Jared Kingsley is an assistant professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Master’s University. He graduated from TMU in 2014 with a degree in biblical languages and came on faculty as an adjunct in 2018, becoming a full-time professor four years later. He was a part of the Legacy Standard Bible translation project and is currently working on his Ph.D. in theology at The Master’s Seminary, which he plans to finish in December.
We recently asked him a few questions about his faith, his family, and his work.
I heard the gospel on my 17th birthday. My brother gave me a little USB drive, and I didn’t want to listen to it, but he said I needed to. It was a sermon by Paul Washer. And that was the definitive moment where God got hold of my heart. I saw my sin for what it was, and my need for Jesus as both Savior and Lord. That was the day I was saved, on my birthday — the best gift of all time.
I met my wife at a Bible study hosted by my roommate at our house. I was in the kitchen cooking chicken, and Missy walked in the door for the Bible study, and we just immediately hit it off. I asked her on a date that day, and we’ve been going on dates ever since. The rest is history. Now we have two kids: Miles, who is three, and Olivia, who is a year old.
I remember my first week of class as a student at TMU — Dr. Chou said that Jesus Christ is the greatest hero and champion throughout all of redemptive history, and I almost fell out of my chair. I remember thinking, “What is this guy talking about? Jesus? The really nice guy who does some miracles and walks on the water?” But to think of Jesus as a hero and a champion who wins on behalf of his people and has the greatest victory — that was some paradigm-shifting stuff for me. I was convinced this is what I would do for the rest of my life. So as an 18-year-old, my goal was to be a professor. And I wanted to teach the Bible at The Master’s University.
My favorite thing about biblical languages is that it forces you to move very slowly, where in English you can read and skim something quickly. But when you’re dealing with Greek and Hebrew, you have to move slowly in a way that you’re forced to be deliberate and actually account for every single word. We believe in verbal plenary inspiration, which means every single word is inspired. Every single word matters. It opens your eyes to the Bible in this really unique way, and biblical languages give you that ability.
It was an amazing, formative experience and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, because it really was the culmination of a lot of my studies and my discipline. Our translation team was full of amazing men with such great legacies and abilities to translate and to teach. It was a long process, but it was a very special and sobering thing to be a part of.
The camaraderie among the faculty is really special. And I get to benefit from their many years of experience of teaching here. What young guy gets an opportunity like that? When I was younger, I used to pray very frequently that the Lord would give me more godly men in my life. What I have now is an abundance of riches. It’s also very rare to get to work where you were educated, and to be back at the place that was the most formative place in your entire life.
