- He received his academic training at:
University of Illinois
B.A., Pillsbury College
M.A., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School & Jersualem University College
M.Div., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Ph.D., Dropsie College for Hebrew & Cognate Learning
Dr. Ferris is married to Lois Fransen Ferris. They have a daughter, two sons and four grandchildren.
Dr. Ferris has served as pastor, hospital chaplain, church planter, consultant, college & seminary professor, and college & seminary president. He has studied overseas, has traveled to some 30 countries and has lectured in the U.S., Canada, Haiti, France, Germany, Romania, Israel, Egypt, and the Philippines. Dr. Ferris participated as presenter and panelist at Lausanne II International Congress on World Evangelization in Manilla and currently serves as board chairman of IGO International.
He has authored The Genre of Communal Lament in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, the "Commentary on Lamentations" in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, and the "Commentary on Lamentations" in The Expositor's Bible Commentary. He has contributed a number of signed and unsigned articles to The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia and The Anchor Bible Dictionary, The Portable Seminary and The Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings and published numerous journal and periodical articles.
He is a fellow of the Institute for Biblical Research, a Kern Fellow, and is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, the National Association of Professors of Hebrew. He served as Vice-Chairperson of the Evangelical Theological Society: Midwest Region, 2008-2009 and as Chairperson, 2009-2010.
