defending A grade....

I’ve never had to defend a grade before, much less decide what grade I wanted (I bet most of us haven’t). 

Looking back over this semester and comparing this class to others, I am faced with the dilemma of deciding what grade I want and how to defend it.

Of course, I want an A…who doesn’t (except for Jon I suppose, who is taking the class pass/fail)?!  But why do I want an A? I want an A because it will help my GPA. I am a senior applying for seminary, and good grades can certainly help my application. Seminary schools aren’t looking to see exactly what I learned as an individual, and these classes aren’t even pre-requisites for grad level courses. The grade doesn’t actually matter for any reason except the GPA (that I can think of).

I think we have all come a long way. We started the semester thinking it was crazy that a professor would do this, maybe we didn't even really believe it was happening...but it did happen, and we still showed up, still participated, and even worked together on a class project.  We are exploring new ways of learning, and we are learning more about ourselves and the responsibility that we have in a class to learn. We haven’t just learned the things on the syllabus; we have discovered new things in ourselves and our peers. I think that is what makes a great professor; Dr. Borders has encouraged us to step outside the box of education to explore and question new things.

As far as the normal grading scale goes, I might have earned myself a D, a grade I have never made in any class at any point in my life. I don’t think that a D reflects everything that I have learned from this class. I don’t think that a D reflects the effort that I have out into the class.

My freshmen year, I got a C in a religion class, the only C I’ve made in my college life. My professor really didn’t like me, I had the wrong edition of the text book, and I never felt prepared enough for her tests. When I compare that experience to this semester in Jesus and the Gospels, I can’t help but think that I have gained so much more from this class. The shear knowledge that I could decide my grade took the pressure off of my learning. Yes, sometimes that meant that I read for this class last, or I put other projects before my responsibilities for the class….but that doesn’t mean that I neglected the class. I only missed one class (that I can remember) the entire semester. I took notes every day. I participated in class. I even took the things I learned into other class discussions and general discussions outside of the academic atmosphere. I think that is what learning should inspire. The fruit of knowledge is discussion. I feel completely prepared to share my thoughts and understanding on topics that we have covered in class. I even desire conversations in which I can express who Jesus is and what He was like to the people around him and His importance to us today.

The semester I have gained a better respect for my professors, for the learning environment, and the people who make it up. When we come to class unprepared, we are hurting ourselves, our peers, and our professors. I have learned about myself and the ways that I study best…as it turns out, I retain information better when I’m learning about something without the pressures of a future test.  It helps me to become more engaged in the subject and appreciate it more deeply.

So, I want an A. I don’t know if I deserve it, but I honestly don’t think the letter on my transcript says much at all about what I’ve learned. Yes, I have learned about Jesus and the Gospels, I have attended class, I have read some pretty good books, and we even came up with a class project that could change the way people think and act, especially on our campus. I think the final product says the most. We didn't just say things needed to change, we changed things and we have done something to encourage and effect more change to improve education at Huntingdon. 

I wish we had gotten this far in Paul and His Letters last semester. We had so many great ideas and we were challenging each other to learn and grow, but we just ended up with this GIGANTIC book of a paper that no one in his right mind would voluntarily read...and nothing happened. I feel like this was a chance for us to jump into something, and we really did. We might not have dressed up like Zealots, but we found them on our campus and we connected the Bible with our own lives. How many colleges can say they have classes like this one?! I'm honored to be a part of it.

What is this world coming to?!!?!?!?!

You've probably heard of the LOL Cats, pictures of cats with captions written in their own broken English language, but have you heard about the LOL Cat Bible translation?! It’s true. Online, you can read a new translation of scripture in LOL Cat language. The god figure in this translation is played by ceiling kitty, often seen looking down or through a hole. The Satan figure is basement kitty, a black cat with glowing eyes. You can read the creation story according to LOL kittys, or maybe Lamentations. 

http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

documentary

This is Stephen in the Biblical Exegesis class he is not actually enrolled in. He comes prepared with Greek text, Bibles of various translations, and the class reading. He is interested in the subject and participates in class discussion, yet we call him an overachiever. 

