3,292

This last week has involved a massive effort to get my Old Testament essay finished ahead of my folks arriving in town yesterday. I just managed to scrape it through in time: 3,292 words of essay in the end.

I had a little help, though...


The essay question was a little less scary than my last one. Here it is:

Critically examine the text of 1 Samuel 12:19-25, and explore the way in which it contributes to the theology of kingship.

The passage is the tail-end of the prophet Samuel's final speech to Israel as their leader. He basically promised to continue on as prophet, praying for and instructing the people in God's word, and calls on Israel to follow the Lord, only, looking to Him for rescue and security. It was quite an enjoyable essay to write.

Having said all that, gosh it's great to be finished. That's the last major assessment for the year before exams, and it's a massive milestone to have passed. Term 4 awaits. Baby, and exams! But for now... *sigh of relief*... holidays.

PS. For those interested, John Woodhouse's new commentary on 1 Samuel is excellent; it's a real preacher's commentary. And David Tsumura's NICOT commentary is great for a more technical (Hebrewy) one.

Greek Geeks

This afternoon was our Greek 2 exam. I think it went pretty well.

So that's the end of Greek. No more. We've learned all that we're going to. Well, in an isolated subject anyway. Although we'll continue to use Greek in our New Testament subjects, we won't have it as a separate subject from here on.

Oh yeah, and that's the end of Term 3, too. This year is flying!

Preaching OT Narrative

In a few weeks I'll be preaching on 2 Kings 16-17. Preaching narrative sections of the Old Testament is something that Dave Thurston, the minister at our church, is really keen for us to learn to do well. Heaps of the Bible is narrative, after all. As a part of that, Dave's been encouraging us (his student ministers) to work at being good story-tellers.

When I was in Tassie last, David Jones recommended this book to me in connection with preaching the Old Testament:

The Word Became Fresh: How to Preach from Old Testament Narrative Texts

I finished it last night. It's a little pearler of a book simply because Dale Ralph Davis (a veteran preacher) takes you under his wing as he thinks about Old Testament narrative. It's not exhaustive, it's not deep and complex. It's just sitting with a guy who loves narrative and loves reading the story of God's work in history. He's a sensitive reader (i.e. he notices stuff that I might pass over), and he's a good writer.

There's only one bit that I think is a bit shonky, and that's his little section on the relationship between Jesus and the Old Testament. My quibble is only small, though, in the scheme of things.

On another note, how about 'Ralph' for a middle name??! I guess it wouldn't go so well for a girl... ;)

Stuff to Eat. Stuff to Buy.

Last Saturday was the College Winter Carnival. As well as Sing Star, Story Telling, and a cool Magic Show, there was a baking comp. We (well, Kate) entered a chocolate and pear tart, which is probably yummier than the yummiest thing you've ever seen ;)


Second Prize was the result. (Congrats to Kate, of course). A travesty of justice if you ask me... How could anything possibly be better than pear and chocolate? How? ;)

In other news... if you're partial to a technical commentary then you need to get yourself to Koorong and grab some of the Baker Exegetical series. My mate Jai tipped me off to the sale: they're three for the price of two, at the moment. I already own the John commentary (by Köstenberger); and I've heard very good things about the ones pictured here. The other book in the pile is Berkhof's systematics. It's running out at the bargain price of $16.95. Outrageous.


(For those of you who aren't familiar with the lingo, commentaries are the books that get down to the real nuts and bolts of the books of the Bible to figure out, very precisely, what they are, and are not, saying. Technical ones like these work from the original language.)

Noah reckons my new books are good for driving trains on.


I'm still feeling pretty pooped from last week, and my greek exam is now just ten days or so away. Kate's increasingly feeling very 'pregnant' with all the exhaustion and awkwardness that that entails. Ahhh. Sleep is just the best stuff in the world... when we can get it!

"...The Hebrew Eagle has Landed..."

Whew. What a week!

The time for our Hebrew exam finally arrived today. For some reason or other, it was at 3pm, so we'd all spent most of the day cramming our heads full of as much detail as possible, and only then could we sit the exam. I'm very much a 9am exam kind of person. Get it out of the way. Give me the rest of the day off. Oh well, it wasn't to be this time.

So how was it? Well, it was ok. It really wasn't quite what I was expecting (some surprising content, and some things that I had studied weren't there). But I think I did fine.

One of the translations was taken from this bit of the Bible (Genesis 31:22-25):

(Left hand page, first few lines - all about Laban pursuing Jacob, and God speaking to Laban in a dream. Go on. Click on the picture and get the close-up. Just remember, every single one of those dots is there for a reason!).

So that probably gives you some idea of where our Hebrew is up to. We were told the meaning of a few words in there that we didn't know, but otherwise, we just had to hack through on our own. It's quite a kick to discover that you can read God's word in the original language, even if the result, at this stage, is a pretty clunky translation :)

Straight after the exam we headed to Unca Bruce's for Nana's 80th Birthday Celebrations. Happy Birthday Nana!

Bruce cooked a truly wonderful roast for us all. And Neil's in town for the occasion, too. It was great to catch up with family after a taxing week.

In the Belly of the Beast

Well, welcome to the week of second year dubbed 'The Week of Death'. Why 'Death'? Well, today I handed in my Doctrine essay - a real monster of an assessment, and worth heaps of our mark. And I now have until Friday to cram Hebrew into my head.


Just to get you into the feel of my week, here's the question I chose for my Doctrine essay:

'Discuss the doctrine of original sin in the light of this observation: "The heart of the modern matter is the doctrine of autonomy, which broadly speaking teaches that anything that is not in its entirety the undetermined act of the agent is, to the extent that it is not, a denial of the agent's integrity" (C. Gunton)'

Exactly.

Anyway, it was hard. But in reality I learned heaps. Essays are excellent for that. I reckon the doctrine of Original Sin is one of the trickier little suckers, and yet it's so practical in that it's just talking about our common plight as humans before God. As for autonomy, well, everyone likes to think they're calling the shots, don't they.

Perhaps one highlight of my research was discovering that Kant's Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, and Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism really are pretty readable. Oh yeah, the other highlight was Calvin... that guy is amazing. I think the thing that he really reminded me of is our desperate need for God's kindness to enable us to please Him. Far out.

Back to Hebrew for me. I'll leave you with the picture that was emblazoned upon Noah's party bags (Yes, there were party bags!) last weekend. Rrroooaarr!!

The Last of Kung Fu... for a while ;)

Ok, so the SBS Shaw Bros special has finished now. I think my mates at college will appreciate me talking about something (anything!) other than Kung Fu again.

In conclusion, here's one sentence on each of the five films (in the order SBS screened them):

1. The Blood Brothers (1973, 2 stars) - kinda slow with a drawn-out ending... not for the kung-fu first timer.
   
2. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978, 5 stars) - exceptional in almost every respect!
   
3. Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1983, 2.5 stars) - a film of two halves: started like Monkey Magic outtakes, finished with some stunning fighting and a cool (if cheesy) twist.
   
4. Come Drink with Me (1966?, 3 stars) - consistently cool, but kinda weird in that there are two 'heroes', each with their own fairly isolated little storyline, and neither of them resolve in a major climax... weird!
   
5. The Magic Blade (1976, 4 stars) - a neat story with quirky bad-guys and good variety in the fighting. (Also has a large dose of surreal stunts and special effects)

I'll stop for a while now :)