Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

T-Minus 5 Days until my 6th semester at Dallas Christian College takes off. Last semester had its highs and lows, with Life Science owning the lowest of low spots in the entire 2.5 years I’ve been at this. I am done with basics, only Major courses, Biblical Core, and Electives left. Here’s the lineup and commentary for the semester:

Greek I: Jan 11 – April 12 (Campus) - Major Requirement: Getting my Greek on! Here’s the problem with ministers who learn the languages: Unless you become a true scholar of the language, you only learn enough to sound smart in your sermons/lessons. Despite our familiarity with the phrase we hear uttered from the pulpit “the original Greek manuscript actually says…”, how many of us can remember any of those words or the point of the speaker. Let’s see… “agape” and maybe the other Greek words for love (eros, phileo)… I know a few more like “ekklesia” (church/gathering) and “kononia” (community), but that’s it. For me, I just want to know enough for my personal studies to where I can see subtleties in the language that may cause me to pause and say “alright, lets turn to the experts and see what they have to say.” I have a really good example of this, but it’d take a whole post to explain… maybe later.

Synoptic Gospels: Jan 15 – March 4 (Online) - Biblical Core: I was actually thinking last night about how much I want to go through the Gospels and dig into the actions of Christ in a deeper manner. He is my Rabbi, and I want his dust to cover me. I am still going to do this on my own, but having a class like the Synoptic Gospels will also give me an avenue to bring my personal study to a discussion setting. I haven’t seen the syllabus yet so this class may focus more on the three synoptic Gospels from a comparison/contrast point of view. In any case, more Jesus=good times.

Group Leadership: March 5 – April 29 (Online) - Major Requirement: No idea what I’m getting into here, but should be helpful for my long term ministry vision and life at work even. Good times…

Interpretation of the Old Testament: April 30 – June  17 (Online) - Biblical Core: Again, not sure what depth we’re going to get into this. It should be interesting because these are the types of things that can ruin a guy. In “bible school” and seminary, our championed approach to the Bible is very mechanical and scholarly. As such, we tend to downplay the experiential side of our faith. We have to be careful to find a balance. The scholarly approach is helpful, but if I live and die by it, my faith (which is hopefully vibrant and alive) may follow suit and become mechanical. That said, I know I miss tons of OT references when I read the NT, so I’d like to learn how to recognize those things more readily. I think this class will help.

Evangelism: April 30 – June 17 (Online) - Major Requirement: This is a timely class. I just finished one book on evangelism and one of the main focuses of 2010 for our church is going to be effective evangelism… -Of course that should always be in the scope of focus of a church, but hey, we need to reevaluate our approach this year-… One of the key elements about evangelism is understanding the purpose: to further the Kingdom by making disciples… not converts. I’ll be interested to see how this class handles our ever changing culture. Handing out tracts hasn’t worked for 35 years, but people still do it…

So there ya go. Send money…

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STATS:
General Core Semester Credits: 0
Major/Bible Core Semester Credits: 15
Elective Semester Credits: 0
Total Semester Credits: 15

General Core Credits Complete: 39 of 39 (100%) – W007! W007!
Major/Bible Core Credits Complete: 21 of 66 (32%)
Elective Credits Complete: 8 of 24 (33%)
Total Credits: 68 of 129 (53%)