Dr. Borders took us to one of his bee colonies without protective gear.

Texting in the library = not very productive. 

This was our class hard at work when we split up into groups.

My own distraction in class. I doodle sometimes.

Self Awareness and a Cell Phone

I did it. I used my cell phone in class and found myself more self-aware than ever. I'm supposed to be on the team of creepers looking out for people, like me, on their phones or just distracted...I stopped taking my laptop to class because there are waaaay too many things on it to distract me from class. I even deactivated my facebook so that I could be a little more in the world and less of it. But, still, I get distracted.

I touch my phone and find myself pausing to consider how this will effect my learning. Am I distracting others around me? Does my professor know? Is this even important? Did I miss something?

Jesus and the Gospels has taught me a lot about responsibility and focus. If my focus shifts from avoiding failure to gaining knowledge and succeeding in classes, I think that I will do better. I'm a psychology major, so I find myself analyzing how my initial attitudes effect the way a situation plays out...which it completely does...

So, this week I am going to make an attempt to avoid my phone while I'm in class/at work/studying/working on grad school stuff/etc. If you see me distracted...hold me accountable. thanks. :)

Classroom Creepers

I am so stoked to actually be starting a project in class. I keep saying I feel like our Paul class has unfinished business and I LOVE that we are getting the ball rolling on this idea for Jesus and the Gospels! I want to change the world, but I know I cannot do it alone and it will take a long time for it to really happen....but one thing that we learned in Paul was that sometimes it helps to think globally and act locally. Whether locally is with ourselves or our school, I think we're doing an awesome thing to attempt to impact change where we see it needs to happen.


Luke talks a lot about outcasts of society. There are also outcasts of the classroom; people who have learning disabilities, people who learn in different ways, people who never do the assignments :) As Christians, we are called to step out of our comfort zones to reach out to the outcasts, even to become one of them. For this project we are ultimately doing the same thing; we are reaching out to the broken, the poor and the people who don't always get things the first time you tell them.


I'm a part of the group in our class who will be taking pictures of real situations in class rooms when we see learning happening...or not happening. We are the classroom creepers. I am excited to be a part of this group and to get things started on this project. I really believe that we can do good things with this. I cant wait to see the final result!

the class

I think, in a way, our class is a group of Zealots. We have this ideal in mind for how we think Huntingdon should be, and although it is different from what the administration and staff (the Romans) have been doing, the results of what we want are the same. We all want to have a peaceful campus where students are engaging in learning and are equipped for the real world. The means by which we want that, however, is where we differ. We, as a class of Zealots, don't like the way that the Romans of our institution have been running things and we don't think they should have power over us. Huntingdon is our school, we pay the bills and we are the body of inhabitants. Our futures depend on everything that happens here. We want to make Huntingdon's classrooms better learning environments to better prepare us for the world after graduation. After college, very few of us will have to take a test to show the things we know; instead, we will have to be able to put the things that we know into action. If we aren't doing that here, we aren't learning. It's not about overthrowing the government or killing people for us, it's about taking control over what we think should already be ours: learning.

Modern Zealots...

We certainly got what we wanted. There's nothing like a field trip to get you excited about learning! Dr. Borders is making a huge point to us and I really hope that we all take it and run with it. We have the ability and the power to change the way that things are happening at Huntingdon, but we really have to work as a team to hear each other out (or read our blogs and comment on them). 

Normally, our goal in class is individualistic and grade focused, but Dr. Borders is challenging us to set new goals and raise the bar for education. With the promise of a good grade, our focus can be on something greater. 

What are we going to do? 

Communication

So, we all have issues with the way that things are happening in our classes, on our campus and in our society...but we aren't going to solve anything just complaining about it. We don't associate the classroom with learning (as we stated in class today) and we want "kindergarten" back, but still want to be treated like adults....

