-Exegetical Method and Practice
This is the class where I learn how to use the Greek that I spent all of the fall quarter learning. We basically look at a specific text and consider the following in order to pull out every little thing from the passage.
-Historical and literary context
-Author and recipient
-Changes made to the manuscripts over the years
-language and use of tenses and specific terms
-Anything else that seems pertinent.
The purpose of exegesis (Ex-Eh-Jesus) is to make conclusions about the text from all of these elements that are hopefully useful in teaching and preaching. It's been pretty fun to look at some familiar texts, look at the original language and discern the purpose behind what's being written.
-The Life of Jesus
This might be my favorite course this quarter. We're looking at the elements of Jesus' life from a historical perspective, jewish perspective and current perspective. What do we know and understand about who Jesus was and what he said/did? How does this fit into the fact that he was a Jewish man living in Palestine in the first century? It's been pretty fun to get into some old Jewish texts that Jesus and his followers would have been familiar with. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
Jesus healing a man on the sabbath and getting criticized by the Jewish leaders at the time.
The questions at hand is:
-What is lawful to do on the Sabbath?
-What constitutes work?
-Can one heal on the sabbath?
-What does the Jewish law say?
-Are the temple leaders breaking the sabbath by sacrificing on the sabbath, because this would technically be work for them?
-The conclusion is that Jesus taught that they two greatest commandments are to Love God and love neighbor. If the law comes before mercy, it breaks these commandments.
Reading that might interest you:
-The Meaning of Jesus, Two Visions by Marcus Borg & N.T. Wright
-Familiar Stranger, An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth by Michael J. McClymond
-The Historical Jesus: 5 Views by James K. Belby
Homelessness/Congregations and Community Partnership
I heart this class. We've been studying the issue of homelessness in america since the early '80's when it first became a public issue. Looking at the responses to homelessness over the years, what's worked and what has not worked. How the attitude of the average american has changed over time. Much of what we're reading are governmental grants and programs to help end homelessness. Discussing how the response to homelessness MUST take into account other elements than simply the lack of housing. Substance abuse and mental illness being two of the biggest. This class requires that we have contact hours with homeless in our community so this was the kick in the butt that I needed to get over to a transitional housing community in my neighborhood called Door of Hope. (more to come on Door of Hope at another time, because it is slowly changing my life... watch out).
Readings:
-Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets by John P. Kretzmann
-Walking with the Poor by Bryant Myers (Suzannah... This might be a book for you!)
Please let me know if you're interested in more about these classes, I'd be happy to tell you more.
2 comments:
thanks for the updates!
friends of mine run a homeless ministry in pittsburgh that i served on the board of for a few year. it's almost entirely funded by individual donors and churches, and they just opened a discipleship house on the north side: L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry
your classes sound awesome. i'm going to check out your book links:)
That homelessness class seems also I am so interested in hearing more about it. My internship in D.C. some of the historical stuff I was learning was based around other things causing homelessness here but that class seems awesome.
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