Consider it the seminarian’s lament, but as I alluded to about a month ago during my last “update” post, after classes and commuting and work and marriage and errands and leading a high school small discipleship group and whatever else, my hours and minutes are few. Not even seminarians get a regular Sabbath!
But in the last four weeks I’ve been fortunate enough to rid myself of that ridiculous stack of books and turn in my two major expositions for the semester. As I trudge toward Thanksgiving(s), I still have plenty of work to do, but luckily, I’ve gotten slightly ahead of the game – at least enough to return to the blog without feeling guilty!
On the positive side, my recent weeks dedicated to coursework has produced somewhat of a backlog of blog-ready theological material, including three consecutive weekly Old Testament reflection papers, my exegesis on the bulk of Genesis 39 (Joseph and Potiphar’s wife), and a church history term paper on an interesting Jewish-Christian heretical group known as the Ebionites. I’m not quite sure how much of the longer papers I will end up posting – I don’t want anyone to get plagiaristic ideas, you know – but for now, I plan on dedicating a few posts to each paper. Here’s something you can count on, though: this Monday through Friday, I will post something each day at noon. Set an alarm for yourself, if you’d like!
(Earlier today I posted Part 1 and Part 2 of my exegesis on
Genesis 39, which got an unexpectedly fortuitous grade!)
Now for the brief rundown of my classes and how they’ve progressed:
- Greek: For the first half of the semester we get a taste of different parts of speech, including nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and other special particles, albeit all in the present verb tense. Over the last 3 or so weeks we’ve branched out from the present tense to the present active form, the imperfect and aorist (past) tenses, and the future tense. Basically, when I pick up my Greek New Testament I am continually able to read more and more of the words, but there are still large gaps in my understanding. Everything must be proceeding as desired, however, as my quiz grades continue to look stellar.
- Old Testament: Seems like not too long ago that we were stuck in Deuteronomy, but we’ve now rolled along quite swimmingly through Solomon’s reign in 1 Kings. The fun part about this is we’ve gotten into (and through) books that I’d previously never read completely. Doing so gives you a much better perspective about the history of the Israelites and, ultimately, the circumstance in which Jesus was born. Despite the heavy reading necessary for Old Testament, my grade is looking much better than I could’ve hoped for, especially after I received my exegesis back!
- Church History: We’ve breezed past the Protestant Reformation pretty quickly and are almost getting into more modern periods of Christian history, such as the 1800s and 1900s. In fact, this is the last week that the class will be in a church history textbook: after this is a focus on African-American churches and reformers followed by the religious right. As I may have alluded to before, my particular historical interest is much further back: the historical Jesus himself, and the battles that raged for orthodoxy of faith in the centuries following his death. It is out of this spirit that my term paper on the Ebionites came about!
- Theological Ethics: While my major papers for the semester are now in the books, I still have two smaller papers, about 3-4 pages in length, due for Theological Ethics. These involve ethical case studies and wrestling with the theological and social dilemmas they propose. They have no specific due date, but I plan to get on one of these before Thanksgiving, and one afterwards. This timing works out quite nicely with the heavy periods of my other classes. In Ethics class itself, I believe I have overcome my deference to all of the third-year M.Div students to participate frequently in class discussion. Ultimately my grade will be the arbiter of that, but I’m satisfied with my level of discourse in the class about the various topics, such as the medical-industrial complex (as a power and principality) versus the Christian ethical call.
Aside from schoolwork, I’ve been fortunate enough to dedicate some time each week to the Miriam Project, where I have applied my prior online marketing and public relations background. The Miriam Project is a Christian adoption agency in Anderson, a non-profit with a strong heart for children and adoptive families. If you weren’t aware, November is National Adoption Month – as dedicated by the President – and all month long, in addition to other things, I’m writing a blog series for the Miriam Project about ways to improve knowledge and perspectives about adoption. If you’d like, please check out our first two posts: Get the Facts and Consider the Scripture. I may eventually repost the latter of those on my own blog, but for now, learn about adoption through the Miriam Project, please!
In short, all is shaping up well for the end of the semester and the holidays. I’ve already registered for the spring term (maybe I’ll share this in my next post). And it’s hard to believe that Christmas is just 40-some days away! I guess we had better get to ordering our wedding photos for everyone! 🙂
If you are reading my blog, I’d love it if you left a comment or two – not necessarily on this post, but on anything you find interesting or challenging or whatnot. Either way, thanks for reading, friends.
~Rob
Robert D. Heaton, Ph.D. 