gone entirely through the book and constructed an analytical outline.  That way, any particular paragraph or chapter I taught from could be placed in a proper context.

I submit these analytical outlines to you in the hopes that they would help you understand the Scriptures, and furthermore, that you would be challenged to conduct your own independent, inductive Bible study!

It is my hope at some point to introduce on this site Books of the Bible completely and exhaustively outlined with the complete Bible text inserted between the points.  That project awaits an enormous amount of effort and copyright considerations.  The section on Psalms illustrates that approach for the moment.

Since November of 2002, I have been the Pastor of Flint Hills Community Church (FHCC).  Situated in the heart of the East Central Kansas Flint Hills, our church is in the heart of cattle country.  FHCC was begun in 1986.  The nucleus of the church came from the Homestead Friends Church west of Bazaar and south of what used to be the little town of Clements.

Designed to be a community church, FHCC is the home of former Friends, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Mennonites.

We at FHCC hold unequivocally to the inspired Word of God as our standard for faith and practice.  We are a friendly fellowship, and we invite you to come visit us.

Our Prayer and Share begins at 9:30 on Sunday mornings.  At 10:00 AM we have Sunday School for adults and for children and youth.  Our Morning Worship begins at 10:45 AM.  If the Pastor doesn't preach too long, we get out at noon!

During the school year, we have, on Sundays from 6 to 7:45 pm, an AWANA program for our Elementary School children and a TREK program for Middle Schoolers.

We have Adult Bible Studies throughout the week taught by Pastor Jim, and each of our three Elders, Alan Giger, Frank Hinkson, and Alan Phipps.

On Wednesday mornings at about 9:30 AM during the school year, Sandie Phipps leads a mother's group called MAMAs (Mothers Against Mental Anguish)!  Sandie leads the mothers in discussing and upbuilding one another such things as being a supportive marriage partner and becoming a better mother.  You are welcome!