By now, I’ve settled into York, I’m over jet lag, and I’ll be teaching in the Gospel of Mark. I actually have already taught once in the class. I taught through Mark 2.13-3.6, and I hope to put some of my notes on here from insights I’ve gained. Mark has often been the least popular Gospel, And though I can’t say I’ve ever ranked the Gospels according to which one is my favorite, it was always been 4th place on my list.
However, I’ve been enjoying co-teaching through Mark with Steve Kennedy, the Dean of Men over here at CCBCY. We have a good class, and the student body as a whole is a good one. We had a ceilidh on Friday night, which is a form of “dancing” involving Gaelic folk music. It originates from Ireland and Scotland, but it also refers to social dances in England. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves, even the ones who did participate. Like me.
Though I’m busy with other interning duties along with studying for Mark, which I will now be co-teaching weekly along side Steve, I still plan to update this page with book reviews, insights from the book, snippets from living in England, and hopefully a few lessons I’ve learned from the Gospel according to Mark.
Right now I’m reading A Mouth Full of Fire: The Word of God in Jeremiah by Andrew Shead which looks at the final form of Jeremiah and how ‘the word of the Lord’ is used. I’m definitely enjoying it. ‘The Word of the Lord’ is certainly the main character in the book of Jeremiah, sharing the name of the prophet who can do no other than to speak the words of God.
There’s a difference between the ‘word of God’ that is heard (which is the main message) and the ‘words of God’ that are written down. The ‘words’ don’t have to be an exact replica of the ‘word’ as long as the ‘words’ pertain to the same message as the ‘word.’ What does Jeremiah’s use of God’s word to him teach us about the doctrine of the Word of God? Shead shows us how he perceives Jeremiah to be structured, along with how to make sense of it all. It can be very confusing to read Jeremiah and wonder why it’s not in chronological order. Some scholars think it’s just a mishmash of information. But it is the Word of God that tears down and builds up. Nations are destroyed by denying this word, and people are saved by accepting it. There’s much more than that, but I’ll touch on more later on down the road.
If anything here piques your interest about Andrew’s book, you can find mp3’s here on his book before it was released at Moore Library.
Lecture 1
Lecture 2
Lecture 3
Lecture 4
Lecture 5
They’re all at least an hour long, with another 20 or so minutes of Q&A time, which can be skipped but is very informative too.
spoiledmilks 