I am back!
I thought that I would have the time to write while I was in school, but I was wrong. Anytime I was able to write or had incentive to write was converted into energy to be used for one of the many papers required for school. Then as soon as the school year was over, I was thrown into wedding planning mode and for some reason my workaholic self thought that working full-time until a few days before my wedding was a good idea. Life seems to just stay very busy to say the least, but I digress.
I have to say that my freshman year of college was quite the adventure and learning experience. I am not just talking about the academic sphere although I would say that was the biggest category. Four specific lessons stood out to me when thinking about what I learned over the past school year.
Lesson One: Humility. I have to ashamedly admit that I am a very proud creature when it comes to my knowledge on the Bible and theological issues. Bible College was a nice kick in my rear end in that regard. My favorite saying in the first few weeks of college was, “I am learning how much I do not know.” Our freshman year started with Genesis and ended in Revelation. For the first two weeks, our class wrestled through the controversies surrounding the Creation account, and from there we worked our way through the long historical accounts and the confusing prophetic books. I knew nothing about interpreting prophetic books, and I would say by no means that one semester in college makes me capable of understanding the wheels within wheels covered in eyes in Ezekiel. However, it did give me some of the tools necessary for understanding the poetry and imagery in Hosea and how it applies to Christians today.
Lesson Two: Exegesis is extremely difficult. I had several papers where exegesis was required. Some were definitely harder than others. The kingdom of God was an easier paper to write rather than my paper on biblical manhood and womanhood from 1 Timothy 2:8–15. If you do not know that passage, look it up and just try to figure out verse fifteen specifically. Exegesis sounds easy at face value. Just read the Bible and whatever it says it clearly means that… right? Well, that’s mostly true. Immediate context is key and helpful, but one also has to pay attention to the context of how the passage relates to the Bible as a whole. It sometimes makes exegesis easier, but it can also make things much more difficult. For example, James saying that faith without works is dead is completely uncontroversial until you look at what the Apostle Paul has to say about faith in relation to works. It takes time to sit down and carefully read in order to understand the context that they were both writing in and what problems that they were addressing in order to understand how they do not contradict each other. Context is not the only influencer. The genre of the books in the Bible is another factor. Psalms and 1 Samuel require different approaches because Psalms is poetry and 1 Samuel is a historical book. I say all of this to show that more goes into exegesis than one might think. This should not intimidate the lay person from trying to interpret Scripture, but rather encourage those who might struggle to understand certain passages in Scripture.
Lesson Three: If you can learn to read well, you can educate yourself well. Reading is very much underrated in our digital world. We are all told to read more, but the problem is that we are not taught how to read well and with a critical mind. By critical, I do not mean that you are nit picking, rather I mean that you are thinking through the author’s arguments taking what is good and thinking through why they might be wrong rather than just taking it in. It seemed that before I read without much of a filter.
One of my dear professors had us read some of a book called, How to Read a Book, which introduced us to several new principles. Regretfully, I do not always apply all of them, but they opened my eyes to how badly I had been reading. One of the very first things the author encouraged his readers to do was to write in the books that we were reading. This opened up a whole new realm for me. One of the first controversial topics we took on in the first semester was Creation. We read a book called 40 Questions about Creation & Evolution. Being someone who grew up reading much of Ken Ham’s material, I had all of my young earth creationist arguments ready to blow. I covered the edges of the pages with notes arguing against the various points of view. This engaging in a conversation with the author helped me think through why I thought the author was wrong instead of flossing over the pages going, “that’s wrong.”
Lesson Four, it is good for Christians of other denominations to talk and unite together on issues… but it is also good for them to attend different churches. Many denominations are orthodox and are able to get along well, but the existence of different denominations is good for the body of Christ. I had a diverse class when it came to different denominations. We had Pentecostals, Reformed, Baptists, Church of Nazarene, and Presbyterians. We had people on the cessationist side of the spectrum and the continuationist side. We had Old Earth Creationists and Young Earth Creationists. However, we were all united in the blood of Christ. We could all stand together in defense of justification by faith and faith alone. We did not call each other’s faith into question even though we were extremely convinced in our convictions. We would debate the issues and lay out our best cards, but at the end of the day, we could unite as brothers in the faith and worship the Lord our God.
I write all of this partially to be an endorsement for going to Bible college, but not just any old Bible college. A good Bible college that will give you good exegetical tools, have a critical mind, and surround you in a community of believers who truly love God and love Jesus. You do not have to go to Bethlehem College & Seminary specifically (although I would highly recommend it). Nor do you have to stay and finish up your degree at Bible college, but a year or just a semester at Bible college can help solidify the foundation of one’s faith and equip you with tools on how to approach the Bible which you can use for the rest of your life.
I hope to be writing more and mostly focusing on reviewing books since I am trying to get back into reading. Working full time keeps me very busy, but writing is my passion, and I would love to stick with it.
Natters Matters 