Life After Israel: 01.06

First Week of Class

Well, I've been through all my classes twice except for this afternoon's edition of Reformation Era. My Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes are New Testament Survey II and Autobiographical and Journal Writing. NT II is a survey of the New Testament books of Romans through Revelation. I'm taking it with Dr. Tom Halstead, the Bible department chair. I've always wanted to take a class with Dr. Halstead, but haven't been able to until now, my final semester. Dr. Halstead has a quiz everyday in class over the material covered in that class or on the quiz previous. But Dr. Halstead is probably best known for his infamous semester-long project: outlines. I have to outline most of the books of the NT (minus the Gospels and Acts) and they are divided up into small sections by Dr. Halstead. Every semester I've heard and seen what these outlines can do to people who procrastinate. We're talking like several all-nighters in a row!

Autobiographical and Journal Writing is my eighth and final class with my advisor Dr. Jack Simons. It requires (by the end of the semester) 30 minimum pages of my personal autobiography. Besides that, we will read six books and respond to them in different types of small papers.

Those two classes are the only ones that I'm required to take to graduate. However, due to insurance issues, I have to be a full-time student, so I am taking six more units of "fun" classes. By "fun" I mean classes that interest me and would personally enriching and help me to formulate my own ideas.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have an 8:00am class called Christian Worldview. It's a little bit different than most Bible classes, in that, it is more a discussion-driven class and not so much a lecture course. Dr. Greg Behle is the teacher, and it is my fourth class taken with him. Dr. Behle is probably my favorite Bible professor and he gets students to really engage their minds and not to just rest on their "borrowed convictions" that they received from parents, Christian schools and church. The class is primarily for upperclassmen to help them develop their own worldview based on God's Word. I think I'm going to love this class, even as it challenges my faith in order to strengthen it.

My last class I already mentioned is Reformation Era with Professor Jim Owen. I took Prof. Owen last semester for the first time in his US History I course. This class is harder, as it is an upper division course. We have lots of reading to do, one 8-10 page paper and, of course, plenty of learning to do.

That's my semester.

Piper's Prostate & A New Link

This is probably old news to most of you, but if you haven't read Piper's announcement of his diagnosis of prostate cancer, it is most definitely worth reading.

Also, I've added a new link on the sidebar. Visiting WorldNetDaily is an interesting mishmash of articles on politics and morality geared to keep people up-to-date on the world around them. I'd encourage you to visit this every day for a quick news article.

Wow!

Check this out! Something I thought I'd never see!

Also, this has sparked some controversy.

Tortured Minds

I do not want to minimize the horrors of the relatively recent prison torture scandals in this post. However, I do want to use it in my comparison with a movie that came out a couple of weeks ago.

Hostel is a movie that appeals to the absolute wickedness of mankind's basest sinful desires. Although I sometimes disagree with Christianity Today's movie guys, I think they do a good job of explaining the horrendous nature of Philip Roth's film. Let this be a reminder to us to strive to live "without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among which you shine as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:15b).

How can this movie have done so well in the theaters (over $36 million in a little more than two weeks)? Isn't this country going through a prison-torture scandal? How can "we" be for a reformed look at how we treat prisoners and yet flock to the theaters like flies to feces to see "horror-porn" trash? I'm not surprised that human nature can stoop this low, just surprised by the conflicting values reflected in our society.

God help us.

No Compromise

I found a very interesting online article in the Wall Street Journal from Jeffrey Overstreet's blog. Overstreet's view would be that Wheaton acted very intolerantly. I agree with Wheaton's stance on their evangelical doctrinal decision. However, from many things in the article (and it may be just the slant that the writer gives it), it's not hard to foresee future compromise. Incidentally, The Master's College is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

I just bought a new book yesterday that I will be commenting on as I read and finish it in the following weeks. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church by DA Carson should be a good book for conversation at TMC, since the emerging/emergent church is a big topic.

Ta ta for now.

One More Day!

I apologize for the recent lack of posts, but my Internet access has been limited. Instead of trying to catch up in normal paragraph form, I've decided to tell the story of the last week and a half in pictures. Enjoy!

The First Baptist Church.

Rhode Island's State Capitol in Providence. Rhode Island brought my "States Visited" total to 7 on the East Coast and a US total of 16. Just 34 more to go!

The first Baptist Church in America. The building was built much later than Roger Williams' church started in 1638, but it was still a great church to visit.