This course enables students to piece together disconnected yet valuable information about the Bible into a more cogent whole in their minds and practice.  They will do this by studying the larger picture of redemptive history and the predominant patterns of the Biblical witness.  The year begins with the construction of a theological framework that preps students for further study by analyzing overarching questions: What is the Bible?  Who is God?  How does God Act? and How do people of faith respond?  Next, we unpack a basic Biblical thematic outline of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Glorification, spending 5-6 weeks on each category. Throughout the year, we will focus on letting the Scripture come alive in its applicability and depth to the students. By the end of the year, students will be able to analyze God’s word with a richer theological foundation and use their new Biblical framework to understand and apply Scripture to their lives.

Text:  The Bible

Assorted theology and Biblical study readings

Having established a the patterns of redemptive history, students will now learn interpretive methods to help them understand and apply specific, smaller Biblical passages in their appropriate literary, historical, and theological context.  The first quarter will focus on learning various interpretive methods, using both deductive and inductive reasoning.  Students will learn to ask good questions about the text, identify the key issues that need clarification about any passage, and how to use various exegetical tools available to them for analysis.  Students will also and begin to apply their skills on a preliminary level in each of the following three quarters by studying three books of Scripture in-depth (Mark, Isaiah, and 1 Peter).  They will read and analyze the whole book in its literary, historical, and theological context.  By the end of the year, the students will be able to apply the interpretive skills practiced on these three books to nearly any passage of Scripture by performing and careful and well-planned study.

Texts: How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, Fee and Stuart

The Bible

Assorted theological and Biblical texts

The Bible gives us a tantalizing look into the life of the early church.  What opposition did the early church encounter?  What did the structure of the church look like?  What was the role of the Holy Spirit in the development of the early church? These are just some of the questions that we will approach this semester through a comprehensive examination of the book of Acts.  Our discussion will uncover the circumstances into which the church was born, the major issues that the early church faced, and the spreading of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.  Along the way, we will take time to discuss topics facing the early church that are relevant to our own day (tithing, evangelism, the role of the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, and women in ministry, to name a few).  In addition, we will map the missionary journeys of Paul and draw important connections to his New Testament letters.

Texts:  The Bible and assorted theological and Biblical readings

What do Christians believe?  How has Christianity been shaped by its history of writers and thinkers?  How has Christianity responded and sometimes reacted to the ever-changing ideas of culture?  Throughout this course, students will be exposed not only to questions such as these, but also to those Christian thinkers who have asked them from the second century to the modern day. 

Beginning with the early church fathers, we will explore how Christian thinking has been shaped through persecution, the development of creeds, the rise of monasticism, the Reformation, and the American and European revival movements.  As we trace the history of our faith, we will be exploring selections from Origin, Ambrose, St. Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Jonathan Edwards and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to name a few.  Most of our time will be spent reading portions of Augustine’s Confessions, Thomas a Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Martin Luther’s Freedom of a Christian, and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.  The class will conclude with a focus on the twentieth century Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis and his influential work, Mere Christianity.

Texts: Augustine’s Confessions, Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, Martin Luther’s Freedom of a Christian, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, along with additional selected primary source readings