Rosie Harris has been studying the Bible most of her life.

“Ever since I was a little girl…,” she said. “I grew up in a Christian home. I went to a Catholic school (Saint Mary’s).”

And, though she’s not a minister, the 70-year-old Harris teaches at the Vicksburg branch of the Mississippi Baptist Seminary and Bible College. The undergraduate school provides theological education and ministry preparation.

“I love to teach. I tell the ministers — they have no trouble with me — I don’t want their pulpit,” laughed Harris.

The Rev. Joseph Briscoe, the seminary’s dean, said Harris, for the past decade, has taught classes such as sociology of religion, public worship, women in the church and psychology. “We have a good instructor on hand who’s very knowledgeable on the Bible and its relationship to the environment we’re in now.”

The courses she teaches “are right along in her field,” Briscoe added.

Harris has a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing from the University of Illinois. She spends two evenings a week at the seminary and her Wednesday mornings as a facilitator at First Presbyterian Church with Explorer’s Bible Study, an interdenominational group.

Rosalye Baldwin, a facilitator for Explorer’s Bible Study, said people are attracted to Harris’ sessions because “she’s so knowledgeable and so faithful. I can’t remember one time she was out, except for a death in the family.”

The group of Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, Presbyterians and Methodists are studying Corinthians I and II, Ephesians and Philippians, Harris said.

“It’s an interdenominational group,” she said. “You can’t talk about anything if you cannot prove it from the Bible. We don’t talk about what we do at our churches or our denominations. We’re straight from the Bible.”

As a member of Mount Heroden Baptist Church, Harris serves as a trustee, choir member, clerk and chairman of the pastor’s anniversary committee.

The Rev. Louis A. Hall, pastor of Mount Heroden, said Harris is spirited in her outreach.

“She’s very instrumental in the Christian ministry at the church,” he said.

When Harris is not serving the community, she’s studying the Bible at home with her 94-year-old mother, Nellie Johnson, who has been in Harris’ care since she was diagnosed with cancer in 1994. Three years later, Johnson suffered a broken leg, internal injuries and broken ribs in a car wreck.

“God is good. She’s still here,” Harris said. “She and I read the Bible every day. We try to finish it every year.”

Johnson said, “I thank God for Rosie.”

Harris has even passed on her love for teaching to her children and grandchildren.

“My youngest daughter is a teacher in Sunday school. My oldest daughter just finished getting her bachelor’s in theology, so she loves to teach. The one next to her also teaches,” said Harris. “Even my grandchildren are teaching. So, it sort of trickles on down.”

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com