a reflection

I really enjoyed Pauline this semester. Thus far in my college experience ministry classes have been my most difficult classes as well as the classes I have enjoyed the most. I have learned that I must have a different attitude when taking one of my core classes. For me to come into it unprepared to learn from the Lord creates a theological mind in me and not a mind set centered on Christ dealing with theology. That has been tough every semester, but this semester God has really helped develop a habit of being prepared when approaching his word. Over the semester several of the most difficult elements of our schedule sparked the greatest amount of change in my life. Beginning with the seminar, I grew closer to some individuals in the class and learned what it meant to be in the shoes of Paul. Attempting to take on his humility and burden for a hurting and wavering church. Polhill and the DPL challenged my consistency, even though I did not completely overcome they were a constant lesson on the Pauline corpus and a lesson on how to handle it with integrity. Winter provided an intellectual exposition on Corinth. One of which stretched my comprehension, but challenged tradition and my life. The lectures from Dr. Foster conglomerated the mass of information for this dumb second year student. Actually he did a lot more than that.
I thought I would end with telling some of what I learned from my paper and some of how Pauline has effected my life. In studying the man of lawlessness of 2 Thess, I learned some of the things that will happen before Christ's return. I learned what this scripture teaches about the Anti-Christ. I learned how I must not shy away from eschatological and apocalyptic texts in the Paul or for that matter the whole bible. Todd Still said something to the extent of, "reading Paul while avoiding eschatology is like eating raisin bread and avoiding the raisins." The Thessalonian letters taught me about how I must live each day in the anticipation of Christ's imminent return. This should probably be another paragraph, but our teacher counted points off my book report for going over. Taking what I learned from the class and being able to teach a bible study over 1 Corinthians the last few weeks a church has been a joy. Not that I have some gold nugget that I can show the guys that they may have never heard before, but being able to teach students the truth of the scripture and how they can be good stewards of it is a blessing.

kevin