Our professors (Dr. Borders not included) are teaching the way they were taught. They teach the way they were taught how to teach. They are teaching the way college classes around the world are generally taught. They don't know they're doing anything wrong.

If we don't tell them that we aren't learning in the classroom they won't ever understand it. Learning is in the hands of the student. Professors can't force knowledge into our brains. I honestly don't think the solution to our issues are that huge...we just need to communicate our desires for classroom environments to our professors.

In science it's easy to do an experiment or observe something in order to understand the topic of discussion. In psychology we can study real people's behaviors. In english we can act out stories, or write our own versions. In religion we exegete, discuss, and pretend to be Romans and Zealots. In business classes we can make our own "businesses" and apply what we learn to them as if they were real; or maybe students could create actual businesses that provide services or supplies to other students. It's not that hard to think of ways to make classrooms more like "kindergarten" with hands-on learning, we just have to help our professors get a little creative.

"There's nothing we want more!"

We sang this song at Emerge this week and I really love it now. It is from Song of Songs. The words are all amazing, but I think the bridge has the greatest words. "I don't want to talk about You like You're not in the room. I want to look right at You. I want to sing right to You." I think this is awesome because I often find myself talking, praying, even worshiping like its to some distant God, but Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are so incredibly personal I can't imagine what our faith would be like without them. "There is nothing we want more" than Christ in our lives and to worship Him.

"Come be the fire inside of me!"

“Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.”

-Song of Songs 8:6-7

On Fire for Jesus?!

In class today as we were looking at various peoples' depictions of who Jesus is...I remembered a statue that I saw once in front of a church on the side of the interstate in Ohio. I remember seeing it from the road and wondering who decided that this church needed a gigantic Jesus in front of the doors! (My second thought was that maybe this church could have helped feed some hungry people or build some wells for people in Africa...rather than spending thousands of dollars on a huge Jesus!)

What Jesus looks(ed?) like doesn't actually effect our worship of God. Building gigantic statues or painting hypothetical portraits of him don't really help anything. Who Jesus is is not a huge white guy with facial hair. The early church didn't even want to write God's name because it was like an idol...why should we try to guess what he looked like?!

I recently found out that this statue of Jesus in Ohio was struck by lightning and burnt down. I do think, however, that the church decided to rebuild it (costing even more money)....

Karen's Spiritual Journey

Karen, the little girl in the video, shows a great progression in her spiritual journey, even through the few clips that we've seen in class (and more available on youtube). The people she interacts with everyday have a surprisingly large impact on her views of Christianity, and what it means to be a Christian.
Karen faces a lot of issues like whether Satan is even real and what kind of things people have to do in order to be Christians. It seems sweet and silly in the series, but these questions are not unlike the ones we face every day. Karen approaches these things from such an innocent point of view that it really effects the way that she reacts in her life. She thinks that being a Christian means sleeping a specific amount of time and drinking milk, just like her teacher. Are there things that we assume we have to do in order to be considered a Christian? We might not think that you have to drink milk (which I certainly hope not, since I'm lactose intolerant); however, some people think you have to attend church worship weekly to be a Christian but going to church doesn't make you a Christian (although it is important).
I think sometimes we also don't realize when we play a role in someone's life like Karen's teacher was to her. In another clip, Karen's teacher was teaching her stories about Jesus while telling her about the things she does everyday, so naturally, Karen assumed she needed to do the same things. In this clip, Karen talks about what she has learned about Satan from her teacher. It's obvious that other things have influenced her views as well, especially in her view of death (she even quotes Star Wars).
If one thing we are really supposed to do as Christians is share Christ with the world, then we should probably be more aware of the roles that we play...

He is the way, the truth, and the life....

A friend of mine recently shared a blog with me of a girl named Kristen. On her blog, she shared her testimony to the journey that brought her to Christ through drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, sex, and so much pain. Her story is a beautiful picture of who Jesus Christ is and what he means for the world. I've inserted a small portion of what she wrote below. The quote that begins the excerpt comes from a priest who asked her about her faith and then gave her a time of confession (she was confirmed into the Catholic Church).

