Posts Tagged 'Christianity'

The Society of Biblical Literature (of which I am a member) has just initiated a survey that will be used as part of the preparation for a new educational web site called “The World of the Bible: Exploring people, places, and passages“.  Please take a few minutes and fill out the anonymous survey, as your feedback and comments will be immensely helpful.  Thanks!

For those of you who have been following the development of the Certificate of Christian Studies at UNBC the last couple of years, you may be interested in knowing about the future.  No, not the whole “future”, just the future of Christian Studies.    The course offering will be expanding from six courses to seven, which will reflect a modification to the Church History course(s) and the Old/New Testament courses, and the addition of a new course called

Here is a test – does the subject line above strike you as intriguing or uninteresting?  Well, believe it or not, if you identify yourself as either Jewish or Christian, you should find it interesting.  Monotheism and monolatry both have to do with how the people of the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible (and also today) viewed God.  How many gods are there?  What is his (their) nature?  How should he be worshipped?  Those are pretty big questions!

I reviewed a great book a couple of months ago called Jesus and the God of Israel, in which the author (Richard Bauckham) described the similarities, differences and relationship between monotheism (the belief in the existence of one God) and monolatry (the exclusive worship of one God).  Fascinating book.  In Bauckham’s opinion (which I agree with), the Old Testament reflects both, and somehow, the two wind their way together in both Judaism and early Christianity, and they influenced how Jesus was understood and responded to in the first century.  If you like to “think deeply” about the nature of God and Jesus, you may enjoy this book!

Have you ever wanted to look at a 1,600 year old manuscript of the Bible?  If so, you can now go to Codex Sinaiticus and view digital images of the actual pages of the ancient codex.  It is pretty impressive, especially since the actual pages themselves are stored in various locations around the world and are not easily accessible.

The hand-written Greek text contains both the Septuagint and the New Testament, and you can zoom in/out, and view both transcriptions and translations of the codex.  Check it out!

Mixed in with all of the useless stuff on the Internet, there are occasionally some great resources.  And Covenant Theological Seminary’s Worldwide Classroom is definitely one of the good ones!  They provide FREE lecture manuscripts, study guides and mp3’s for twenty courses in spirituality, Biblical studies, theology, ministry, etc.  If you are looking to deepen and expand your Christian worldview, why don’t you take some time and explore the Worldwide Classroom.

As a result of last Sunday’s teaching time, I have had a few people ask me about the section of Ephesians that I re-wrote by exchanging/inserting the term “future spouse”.  It was a pretty effective way of making the Biblical text immediately applicable to a pre-marriage (and marriage) relationship.  So, here it is again:

Be completely humble and gentle with your future spouse; be patient, bearing with him/her in love.

Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to and about your future spouse.

In your anger do not sin against your future spouse: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry with your future spouse, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth toward your future spouse, but only what is helpful for building him/her up according to his/her needs.

A few of you have been inquiring about the reading requirements for the Christian Spirituality course at UNBC this September.  Well it is your lucky day – the course textbooks are listed here, and the weekly readings are listed below.

For those of you who are participating in the Creating Space for God course at Westwood Church, and who remember me mentioning the writings of Brother Lawrence, here are two links:

• The Practice of the Presence of God (text only)
• The Practice of the Presence of God (text and audio)

Enjoy!

For those of you who like to plan in advance … the University of Northern British Columbia has recently announced the next two classes in the Certificate in Christian Studies program:  Christian Spirituality, starting in September 2009, and Life and Teachings of Jesus, starting in January 2010 (I will be teaching both).

More information and details about how to register for either class can be found here, and any questions about the course content can be directed to me.  Thanks!

Have you ever wanted to tell the church what you really thought?  But who do you talk to?  Who is listening?  Well … here is your opportunity!  The church that I am a part of is working through a refocusing process (I like to think of it as keeping the edge of our knife sharp – a dull knife is pretty useless), and has come up with four simple questions to help get a sense of what people in a community really think about the churches in their community.

So … regardless of where you are in the world right now, would you like to tell the church what you think?  If so, click on this short, four-question survey, and express yourself!  Spread the word, and have others give their opinions too. 

Thanks for your help!