OT501 - Formative Old Testament Traditions

Brilliant moment #142 in OT501 last week:

One of my fellow students and brother did a presentation on the literary features of Judges 3:12-30 - the relatively unknown story of Ehud and his defeat of Eglon king of Moab.

In verse 19 Ehud says to Eglon, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And again in verse 20 Ehud says, "I have a message from God for you." The word 'message' is the Hebrew word דָּבָר (davar) which can also be translated as 'word' or 'thing'. So in a brilliant double entendre Ehud comes to Eglon and says, "I have a secret 'thing' for you, O king."

Eglon is both stupid enough to believe that this is something special and naive enough to send his guards away. Ehud produces his secret 'davar' from God and Eglon ends up dead. Brilliant!

KJV only...?

I'm studying various Greek paradigms and tables for an upcoming exam on either Tuesday (highy unlikely) or Wednesday (very likely). I've finally understood the concept that when you're translating Greek you're not translating a word, you're translating an idea.

For instance, here's a translating exercise I was recently given.

"γινωσκει τὴν καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου ὁ θεός"

Literally translated, word-for-word, the sentence would look like this:

"he knows the heart of a man the God"

Now obviously this makes little sense. But applying various rules of Greek grammar the sentence would now look like this:

"God knows the heart of a man."

This little exercise, and many more like it, have helped me not only appreciate Greek as a language but also the unenviable task of bible translation. There is a vocal minority of Christians who believe that the KJV is the only infallible Word of God - and some in this camp have suggested that all other bible translators are guilty of blasphemy (particularly in regards to a small number of apparent omissions from the KJV text that the other bible translators have 'left out').

Having done Greek now, for a little over three weeks (and also Hebrew for the same amount of time) I've come to the conclusion that the 'KJV Only' debate is a thorough waste of energy. Let us rather be thankful for the preservation of the Greek and Hebrew testaments, thankful for their accurate transmission through the generations, thankful for the many bible translators who have helped to give us a variety of bible translations to meet the needs of our intellectually varied world, and even more thankful for people like Wycliffe Bible Translators who seek to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to other cultures and languages.

There is, after all, no place in scripture which reads, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you read only from the KJV..."

Amen? :)

QTC - Queensland Theological College

College has started with a bang! My apologies to the blog readers out there - there's been plenty going on and I know I neglect this particular blog the most! Here's a short update on what happened between Christmas and the start of studies:

- BLT - we spent most of January getting ready for BLT 2009. The week was great with great talks from Grant Thorp and Gary Koo along with great fellowship from those in Sydney and in Brisbane. It was also stinking hot :P

- 1 Week's holiday - Steph and I took a trip down to Tasmania for a week for some time out before college started. A great time of rest - photos here.

When we got back we started to get more excited about college and study. I kept a small diary of how week 1 went...and without further ado, here is a slightly condensed version of week 1 at QTC...


A regular day
Got in super early because the jokester (David Baily) said we needed to get in early to claim a desk in the library. Each student has their own study desk - but when we got there we noticed that the desks had already been assigned...
First lesson was Hebrew - yikes! However Leigh Trevaskis makes the learning easy and his aim is to help us gradually move into Hebrew rather than drown. We finish the lecture at 9:30am and I'm already hungry...not good.
Immediately after Hebrew we have an allotted study hour - which is so beneficial and helps to consolidate what we just learnt.

Morning tea rolls around and I find it especially encouraging that the lecturers walk through the library (where the students study) and tell us morning tea is on (and they have continued to do so since).

Following on from this are two subjects back to back - 'The Cross and Clash of Cultures' where Bruce winter passionately walks us through 1st Century culture and then helps us parrallel 21st Century culture. It's such a privelege to be learning under him - although his class is a lot less structured than the next one - 'Intro to the New Testament - Content and Setting of the Gospel Tradition'. Wes Redgen covered basic introductions to the subject and our course outline.

Lunch found us at one of the Emmanuel College student lunch rooms - a rickety room downstairs and tucked away. Wes joined us for lunch (and apparently does so for most lunches). Steph and I were dilligent in packing our lunch the night before :P Well... Steph was dilligent - I just got her to make double...

Following lunch on Tuesdays we have another allotted study hour. On Wednesday the hour is devoted to a section called 'God Goes' where a guest speaker from a particular profession is invited to come and share their thoughts on life, work and ministry in their particular arena. On Thursday this slot is taken up by a Chappel service.

Then in the afternoon I find myself in Greek and needing to switch over mentally from Hebrew (though Steph doesn't have this problem since she isn't studying Hebrew). Wes started us off slow introducing us to the alphabet and dipthongs (joined vowels). Following Greek was an alloted study hour for Greek.

Thus ended day 1 and we were excited to get the rest of the week under our belt.

