Hey everyone! Tonight was an enjoyable evening invested in my seminary education at Ashland Theological Seminary. For those who might not be familiar with my seminary quest, I have been attending school faithfully now for 3 1/2 years. I've been taking one class at a time, so this means almost nine years if I remain on track. This particular quarter my class is Old Testament I: The Pentateuch.
For the last two days I have focused on nothing else besides the historical and cultural context of Genesis 9:1-17. I've written multiple exegesis papers on the New Testament, but this is my first one written on the Old Testament. (If you'd be interested in reading my submission, download Pierce - Historical Context Gen 9 1-17 ) Maybe it's because I'm not as familiar with the texts, but I find this work to be both difficult and fascinating all at the same time.
Before class tonight I had the privilege of enjoying a meal with my professor, Dr. Dan Hawk. We met at Applebees at 4:30 and ordered the reduced price appetizers. We found we had a few things in common. He had attended Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY. Asbury is where my son, Jonathan, attended college. And I also had some connection with Asbury twelve years ago with my brother, Todd, with the Beeson Institute of Asbury. Beeson offered a 3 year program for pastors desiring to grow their church. Todd would go to these great churches all over the country and come home excited and tell me about it. I go so excited that I went a few times with Todd. This was really the beginning of my call into ministry.
Back to my conversation with Dan Hawk: I found out that his oldest son is attending Baldwin Wallace University. My niece, Christy Anne, also attends BWU. As we talked I told him about our church plant here in Mansfield. I found out that he has also been involved in several church plants over the years. He is a musician and has played keyboard in worship bands. We found we have a mutual friend who has much church planting experience. Our hour together at Applebees went by way too fast.
During our class time we talked about the Exodus. We engaged in a challenging discussion of why God would harden Pharaoh's heart. (I wrote about this yesterday.) Dr. Hawk explained the Suzerain-vassal treaties of the ancient Near East and that this was the model followed by several of the covenants that God made with man in the Pentateuch. He taught us that many of the festivals of the Israelites were at the same times of other people in the ancient Near East, but the reasons for the festivals were different. We talked about the importance of remembering what God has done during these festivals.
I know that I'm not doing a very good job a conveying the sense of the "aha" that I have while I'm in class, but I can tell you that I don't think I'll ever look at these texts of the Old Testament in quite the same way after taking this course. I think I've done quite enough writing for one day. Thanks for checking in with me. I'll talk with you again soon. Mark
