We are living in exciting times.  Bible prophecy continues to be fulfilled on a daily basis.  We are witnessing a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as God prepares the world for the return of His Son and the establishment of His millennial kingdom.  Jesus could return for His church at any time.

As part of the work He is doing through Maranatha Chapel, God has established Maranatha Bible College as a place where men and women can commit a season of their lives to dive into the verse-by-verse study of His Word.  Whether that season is one semester or several years, God desires to pour His Spirit out on those who are available to be led by Him.  He desires to raise up faithful men and women who are equipped to live according to His Great Commandment–to love God, love people–and to fulfill His Great Commission–to make disciples.

If you sense that God is calling you to something deeper, or if you would like to discover the abundant life that God has planned for you, I encourage you to pray about studying with us at Maranatha Bible College.  For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.  2 Chronicles 16:9.

May God bless you richly with His abundant love.

-Pastor Ray Bentley

Our Vision:

For Christ & His Church

Our Mission:

Creating places where believers can grow in their devotion to Christ through the in-depth study of His Word; in an intimate, practical, and academic way.

Maranatha Bible College seeks to:

• Honor the Word of God.  Every word of the Bible is God-breathed.  It is without error and sufficient for all that pertains to life and godliness. Therefore, it is the supreme, final, and authoritative standard for what we believe and how we live.
• Be led by the Spirit in all things.  Intellectual knowledge, without the understanding provided by the Spirit, is worthless and produces only pride in human achievement.  We therefore depend upon the Spirit in everything we do, relying on Him to teach us all things and to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ.
• Teach the whole counsel of God.  Our aim is that each student who completes the program of study will have been instructed in the whole counsel of God, from Genesis to Revelation.
• Teach the Word of God literally and personally.  We seek to teach the literal interpretation of the Word of God, and we seek to teach it in such a way that its message can be applied to each student’s life, leading to greater maturity in Christ.
• See students grow in their knowledge and love of God.  We come to know God through His Word.  As we grow in our knowledge of God, of who He is and of all that He has done for us, we grow in our love for Him.
• See students fully surrendered to Jesus.  We desire to see each student totally committed and abandoned to Jesus Christ, loving Him with all their hearts.  As students surrender their lives to Him, we believe He will reveal to each of them His call on their lives, the gifts He has given to them, and the ministries He has for them.
• Equip students for the ministry God has prepared for them.  It is the aim of each class to more fully equip the students for the ministries that God has planned for them.

We desire to see our students:

• Become totally committed and surrendered to Jesus Christ.
• Conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, thus having the life of Christ living through them by the power of the Holy Spirit.
•  Set free by the truth of the Word of God and equipped by the Scriptures for fruitful service unto the Lord.
• Develop the humble heart of a servant and allow the grace of God to shape and strengthen their lives.
• Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Maranatha Bible College is looking for students who:

• Desire to know God in a richer, more intimate way.
• Desire to allow the Holy Spirit to conform them into the image of Jesus Christ.
• Desire to know the perfect will of God for their lives.
• Desire to prepare their lives to be used by God in whatever capacity He might choose.

If you desire to come to a deeper and more intimate knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the abundant life that He has for you, if you desire to discover and become equipped for the call that God has on your life, we encourage you to prayerfully consider applying for study at Maranatha Bible College.

Maranatha Bible College is a ministry of Maranatha Chapel, located in the community of Rancho Bernardo in San Diego, California.

The following Doctrinal Statement governs the teaching at Maranatha Bible College:

I.  Scripture

We believe the Bible (i.e., the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments) is the Word of God, comprises the totality of Holy Scripture, is verbally inspired and inerrant in the original text, remains inerrant and infallible in all its substance, and is sufficient for salvation and sanctification. Therefore, it is the supreme, final, and authoritative standard for faith, theology, and life. We seek to teach the Word of God in such a way that its message can be applied to an individual’s life, leading that person to greater maturity in Christ. (Maranatha Bible College & Calvary Chapel Bible College affirms the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy)

II.  Historicity

We believe in the full historicity and perspicuity of the biblical record of primeval history, including the literal existence of Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all people, the literal fall in the Garden of Eden and resultant divine curse on creation, the worldwide cataclysmic deluge, and the origin of the nations and languages at the tower of Babel.

III.  God

We believe that the triune God eternally exists in one essence and three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that He is essentially Spirit, personal, transcendent, sovereign, life, love, truth, almighty, simple (i.e., essentially one without parts), timelessly eternal, unchangeable, wise, just, holy, relational, pure actuality, dynamic, infallible in all things, including His foreknowledge of all future decisions and events, and that He created the heavens and the earth in six literal days.

