I am teaching a live video series on Biblical exegesis for a seminary overseas through a partnership between the Church of God and a church fellowship in the other country. The seminary prepares new pastors to plant churches in their own country and raise their own support.
Until now, most of my teaching experience has been with Biblical languages, and the vast majority of it has not been live. In this experience, not only am I planning a two-hour live session; but I am also planning for the time requirement of working through a translator. It is an enriching experience for me, and I look forward to witnessing the growth of these new pastors!
For my readers who are not familiar with the terminology, I will explain what this class is about as I have explained it to my students. It is simplistic in comparison to what American students learn. American students have an entire textbook to take home and read between lectures; and what I teach during class is an addition to their readings. In this setting, the students do not have a textbook. They learn everything orally. They have Bibles in their own language, and part of our time together is spent working out some examples after I have taught some rudimentary methods.
Exegesis is the practice of finding, and preparing to teach, what the Bible says in its own context. What does a passage tell on its own about its culture and theology? How can we read the passage against other parts of the Bible to understand it in its context? How can we read it against what we can learn from history in order to understand it more fully?
In a future class, we will do hermeneutics, in which we go back to texts after doing exegesis and think about how they can speak to our own time and place. An abuse of Scripture occurs when we do hermeneutics without doing exegesis. Often we do this because exegesis is painful. We also do it because we feel that ancient times, cultures, and ideas are no longer relevant.
- Learning From My Younger Self - February 10, 2024
- more reflections on ITD - June 30, 2023
- On travel while at ITD: reflections after day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
- Job Descriptions, Inclusivity, and Equity for People with Disabilities - October 15, 2022
- Traveling without a Guide Dog: Experience with Cane and Walker - October 14, 2022
- Disability and Church, Intersection - June 11, 2022
- Review: When Chronic Pain and Illness Take Everything Away - June 11, 2022
- Grammar and Style Resources for Writers - June 9, 2022
