Vision and Goals

I believe God sees this course as a fellowship. We are a team brought together for a season of growth through mutual training, challenge, equipping, and discipline. All these serve the ends that every participant attain new and lasting appreciation for the Holy Bible of the Church of Jesus Christ, particularly the New Testament, and that every participating follower of Jesus gain new and lasting love of the Bible and skill in the Church's practices of Scripture.

The Bible is an incomparable treasure, and we all need its riches. I teach biblical studies to help weave Scripture into the lives of students as firmly as it is woven into the life of the Church. More specifically, the course intends its participants:

To hear and understand the Bible's good news of the Kingdom of God that has arrived in Jesus Christ. This involves grasping both the centrality of the Bible to Christian worship, doctrine, and life and the centrality of Jesus Christ to the Bible.

To work together as colleagues in Christian liberal arts education in a fellowship whose relationships and tasks embody the Kingdom. These tasks require and foster strengthened academic discipline, particularly regarding good writing, listening, and critical reading.

To gain opportunities to respond to that good news by becoming more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. In the context of this particular class, they manifest themselves in active corporate and personal engagement with the discipline of orthodox Christian biblical practice. In the wider context of the Christian faith, a positive response entails full commitment to Jesus as crucified and risen Lord: Son of the Father, Way to eternal life, redeemer of the world, King of all kings, firstfruits of the new creation, giver of the Holy Spirit, head of the Church, and final judge.

To become familiar with the traditions that inform understanding of the New Testament: close reading, properly grounded trust, rules of faith, traditions of interpretation, exegetical and spiritual discipline, church life, historical context, hopeful imagination, pastoral purpose, and critical techniques with which the Christian tradition conserves, pursues, and deepens its appreciation of the Kingdom.

To grow in love of the Bible and its faithful uses in the mission of God in Jesus Christ.

I describe the general objectives of all my courses in my rules of the game.

You and I are also about to do a whole lot of work, because while the power to do these things is God-given, they don't come easily.