IV.  Jesus Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, possessing two distinct natures which are co-joined in one person; that He was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless and miraculous life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His vicarious substitutionary death on the Cross, was physically resurrected in the same body that was buried in the tomb by the power of the Holy Spirit; that Jesus Christ physically ascended back to the right hand of God the Father in heaven, and ever lives to make intercession for us. After Jesus ascended to Heaven, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to preach the gospel to the entire world, an obligation shared by all believers today. (Maranatha Bible College & Calvary Chapel Bible College affirms the Apostle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds).

V.  Holy Spirit

We believe the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead who seals, indwells, sanctifies,  baptizes, teaches, empowers, reveals, and guides the believer into all truth. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to whom He wills, which are valid for today, and ought to be exercised within scriptural guidelines. We as believers are to earnestly desire the best gifts, seeking to exercise them in love that the whole Body of Christ might be edified. We believe that love is more important than the most spectacular gifts, and without this love all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless.

VI.  Mankind

We believe that man is created in the image of God; however, after the fall of Adam and Eve, all people are by nature separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are offered as a free gift by the Lord Jesus Christ to all based on His grace alone. When a person repents of sin and receives Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord.

VII.  Salvation

Salvation is initiated, attained, and procured by God through the death of Christ on the cross for our sins and His resurrection from the dead. The salvation Christ offers is available to all, and is received freely by grace alone and through faith in Christ alone, apart from good works, thereby justifying and indwelling the believer.

VIII.  The Church

The universal Church is an organic body composed of all believers, both living and dead, who have been sealed by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. The church has the responsibility to worship the Lord and share the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection to the world, making disciples, baptizing believers, and teaching them to observe sound doctrine and live a morally pure life. We believe church government should be simple rather than a complex bureaucracy, with the utmost dependence upon the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion or worldly wisdom. The Lord has given the church two ordinances which are to continue until He returns — adult baptism by immersion and Holy Communion. Water baptism is not necessary for salvation, and cannot remove sins, but is a picture of the salvation already received by the believer. We believe the only true basis of Christian fellowship is Christ’s sacrificial agape love, which is greater than any secondary differences we possess, and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.

IX.  Worship

We believe worship of God should be spiritual. Therefore, we remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship. We believe worship of God should be inspirational. Therefore, we give great place to music in our worship. We believe worship of God should be intelligent. Therefore, our gatherings are designed with great emphasis upon the teaching of the Word of God that He might instruct us how He should be worshiped. We believe the worship of God should be fruitful. Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have been truly worshiping God in spirit and truth.

X.  Christ’s Return

We await the pretribulational rapture of the church and the second coming of Christ which will be physical, personal, visible, and premillennial. This motivates us to evangelism, holy living, heart-felt worship, committed service, diligent study of God’s Word, and regular fellowship.

XI.  Eternity

We believe those who are saved by Jesus Christ will spend eternity with Christ in heaven in a conscious state of blessedness, reward, and satisfaction; that those who do not personally receive the finished work of Christ by faith will spend eternity separated from God in a state of conscious torment.

XII.  Satan

We believe there is a real personal devil of great malevolence, cunning, and power, who seeks to deceive, tempt, kill, steal and destroy, yet his power is limited by God to only what God permits him to do; that the devil has been defeated positionally at the cross of Christ, and will be defeated practically at Christ’s glorious second coming which will eventuate in the permanent quarantine and punishment of the Devil, Beast, and False Prophet, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone.

XIII.  We Reject:

(1) The belief that true Christians can be demon possessed and are helpless against the craft and wiles of the Devil; (2) any philosophy or theology which denies that human freewill can be exercised in the receiving of Christ’s free gift of salvation; specifically, we reject the belief that Jesus’ atonement was limited in its extent, instead, we believe that He died for all unrighteous people and that any perceived limitation rests in one’s free rejection of Christ’s finished work of atonement, and we reject the assertion that God’s wooing grace cannot be resisted or that He has elected some people to go to hell; instead we believe that anyone who wills to come to Christ may do so freely as a result of the Holy Spirit’s conviction and wooing persuasion of the heart; (3) “positive confession,” (e.g., the Faith Movement, that views faith as a force that can create one’s own reality or that God can be commanded to heal or work miracles according to man’s will and faith); (4) human prophecy that supersedes or is contrary to Scripture; (5) any introduction of psychology and philosophy which is contrary to Scripture and is in substance “according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” into biblical teaching; (6) “Open Theism” or “Freewill Theism” which reduces God’s timeless, unchanging, dynamic nature, and exhaustive foreknowledge of future free decisions, to creaturely modes of being and operation; (7) the “Emergent Church” movement insofar as it departs from the historic orthodox Christian doctrines in favor of postmodernism; and (8) the overemphasis of spiritual gifts, experiential signs and wonders to the exclusion of biblical teaching.

Please understand that we are seeking students that are like-minded with us in our view of Scripture.  This is to limit distractions and divisions among the student body.