“You have to realize that when given the choice between you and Jesus, God chose you and put Jesus on the cross.” I accepted the forgiveness and freedom God had been trying to give to me for the past two years. I didn’t stop smiling for weeks. A peace like nothing I have ever experienced flooded my soul. I was confirmed into the church the following day and received communion. The night after my confirmation, the Lord came to me in a dream with the words “Come here.” I woke up, and for the first time in my life, I knew that God loved me; not as a concept or a church teaching, but as the only truth there is. I saw my soul as God sees it, looked back over everything that had ever happened to me and because of me, and understood that it didn’t matter. I became a new person in that moment, in more ways than I will ever be able to explain to anyone.

"The only truth there is." That is Jesus. He is the truth.

In my theology class, we read an article written by Robert H. King who said that the only thing we can really be certain of is that we are certain of nothing. In the debate concerning truth and opinions, this statement seems to be valid; however, when I read testimonies and stories like Kristen's (above) I am reminded of the one truth that I am certain of. I believe that Jesus is The Truth. As Kristen wrote, He isn't a concept, an opinion, or a teaching.
We spend so much time attempting to find answers to questions of the Bible or putting fact into our opinions, but I think that sometimes we get caught up in questions rather than the one answer we can really know to be true.

Hands

"It's one thing to wear your heart on your sleeve, but its another to keep it in the palm of your hand."

Wikipedia Says....

This is what's wrong with our society...this is the definition we get:

Love is any of a number of emotions related to a sense of strong affection[1] and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my wife"). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love[2] to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love.[3] Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

Go Out And Live

This is a GOAL from a Bible study:

The Bible tells us that we should go out to the world and share the message of Christ and His amazing love with everyone. It doesn’t help other people if we just sit here and talk about it; we have to actually do something, too. As you go through your normal schedule this week, remember to share God with other people by sharing love with them. Remember that God loves you unconditionally, and you should love other people unconditionally, too.

Love in actions

1 John 3:18
“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.”


1 John 4:7
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”


1 John 4:16
“We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”

curriculum

I've been writing a piece of curriculum for youth. One session talks about love. Heres a portion of the session:

God is love! If we love other people and share the love of God with them, we are sharing God with them. Think about someone you can share God’s love with. Whether it’s at school or a person you see in a store, you can share God’s love by simply sharing a smile with someone or telling them that you care about them and God loves them too!

Challenge:
Remember that you are loved unconditionally by God who gave His only son to die for you, so that you could live with Him in Heaven when your time on Earth is over.

Love

Luke 6:32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them.”


It is easy to love people who love us because we already appreciate them and are simply showing them that we care about them the same way that they love us. It is not always easy to love people who don’t like us, but that’s what this verse tells us should separate us from everyone else. We should love everyone, not just the people who already love us.

Paul's love and Abortion

Our society and the Christian Church often have very different meanings for words or expressions; one of the most controversial and yet more commonly used terms among both the Church and society is love. Although peoples’ ideas of love have greatly changed over time, the Church’s understanding of love, as shown to us in the Bible, should have never changed. The various beliefs and stigmas of love have greatly affected the Church’s response to love and the creation of a gap that separates the two main concepts of love and everything that love truly is. One major topic that our society faces today that deals an incredible amount with love is abortion. Whether a person is pro-life or pro-choice, there is no denying that the issue of abortion is one that is greatly affected by love in so many different aspects.
In our society, we often get our definition of things from media, politics, or a mixture of influential people in our lives. Love, in our society, is generally thought of as a physical action, as in sexual activity, or a feeling, like that fluttery feeling a person gets when they are around that one particular person who sees past their flaws. Love, according to today’s popular television shows, is picking the best genetic match to carry on a family line, making us think that love is not about anything greater than accepting another person’s character flaws. Popular music often makes love sound vulgar or demeaning. Women are often presented as emotionless machines that work to please men physically. Famous people are constantly going into and out of relationships and marriages, showing us that love is conditional and time constrained. If these are the things showing us what love is, there is no wonder why our views are so conflicted.