Other Highlights

- I love the alloted language study hours! I don't know of any other college in Australia which seeks to do the same (but I heard they do it in Cambridge). It's so helpful considering that I've often felt a little intimidated during language classes but the study hour has helped to consolidate what we've covered.

- On Thursday and Friday we have our 'Intro to the OT - Formative OT Traditions' with Leigh Trevaskis and Keith Birchley. Over summer the college was unable to acquire another OT lecturer (they did have one confirmed, but it seems to have fallen through - and there's a new NT lecturer coming in the middle of the year). So Keith Birchley, who is also doing further studies, has taken on some of the OT lectures. And boy, if you're familiar with Keith Birchley then his lectures are that much more deeper!

- In both 'Intro to NT' and 'Intro to OT' we have already looked at some interesting opinions of the bible. In our course we will be interacting with a lot of unhelpful material (mostly written by dead Germans...) in order to interact with their ideas and further shore up our beliefs. It's proving a challenge already - so pray for us as we're both struggling a little in understanding and following some of the arguments. That said we do see the value of reading this material.

- There are about 35 people in 1st year studies - which makes for a relatively big class size. Please pray for us as we go through the year that we would encourage each other and build each other up outside of the class room. It's a little hard to get very good interaction in the classroom as you feel you need to say your bit or miss out - so pray that the first years can interact with each other to ensure no-one gets left too far behind.

- Daily prayer - I've been thoroughly encouraged by the short prayers at the beginning and end of each class. Whenever we study the languages our prayers are centred on knowing God's word with a richer passion and knowledge that we may not only preach it better, but better know God Himself. And in other classes the common prayer is that the material we study not only benefit our minds, but also lead us to better obedience.

I'm loving QTC at the moment! Please continue to pray for us as we seek to grow and learn more.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas is here, lots of celebrating to do and much to be thankful for. This year has been a difficult one for me personally, but I thank God that He is sovereign above all and that I can always trust in his gracious leading in my life.

More to update soon - and I might have a chance to do so after Christmas. But for now, have a Merry Christmas celebrating the incarnation of the Son to this world :) And have a safe holiday!

Toowong Baptist Young Adults

Last Saturday night I had the chance to head to the Toowong Baptist Young Adults service. A mix from both the English side and Chinese side were in attendance in a cosy room where everyone was seated around small tables.

I ended up speaking from Mark 6:30-52 - the feeding of the 5000 and walking on water (I've previously blogged a summary of my points here). The talk went well and I was quickly reminded that it is quite emotionally and physically taxing to preach. Praise God I was able to get through it and praise God for TBC's youth :)

Next up is BCCC's English service and 1 Corinthians 10:32-11:16 - the infamous passage regarding women and head coverings! Any thoughts on what this passage could possibly mean for Christians today? :)

P.S - my moustache/gotti has come along ok...Andrew ended up piking on me!

Movember and speaking engagements

Movember - the month formerly known as November! The Prostate Cancer Council, in response to the overwhelming success of the 'Think Pink' Breast Cancer campaign launched 'Movember' a few years ago and it has grown (pun intended) every year since. The basic idea is that guys will spend the month of November growing out their moustaches to raise awareness of men's health issues. Andrew (that good-looking guy on the right) and myself will be doing Movember this year, not so much to raise money but to certainly raise awareness. I also have the side-goal of losing a little bit of weight to return myself to a healthier Body-Mass-Index (I'm currently sitting at just under 27 - which is considered overweight...). So if you see me at church unshaven ask me how my weight loss is going :P

On another note, the coming month of November will certainly keep me on my toes. Each weekend will be filled with various speaking engagments of some sort and I'm looking forward to the coming weeks! Here's a quick run down:

9/11 - St Lucia English Congregation - Jeremiah 20:1-18
15/11 - Toowong Baptist Young Adults Service - probably Mark 8
16/11 - Chairing St Lucia English Congregation
23/11 - Brisbane Cantonese Christian Church English Service - TBA (either Mark 6 or 1 Corinthians 11)

Please pray for my preparations for these talks as well as my health/weight-loss goals :)

CIA-SALT Camp 2008

So much has been happening in the past few months that things have started to drag - like this blog and our newsletter! Our apologies for the delay.

SALT had its first combined camp this year with CIA (Christ in Action - our Coopers Plains equivalent). We headed off to Koojawaren campsite in Toowoomba (well, Highfields - 10 minutes out from Toowoomba) and heard some great talks from guest speaker Sam Mak. Smak (as he is affectionately known) shared with the teens different parts of scripture and themed his talks on 'Humility'. The talks seemed to hit their mark with 13 teens responding after the Saturday night evangelistic talk and more teens probing with questions and being convicted of the truth of the gospel :)

Praise the Lord for all that happened on the weekend and praise the Lord that more teens came into His glorious Kingdom!

Here's some of the photos in a slideshow set to the camp theme song 'Before The Cross'.