Looking Ahead through the Rear View Mirror

As I was walking to campus on Friday afternoon for some last minute studying in the library for my Hebrew final, I witnessed the Greek students taking the traditional "dip in the fountain" that marked the successful completion of their competency exam! The Concordia Blog Cabin has a new post with video of the latest batch of "competent" Greek students. (You may remember a recent post describing a similar event. Of course, it was a LOT warmer then!)

A lot has happened since then. Here were my classes:

Pastoral Ministry - an introduction to the Office of the Ministry and its modern context. Readings included Loving the Church you Lead by David Hansen, Becoming a Contagious Christian by Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg, Ministering Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and Bo Giertz' The Hammer of God.

Lutheran Mind - an overview of key Lutheran hermeneutical lenses, such as: law/Gospel, two kinds of righteousness, two kingdoms (or realms), proclamation versus explanation, etc.

Introduction to Historical Theology - a methods course focused on reading and analyzing primary sources in light of their historical context

Greek and Hebrew Readings - intended to be intermediate grammar classes in both languages; we would translate pericope-length passages outside of class and review our work together in class

I'm looking forward to classes for next quarter:

Confessions I - the Augsburg Confession and the Apology to the same

Worship I - introduction to the theology and history of Christian worship in general and its Lutheran expressions

Theology of Missions - introduction to the theology of... well, just guess! I am working through one of the books for this class over break. For one of the book review assignments in the class, we get to pick from a long list. I chose Lesslie Newbigin's The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. (We'll get to read another book by Newbigin during the quarter called The Open Secret.)

Hermeneutics - the name says it all... (or at least the hyperlink to Wiktionary should help)

More to come... stay tuned...