These examples that our society’s role models and major authorities are setting show us that sex is good and sex is love. They often fail to show us the other side of the story; they fail to show us the pain and heartache that comes when these people realize that what they thought was love was actually the things of this world giving them a temporary feeling of completeness. When reality strikes and the consequences of a person’s actions are evident, we tend to look the other direction or consider them the objection to the rule in the situation. If we, as a Church, open our eyes to see that these people are not the objections, they are the rule, we might see the gap that separates the love of God with the love of this world. When the young people of our society see that sex is love from our media and their peers, they desire love. They are not hearing that true love is so much more, instead they have sex to attempt to find love in the wrong places. When searching leads to sex and sex leads to pregnancy, many girls search for answers in abortion clinics only to find later that abortion is the opposite of love, and it is certainly not the love that the Church defines.

The most common theme throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is love. The entire story of God and His creation is entirely about His love; the New Testament is especially full of amazing stories and lessons of love because they show God’s love through sending His only son to be murdered all for the sake of our lives, that we might be saved. Paul, who is accredited for most of the New Testament, wrote letters to peoples and churches passionately sharing God’s love with others. Paul’s life alone was a testament to the great love of his God and Father in Heaven. From a murdering politician to a man on fire for His God, desiring only to live for Him, Paul’s life was changed from one of hurt and anger to a life abounding in love, the love of God. Paul uses his letters to the churches of his region to explain God’s love and will for His people.

The gift of life is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us. God knew us all individually before the beginning of time. Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians that we were all predestined before the world was made. This is an example of the amazing love of God for His children that is beyond our comprehension. He loved each of us enough to make us all individually unique in every way possible. He knew our names before the beginning of time. How could anyone deny another person this great love of God? Abortion, murder of an unborn child of God, is just that. Abortion, no matter how it is defined, is in direct denial of God’s love. God gave us His law and told us that the greatest law is to love. We should love God with everything that we are, and we should love everyone else in His creation just as we love ourselves. If we love ourselves enough to maintain our life, what part of God’s law says it is permissible to inhibit the life of another?

In our society, where murder for murders is encouraged and stipends for volunteerism is expected, we see abortion as any other political topic. There is always opposition and support, but very few people are actually educated on what it really is and what its long-term effects are among its victims. In order to seriously become anything more than lukewarm on such a controversial topic, a deeper understanding is vital. We should consider our society’s influence on abortion before considering its relationship to love as Paul defines it in his letters of the New Testament.

Our society tells us that “if we truly love someone, we will let them go,” straying from the ancient concept that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Several things keep members of our society from allowing the village that is our society to help raise the children of generations to come. Pride, lack of education, and poverty, among other factors, effect the growing support for abortion in our nation. The past decades in the United States have promoted the growth of self pride among men and women of all races and social classes. This pride keeps many people from seeking help, support or even simple encouragement in any aspect of personal life, and especially when it comes to abortion. Pride implies that a person is satisfied with the condition of their current life; they are so arrogantly satisfied that introducing another life, for which they would need to take care of and be responsible for, completely throws all of that satisfaction out of place. Our society “protects” its members by sugarcoating and understating the costs of abortion, not only financially, but psychologically, spiritually and physically. Society shuns those who ask questions and seek answers in the “hush hush” topics we avoid every day, like abortion. If schools and media outwardly spoke of life and love in a different light, more people could be educated about abortion. Every day, women seek abortion as a solution to a problem that will only get larger and more overwhelming. After an abortion, women and men alike are affected psychologically by the anger and sorrow of making a conscious decision to abandon the life of a child. The physical cost of abortion often comes later when a women desires to have a baby and the trauma of abortion in her body brings pain and complications in pregnancy. Spiritually, after an abortion, most people feel a deep separation from God because they understand it is wrong to take the life of another human. These people understand that simply because this child is unborn, that does not make it any less human. Financially, abortion is like any other surgery, except that instead of attempting to save a life through surgery, the product of abortion is to take a life. Our society is taking the love out of life and attempting to play god in the role of deciding who lives. Families in poverty often seek abortion because the cost of raising a child is so great. They do not consider alternatives to abortion or seek financial help in raising a child.

