Head & Heart Knowledge
How the M.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies Equips Students Across Vocations and Life Stages
Words: Jenna Watson ’21
Photos: Courtesy of Alumni
A doctor in Chicago. A lawyer in Florida. A mother with pastoral duties. A prison ministry leader. A retired orthopedic surgeon. These are just some of the vocations represented in current or recent classes of the Master’s in Biblical and Theological Studies (BTS) at Wheaton College. With the option of a flexible schedule for distance learners, students can attend from all stages of life and corners of the country. This breadth of experience and diversity of perspective not only enrich the classroom experience, but they also create ripple effects that go out into many industries, ministries, and communities.
DAVID DAVOUST M.A. ’25
David Davoust owns a business that operates software for the administration of elections, as well as a nonprofit that supports sustainable education in Nigeria and Ethiopia. He entered the BTS program to enrich his leadership and biblical knowledge in both these endeavors and was pleased to find professors and fellow students who care about both heart and head formation. “Professors aren’t just teaching academically,” he said. “It isn’t just head knowledge. It’s ‘What difference does it make in your heart, in the church, in the world?’”
Davoust sees the continuity of God’s heart for his people throughout Scripture and applies that to the teams he leads. “To us, there is no difference between Sunday and Monday and Tuesday,” he said. “It’s all about the kingdom of God. To us, the people are the only thing that’s eternal. Our company is not eternal. Who knows how long it will last? But our employees and our customers and our competitors are all eternal.”
Living this out looks like informing competitors when he notices a problem with the software they both use. It looks like strengthening his preaching skills for when he visits his educational partners in Nigeria and Ethiopia. It looks like letting a contractor go peacefully, without retribution, when they are caught stealing. “That’s part of sharing the love of Christ—by how we treat people. Knowing the Scriptures better helps in that everyday ministry.”
CHRIS HAZELIP ’81, M.A. ’25
Chris Hazelip was thrilled to return to his alma mater more than 40 years after his undergraduate degree to deepen his knowledge of the Bible. Alongside an active career as a trial lawyer, Hazelip lives out his spiritual gift of teaching by frequently speaking and teaching the Bible at various church and parachurch ministries. He entered this program to deepen his ability to teach well in those contexts. “It has been an even richer experience than I expected, and I had pretty high expectations,” he said.
Hazelip finds that the teaching and culture of this program help him resist a personalized reading of Scripture. “It’s easy in the individualized culture in which we live to overemphasize our personal faith,” he said. “There’s a tendency to view the Scriptures as a love letter to me. I get that sentiment, but I have learned in this program to start with understanding that it was written to specific people at a specific time who are in a specific cultural and historical context. What was it saying to them? Does that have meaning and application to me? This has taught me a whole different way to approach Scripture, and I think it’s a much more accurate way to handle it skillfully.”
In practicing this approach, Hazelip is increasingly interested in the marginalized voices in the Bible. “Those voices are really resonating as I’m trying to learn, because I certainly haven’t been marginalized in my voice, and I’m trying to see and understand that better.”
SCOTT HIGHBERGER M.A. ’24
Scott Highberger started a master’s to steward well the influence the Lord was giving him in his growing prison ministry. After encountering Christ through a church service while incarcerated, Highberger left the life he knew and, after his release, committed to a local church. He gradually rose in leadership at the church and grew his own prison ministry, ultimately becoming a licensed pastor, getting married, writing a book called Behind the Wire: A Prisoner’s Journey to the Pulpit (S&D Enterprises, 2009), and inspiring a missional movie called Pardoned by Grace.
“I needed a new set of people, and God gave me the body of Christ,” he said. “Today, my wife and I get to be that new set of people for men that are coming out of incarceration.”
As he grew his ministry, Highberger felt called to further his education and “know the Bible better.” While obtaining his bachelor’s degree at Grace College, he learned about the Wheaton College Charles W. Colson Scholarship for the formerly incarcerated. After a rigorous application process, Highberger received the scholarship to attend Wheaton tuition-free.
“The program really enriched my understanding of God, humanity, and how they connect together,” he said. “It equipped me to be a better-informed Christian man, leader, pastor—to do more of what God has called me to do in my context.”
JIE LIU M.A. ’25
Despite the call to gracious solidarity she saw in Scripture, Jie Liu found a tendency for legalism or moralism in church communities when she shared the struggles she was facing. “This confused me, because when you handle God’s Word properly, it gives you power, strength, and joy,” she said. “I thought I should spend my life digging into it myself, so I could learn to handle God’s Word correctly—not only to help myself, but also to help others who are struggling too.”
Alongside her roles as a full-time mechanical engineer and a mother, Liu is learning sound methods for engaging with Scripture in ways that release its blessing and power as God intended. She is also encouraged by her professors, who live out what they teach. And in learning alongside classmates who have been similarly honest with their seeking and transparent with their struggles, she finds more of God’s presence revealed. “It’s a great enrichment to this program—the diversity of believers, of faith from all over the world,” she said. “A lot of things I probably would just read in books or newspapers, but now it’s a real person beside me, sharing his or her personal experience. That’s how we witness God in our life. Real people show you the real God, just like the wind blowing the leaves tells us the wind is there.”
Feeling more equipped to walk alongside others who are struggling in the church, Liu now serves as a caregiver to women in need who are facing similar challenges.
