Kontakion

Well, for my second installment in my NT 111 class (which is what I am going to start refering to my posts as) I had to read the book of Acts in the New Testament. The problem that I have had now for a number of years is that because I had to read the bible in its entierety several times in college and because of my over zelousness at that time so that I read the bible several more times than was nessacary I can't read the bible now without becoming extreamly board. So what I decided to do last year was to buy the bible on mp3 formate cd's, unfortunatly its the NIV version when I would prefer the NRSV but I didn't have the money to buy that version. So what I did today was listen to the entire book of Acts while I was doing dishes and other things around the house. There were several things that struck me when I listened to this, for one how increadably silly some of the vocals sounded, and this was a recent recording. But more importantly I noticed that there are seve...

Well I haven't posted in a little while because I've been busy trying to stay on top of my classes. In fact right now I'm taking family time in order to write down some of my thoughts from the readings I did this morning. I read three different things today for my Church history class the first thing I read was several chapters in "The Story of Christianity" by Justo L. Gonzalez. I have to say that I found the reading extreamly easy and of little substance. That is not to say that its not a worth while read, but right now it hasn't added anything to my knowledge of Christianity, I just hope it will get better. The second item that I read was "Second Apology" by Justin Martyr this artical was very interesting for some rather odd reasons for me. Justin goes through the trouble of defending Christianity but he does it by trying to appeal to the Greek philosophers, such people as Aristotle and Plato. Its quite facinating to see the various view poin...

Well I just finished my readings for my New Testament class Paul and the Early Church. I wanted to comment a little about what I am seeing from the authors and what I am thinking. The first book I read was Sandra Hack Polaski " A Feminist Introduction to Paul ." I was pleasently suprised by her writing. The reason being is that Polaski takes seems to take a rather positive outlook on Paul. This is suprising to me because I am still working through the preconcived notions that have been in grained in me about feminism. Her writing is excellent and so far what she has to say is good as well I am looking forward to reading the rest of her book. The other item I had to read was by Carol Newsom "Communities of Discourse." This is actually one chapter from a book but that is all we are reading for the class. Her writing was more difficult for me than Polaski was but I was very intrigued by some of what she had to say. Newsom seems to be point out the general rela...

Well I will be commenting here in the next several weeks on not only my classes but also my reading of the first two parts of the Humanist Manifesto. I am dealing with the Humanist manifesto because I have some speculation that I have some strong tendancies with them. I am still processing what I have read and will comment later. Fall classes start up on monday and I will see how long it takes me to get as much as possible done. I also plan on posting some of my papers and my comments on both class and the reading we have to do. So far I have only begun to read "Islam The Straight Path" by John L. Esposito. This has shown me some remarkable things that I didn't know about Islam and has so far been a pretty easy read. I don't know if it is the authors writing style or just the fact that I am enjoying the book. Recently I have also taken up listening to Pearl Jam more and more. I have had the greatest hits album "Rearview Mirror" for almost a year now and I ju...

Well there is both good and bad happening in my current class. The good is that the class definatly forces the individual to reflect more deeply about their reactions and why those reactions happen. The bad is that I find I am struggling with my temper in some respects. I don't know if its the atmosphere of the class or what it is but I find that my fuse is not as long as it normally is. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive. In fact thats what I hope it is. I am finally looking forward to doing my field education, everything for it seems to be coming together here in the next two weeks. After the panic of maybe not being choosen I found it quite reliving to see how things are coming together. Now all I need is to further work on my denomonational requirments. I am hopeing not to have a year of down time between seminary and a church. The reason is that really I can't afford it, the other reason is that I have now been doing school for seven years and I just want ...

Yet another day in the life of a seminarian, the class that I am currently involved in is not really very interesting. The best thing about it is that I am constantly having to re-think some of my concepts of self. Also the small group which I am working with is a good group that has some insightful things to say. Besides that Nothing really interesting has been happing, in fact all of the books I've had to read for this class have been extreamly dull and not very helpful. I will wait and see if the last book we have to read is worth it or not.

Well it has been far to long, at first I thought I would be back to blogging as soon as we had gotten internet up and running. However as life has been adjusting and school has been starting I have found less time to write. Now I have gotten wireless internet set up and I think I will be able to blogg a little more, honestly I will wait and see.