This epidemic of abortion seeking women needs to be stopped by truly showing what they are doing and allowing them to experience the powerful love of Christ. The Church sees the problem, they support life and pro-life politicians, but simply telling someone they support a situation does not help to bridge the gap. There is no love in taking a life. God is love. Only God can truly show what love is and what is should mean to each individual who knows Him; however, it is the job of the Church to be the body of Christ and to do the will of God.

Society’s view of love needs to be changed; God’s love should be introduced to the world. We should set aside our differences; agree to disagree on the little things, and join together on the most important things. God’s love should be visible to all people through the life and actions of the Church body. Christians should be living complete lives of love, sharing and professing His love to the world. Pride and fear of stepping out of our comfortable personal bubbles keeps us from living a life of love.

LOVE and the 7 deadly sins

I was a part of a Bible study the other day, in which we talked about the 7 deadly sins. One person in the group suggested that these sin are related to an extreme love. I think it might be important for us to understand the other side of love. When love is taken to the extreme, we have to consider what idols we make of the things we love more than God Himself.

* Γαστριμαργία (gastrimargia)
* Πορνεία (porneia)
* Φιλαργυρία (philargyria)
* Λύπη (lype)
* Ὁργῆ (orge)
* Ἀκηδία (akedia)
* Κενοδοξία (kenodoxia)
* Ὺπερηφανία (hyperephania)

...or in english......

Gluttony is an extreme love of possessions.
Lust is love of love.
Greed is love of things, objects.
Wrath is love of seeing others
pride is love of oneself.
Extravagance is love of things that are excess.
Sloth is love of a condition or a state of mind.

At the same time, though, there are seven holy virtues that seem to be the opposite of these seven deadly sins:
Humility
Charity
Kindness
Patience
Chasity
Diligence
Temperance

Maybe we should be thinking about where we see these holy virtues in our lives and what systems need to see these things more evidently in our society.

Colossians

Background:
Paul writes his letter to the people in Colossae around 60 A.D.
He was writing to confront the heretical teachings that had been happening in Colossae
He wanted to encourage those who were believers to continue in their faith
Leaders were imposing rules on the people, creating gods from angels and deities that came from God
The point that Paul is really trying to make is the superiority of Christ; that the people need to focus on the treasures of Heaven, rather than the worldly things…the people need to leave their sinful lives behind and center their lives on Christ
Chapters 1-2: Paul did not establish this church
False teachers were spreading heresy, rejecting the deity of Christ
Paul’s assures the people that Jesus Christ is God
Chapters 3-4: Paul tells the people to focus on Christ; he says to “set your min don the things above”
He talks about how to deal with other believers and how to manage a family, he wants them to put aside the petty things are truly focus on faith



“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
We are all loved by Him. Above all else we should love each other because He loves us. The thing that binds compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience is love.

From The Message: Colossians 3
15-17Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

Define

define...our society is caught up on defining things and trying to give everything meaning or purpose, but as we have given things their own definitions, we have made them nouns. While most of our peers and other people our age would define love as a feeling(thoughts), we see that Paul is telling us love is an action, a lifestyle. Can we help give love a new definition in our society?!

I think that's our goal, to help show the true definition of love to a system(yet to be defined) within our community. I think Dr. Border's father is right when he said we need to "think globally and act locally." I think we might have started with the mentality that we were going to change the world in a semester, but we really do need to start in our own community with our peers and professors.

The Message, Matthew 10: 5-
"Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.... 16"Stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.

17-20"Don't be naive. Some people will impugn your motives, others will smear your reputation—just because you believe in me. Don't be upset when they haul you before the civil authorities. Without knowing it, they've done you—and me—a favor, given you a platform for preaching the kingdom news! And don't worry about what you'll say or how you'll say it. The right words will be there; the Spirit of your Father will supply the words.... 26-27"Don't be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don't hesitate to go public now. 28"Don't be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There's nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands.