KEVIN MCPEAK M.A. ’25
With a background in the creative arts and music education, Kevin McPeak never expected to be the executive pastor of an eight-location church in Southern California and Mexico. But after a journey that continued to open doors in ministry, he found himself in this leadership role and desired to invest in formal education for what he had been learning independently. “If I’m going to pastor people well, I need to really shore up this part of my skill set,” he said.
When he began the BTS program, McPeak was delighted to find a community of professors and students that represented theological diversity and were committed to sound teaching. “One of the things I found appealing about Wheaton was the diversity of theological viewpoints within the faculty,” he said. “I didn’t want to be trained in a specific denominational viewpoint but wanted to access a wide variety of perspectives. The students are similar because the program attracts students from a variety of backgrounds. That’s been really exciting to be around.”
As a distance learner, McPeak finds the program ideal for his busy schedule while still enabling a sense of community with his fellow learners. He and five other students decided to rent an AirBnB together for the in-person session this summer, walking to campus together each day and sharing meals. “I’ve formed some really meaningful friendships with these guys in the program, which is not what I was expecting to happen in an online environment,” he said. McPeak also jokes that the biggest problem with this program is that it’s making him consider getting his doctorate.
MARIANNE PETERSON M.A. ’24
Marianne Peterson attended a Christian college, spent years working for a Christian ministry, and always felt at home in the church. But when both her parents died within two years of one another, she entered a period of deep anger and confusion toward the Lord. She found herself asking, “Have I really dug deep into what I believe? Because I’m now believing in a God that is breaking my heart into a million pieces.”
A few years later, the advent of COVID-19 reopened Peterson’s doubt. Amid a busy life as a stay-at-home mom to three children, she turned to this program to ask questions, seek answers, and find confirmation of a faith she feared losing. “My journey to Wheaton was not a vocational one,” she said. “It was mostly personal and spiritual.”
Through classmates, professors, and the biblical figures she grew to know better along the way, Peterson found not only solace in her seeking but also companions in her grief. She found comfort in how David and Job expressed deep anguish to the Lord, even hurling accusations at God, yet were declared blameless. “Every class fed my desire for knowledge, but even more so they fed my soul,” she said.
Peterson graduated with a fuller sense of her calling in the church. Her questions of women and the church (“Is this system misogynist? What is up with women and the Bible?”) were met not with simplistic answers, but with new frameworks for approaching Scripture’s intent and audience that have led her to pursue teaching and preaching to the youth, and occasionally the wider congregation, in her church.
SHEETAL PHILIP M.A. ’25
For Sheetal Philip, what she’s learning in this program is helping her make biblically informed decisions at her workplace. Philip works as an internal medicine doctor at a specialty clinic in Chicago where many patients experience severe mental health challenges, homelessness, substance use, and reintegration into society after institutionalization. Despite being in church leadership with 30 years of Christian life under her belt, Philip was encountering new and profound questions through this work. She turned to this program in distress at the depth of pain and suffering humans can cause one another. She was also seeking wisdom on how to navigate workplace values that did not always align with hers when it came to gender identity, hormone therapy, and more.
“I felt like I was walking through mud and I couldn’t get the mud off me at the end of the day,” she said. “But Scripture talks about being washed by the Word and how it renews us. I realized that’s what I need: I need the Word of God to renew me, protect me, and wash over me. So that started this journey of wanting to know the Word better.”
As Philip learns about God’s value for life and the imago dei that exists in each human being through her classes, she finds herself strengthened in her convictions at work and better equipped for conversations with her three children about their own gender and identity as children of God.
Ultimately, she feels equipped to return to her workplace with greater compassion and mercy. “I hope I am able to love my patients better, seeing them not for the decisions they might have made but as someone God values and has a plan for,” she said. “I ask, ‘How can I display the grace and mercy and compassion that God has poured out on us, to you?’”
DAVID WATT ’76, M.A. ’26
David Watt began his educational journey at Wheaton as an undergraduate chemistry major, and he’s glad to be back on campus for his master’s. In fact, he will earn his graduate degree exactly five decades after his undergraduate. He never went far, working as the orthopedic surgeon for all Wheaton athletes and serving in the athletic training room weekly during school years. But after Watt retired, he found himself yearning for a deeper knowledge of Scripture that wasn’t being met by Sunday sermons and Bible studies. “For me, knowledge is what helps lead me to faith,” he said.
So Watt began his M.A. in BTS, eager to make the most of a retirement he sees as a gift (though he keeps himself busy providing medical coverage for Wheaton College football games and the U.S. Snowboard team at World Cup competitions). “I don’t see retirement as something to just sit back and do nothing with,” he said. “I’m healthy. I’ve got all my faculties. I want to be able to contribute. I want to be able to learn, to grow.”
One of the most rewarding parts of the program for Watt is the diversity of students he learns alongside. “Having gone through some life and experience, our different levels of outside reading and backgrounds and everything just absolutely enrich the experience,” he said.
As a result of this new education, Watt was invited to begin training for eldership at his church. He is now more involved in small group leadership at church. He and his wife have even begun reading ahead on upcoming sermon topics, now able to feed a desire for biblical knowledge they had long felt but never felt as equipped to pursue.
