I have for more than a dozen years observed that I used to teach in a “semitery” and that I now teach college students. Well, that came to an end Thursday night at Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, PA, north of Philly, where I hunkered own in a room with about 20 students to being our study of missional freedom in Galatians.
Just in case you don’t know, Biblical is an innovative, missionally-shaped seminary with solid theological roots in the Reformed movement and clear commitment to the Scriptures as the story into which we are called as Christians to live. I can’t say enough for the quality of people teaching there and studying there. I loved it.
A bit out of practice of teaching 30 year olds or so, I gave it a whirl for two hours Thursday evening and then from 9-5pm on Friday — we “covered” the meaning of freedom, how “law” fits into God’s redemptive plan (from Gal 3:19-25), and then we wended our way through Galatians 1-2 with a constant eye on “freedom” as the Spirit-led existence of the follower of Jesus.
Dave Dunbar and Bea Barkley and Sherry Kull plotted my time there, so it was with a little surprise that I looked at my schedule and saw that they scheduled me to eat lunch with the students (if they wanted to). Which they did. JR Briggs got a gang of the class to go to a local pizza joint where I tasted and enjoyed my first-ever-but-clearly-repeatable experience of “white pizza.” Essentially, no tomato sauce; alfredo instead; white cheeses and about a glass full of garlic. It was very good. Very good. And I must say the time with the students was great.
First question: “How do you do it all?” (The teaching, writing, blogging, and speaking.) My answer, as always: “It’s easy. And I’d not do it if it weren’t easy.” One more time: the Bible study posts are done either on Sat or Sun mornings. I set the time for them to go off at 2:10 am every day. 1 hour, maybe 1.5 hours. The book studies generate ideas that are worth discussing. The “light” posts just occur to me when I’m doing things — like this one. And then sometimes I get an idea and I post that. Weekly Meanderings are done as I see things during the week. The Prayer for the Week on Sunday comes from the BCP most of the time. And the best part of the blog is that I have great readers who have good ideas and who keep the discussion hopping.
I’ll post tomorrow on the Saturday morning “the gospel and the church that is emerging” conference we had at Biblical.