What are we doing?

Something is going to be the master of your life. You have the ability to decide. What will you be a slave to? You can choose to be a slave to sin. You can choose to be a slave to Christ. Only one will set you free. Freedom is found in submitting your life to Christ. When you are dead to sin, you will be alive in Christ. God is love. When we commit our lives to God, we are giving everything up for love. We all make this decision, but we need to make it consciously. How can we show the true love of Christ in our own lives?

Love is not an emotion. Love is an action. Love is a lifestyle. We have to show love through the way we live. There are people who are hungry living in the same town as you. There are people who do not have places to sleep in the same town you live in. There are people who don't have clean water. People who are raped, beaten, sold into slavery EVERYDAY. What are we doing to stop it?! What are we doing to cause change?

We have to learn to take initiative to help begin to solve the problems of our world. Where do we start!?

Research Proposal

The way the world thinks of love is different from the way in which Paul explains it. We need to understand both views before we can overcome the gap between society and scripture. As a class, we should study love from Paul's perspective and from our society's perspective. We should find the gap where these ideas of love fail to meet and search for a solution to bring them together. What can we do as a class to spark change at Huntingdon to bridge the gap between society and scripture? Our project should unite the student body in an understanding of true love and how we can share love everyday in everything we do.

I propose that we, as a class, use the things we learn and study about love to search for a solution to the gap between what society tells us love is and what Paul tells us love should be. Our solution should be shown in some form of visual presentation (whether it be a video, art, or each of us standing on corners shouting our message), we should present our message to our peers and let our impact be our evaluation of our project.

The Greatest Commandment

There is only one relationship that is truly loving (unconditionally) and eternal. That is the relationship between God, our Father, and each of His children. Before the world was set into motion, He loved us. He gave us His love.

He tells us to love Him with all our heart, mind, and strength. Can we actually achieve this? What does it look like to love God with ALL of your heart, with ALL of you mind, or with ALL of your strength? It's so easy to keep reading the scripture here...love your neighbor as yourself...okay, but what happens to the first part?

We're so worried about defining "neighbor" like we've already achieved the first commandment. I know who God is and I'm struggling to fully comprehend what it means to love Him with everything that I am.

Foundations for Love

In order to be productive and effective in our faith, we are called to possess certain qualities, one of which is LOVE; however, before we are to have love we must have goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, and brotherly kindness. So often, we jump straight into the idea of love, but maybe we should take a step back to the foundations of love that Second Peter talks about. If we want to show love and be examples of Christ's love, we should ALREADY be covering these other characteristics

2 Peter 1:3-9
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

What is love?

love…SEXUAL or LACK of love?

Passion, emotion, union

The Beatles:
All You Need Is Love-
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you
in time - It's easy.

Literature:
Love-noun/verb
Faith-verb
How can we change the way that people use words? offer love and live faith

Culture:
Aphrodite: goddess of love, physical
Who is our neighbor? Who should we love?
The oppressed? People who chose not to love us?

Love:
If all we can do is get close (to the true love that is Christ), is that enough?
Eros gets pulled into it…but it’s not the same thing. We mix the love languages
Without Christ's unconditional love all other kinds of love fail

Why do we find love to be so difficult?
Why have people lost belief in love?
What can we be doing to show love, to give love?


Biblical Love:
Romans 13:8 submit to authority…can we live in a word of love? When authority prevents you from getting/giving love
Matthew 5: love your enemies. Loving those who love you is easy
We have to be intentional about loving others, especially our enemies

1 Corinthians 13

1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Love: God, You, Others

There is no greater commandment than to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; however the second is also of most importance, to love your neighbor as yourself.

So, we, as Christians are called to love God first, with every fiber of our beings. Without His love, we couldn't possibly love anything else in the world.

We are then to love ourselves. We have to love ourselves as children of God before we can love others. We experience His love in order to have the ability to share His love with others.

