About the Author

Doran (Dusty) Rhodes was diagnosed with advanced Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in May of 2004 at the age of 46. He went through chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and then underwent a Bone-marrow transplant on November 22 of 2004. He considers that day to be his new birth day, in that in many ways he was physically “born again” on that day. You see, the goal of a bone marrow transplant is to kill off the old immune system with extreme doses of chemotherapy, bringing the patient close to physical death, at which point clean bone marrow is introduced, thereby regrowing a new immune system.

Dusty felt the reality of this rebirth on different levels. He literally felt that he had “died”, and was regenerated. The parallel with what happens spiritually when a person trusts Jesus Christ for salvation and eternal life was felt keenly by Dusty. When a person accepts Christ’s free gift of eternal life, their old sin nature is crucified, and they are born again, given a new heart and mind.

Though the ordeal with cancer and the treatments were very difficult, Dusty could see God’s hand on his life from the beginning. He saw that God was using it for good, to bring people closer to Him. Dusty left his health, his life, completely in God’s hands, ready for any outcome. He knew God would either heal him or he would get to see Christ sooner than he had planned, and he would receive a new perfect body in the Resurrection!

As Dusty recovered from the treatments and went into remission, he began praying about the future. He didn’t pray for healing (there were many people praying for that), but that God would use him in the time left in his life. He prayed that God would give him a zeal for His word like never before. That prayer was answered quickly and dramatically in Dusty’s life.

He had always enjoyed studying the Bible, since he was a teenager, but now he used all of the time he had to search out good teachers from books and on the internet, since he couldn’t leave the house for a long time after the treatments. He wanted to go deeper into the Bible than he ever had before, and for that he needed in-depth teaching. He sifted through many web sites and found that, although there were many worthless sites, there were some godly men operating great teaching ministries online. These men became Dusty’s mentors, his pastors. Over the next several years He learned much, but a burden grew in him to use this knowledge not just for his own edification, but to teach others. So in the fall of 2007, he started a Bible study in his home, and by email.

The study has worked through much of the Old Testament, and Dusty’s plan is to continue these studies all the way through the New Testament. His goal is to provide an in-depth Bible study that is reasonably easy to understand, so that people might recognize that God is in control, and He has given us His plan in the scriptures, which He will bring about.