We should love others as brothers and sisters in God's creation because we are all children of God. He loves each one of us individually and equally.

Love in the Message of Paul

Love is a gift. The greatest gift of all. God's love is boundless.
Perfect love is Christ. There is none other.

"In Jesus we love God and are loved by God. Jesus is love itself, and as love incarnate dwells among men as God's concrete human appeal for us."

"The love of Jesus calls for reciprocity: We know that in everything God works with those who love Him, whom He has called in accordance with His purpose, to bring about what is good."

Love motivated suffering. Jesus' free acceptance of suffering assures us of His love.

Christ's love is the ultimate motive for Christian life. Paul's assurance of God's love rests on 3 facts: 1. God sent His own son as an act of love 2. God's love is poured into our hearts and becomes the decisive reality of our existence 3. God's love is revealed in Jesus' life, eternal love, and death

John J. Navone

All You Need Is Love

Love expresses itself in various ways; however these ways do not conflict with each other...there are simply different forms.

Libido, or the desire for union physically, is sexual union.
Eros is the desire for union with the world, culture and knowledge.
Philia strives for union between people.

Agape is the greatest because it is not self-centered. It accepts, does not exclude, and fails to make preference. Only through agape are the other forms of love seen without evil desires.

Love transcends "the alternative between legal absolutism and ethical relativism." Only love is sensitive to each of them individually. Love is based on unchanging eternal principle, concern for another.

There is no true definition for love because "there is no higher principle by which it could be defined." "It is life in its actual unity."

"This is the meaning of ethics: to express the ways in which loe embodies itself and life is maintained and saved."

Ethics in the Thought os Paul Tillich by Elliot Shaw

On Loving Strangers

"In no fewer than 36 times does the Hebrew Bible command the love of strangers"

"A human community that does not welcome others and their otherness does not image the mystery of God"

The age that we live in has been called an age of migration. It is said that one in 35 people actually lives as a migrant. If we are called to love strangers, should we not then be loving each of them as if they were all Christ? Hebrews 13:2 reminds us that we should never fail to give hospitality to others because in doing so we have come encountered with angels.

Encountering the Mystery of God in the Face of Migrants: Miguel H. Diaz

The Amen Corner

Paul's understanding of humanity was based on his own understanding of Christ's humanity. When Saul became Paul, LOVE was the change; Christ's love. (2 Cor. 5:17) Because of his change (the old being dead and the new alive) Christ is his model for humanity and how he should love others. He was no longer about "self-interest and self-promotion" but about "self-emptying" and becoming obedient,even to the extent of death.

Love "is letting be" not necessarily union. It is not uniting, but enabling. The greatest love is costly because it can only be accomplished by spending everything one has for another.

(Nathan D. Mitchell)

class notes 1/14

What is worth knowing?

What about his life?

Approach to reconciling people on the margins?

Margins:

Poor/poverty

Structure of the church/focus on people on the outside

Church:

-margins/boundaries

-Purpose

-organization

-reason

-people

-content

-love/God (connection)

-religion/lifestyle/worship

-morals/virtues (striving for)

-connecting with people

-Prayer (connecting everything, most important in Paul’s letters, understated)

-spirituality?! Religion?! Meditation?!

-innocence of children…perspectives? Shaped? Humility? Knowing your place?

-competition

-family (connection) (not even blood ; church, friends, etc.)

-views on religion, spirituality, others

Gal. 1:13….Act’s road to Damascus experience, God revealing His son to Paul

Problems you want to face? Things you want to overcome?

-connecting with the oppressed, praying, loving, living

-How should we do this? Through love.

LOVE: what is worth knowing about love?

Read about love: 5 articles on love (by next Tuesday)

EBSCO Host: ATLA Religion search: love

Google: love

-children

-family

-morals

-connecting with people

-purpose of loving

-competition in love

-shaping love

-psychology of love

-love as a lifestyle

Paul

Paul's ideas are pretty cool.