Researching Basil

Themes: Exams, History, Moore College

I think I have to face up to the truth that I’ve temporarily lost my love of writing. It’s been pretty choppy for the past couple of weeks. It probably has a lot to do with coming to the end of a semester at College. Hey, I’ve completed my first semester at College! I’m 1/8th of the way through. Last Friday we sat our first major, non-language exam – Biblical Theology. It was a good exam, I felt that a few things settled into place for me about BT while I was studying. Now I’m up to my eye-balls in Cappadocian Theology. Even though classes are finished for the semester, we have one last assignment: a Bibliography for Church History.
Everyone has been given an individual topic to research, mine is: Basil of Caesarea’s Doctrine of Humanity.
It’s quite a lot of work, particularly ’cause wee Basil is famous for his Doctrine of the Holy Spirit – and not too many people have ever paid much attention to his Doctrine of Humanity, he might not really have had one, he might not really have been human…
Is it heretical to have a docetic Basilology?
(good grief, I bet that question has never been asked in the history of theology)

Nevertheless, It is an interesting project to research. It’s taking me into feminist theology, monasticism, Patristic Exegesis, you name it. And along the way, I’m gain a much deeper respect for those early Christian theologians. Basil the Great, is actually Great!

Here’s a quote by St Basil the Great, of Caesarea, on proto-blogging…

God who has created us has given us the use of language, that we may reveal the plans of our heart to each other and through our shared nature we may each give a share to our neighbour, as if from some treasury, showing forth our intentions from what lies hidden in our heart

he was for it.

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Wild Greeks

Themes: Exams, Moore College, On Language

Things went a little quiet around the site this past week. I’ve got a bit more Wilberforce to finish off but a Greek Exam created a bit of a hiccough.
The exam was on Friday afternoon from 2-4.

Really, I ask you, what maniac came up with that idea?

After the past fortnight dominated by Hebrew and Greek I’ve discovered that I actually love these crazy languages. Hebrew is a wild hairy beast of a language, wrestling with it makes me feel reconnected with my primal manliness.

… Am I suffering from Stockholm syndrome?

I’m discovering that as I struggle to read the New Testament in the original Greek I grasp again the original urgency of the Biblical writers.
The power of the Christian gospel produced such drama and texture in the words of these men.
My favourite passage in Greek (and I haven’t read a lot) is the first section of 1 John.

John strings together this long list of relative pronouns (‘what/that which’) – words that are supposed to refer back to a previously used noun. But it’s the start of the book and there are no previously used nouns for the relative pronoun to refer to. It creates this incredible sense of anticipation. John claims to have seen, touched, heard, that which was from the beginning – but what was it?

1 ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς 2 καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἐφανερώθη καὶ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ μαρτυροῦμεν καὶ ἀπαγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα καὶ ἐφανερώθη ἡμῖν 3 ὃ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπαγγέλλομεν καὶ ὑμῖν ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε μεθ’ ἡμῶν καὶ ἡ κοινωνία δὲ ἡ ἡμετέρα μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
(1 John 1:1-3)

and in English

What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have observed,
and have touched with our hands,
concerning the Word of life—
that life was revealed,
and we have seen it
and we testify and declare to you
the eternal life that was with the Father
and was revealed to us—
what we have seen and heard
we also declare to you,
so that you may have fellowship along with us;
and indeed our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son Jesus Christ.
(1 John 1:1-3 HSCB)  

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Studying Hebrew

Themes: Exams, Moore College, Personal

1. I’m starting to see the world backward

2. I think I could sing like Tom Waits

3. and I have a strange desire to commit genocide…

Yes, I’ve been studying Hebrew.

We have our first major Hebrew exam tomorrow morning. You know you are dealing with a demented language when the word from which you learn the Regular Verb Paradigm is ‘to kill’.

Qatal – ‘he killed’ – use that to impress all your friends.

Well, if I’m going to become inseparable from my prepositions, I better hit the hay…

… that’s a Hebrew joke.
hmmm

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Mission Vid

Themes: Moore College

Here is a video from our recent college mission to West Lindfield. It’s part of a report on the mission that we are doing for our chapel service tomorrow morning.

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Retrospect: Mission Week

Themes: Moore College, Personal

Mission week is over. They gave us a couple of days off at the start of this week to recover.
Last year I led a team of student to mission at Laurieton, now I’m a first year student again and back on training wheels. It’s a strange experience. I didn’t mind not having much of a work load. Mission is a stressful time for the team leaders. It is hard to coordinate with the Church and make sure that everyone is in the right place at the right time. My perception was that this mission was no different.
It was a quiet mission week, the Church in West Lindfield is small and we had a large team. There were a number of very effective activities, and some that were just hard work and only God knows what impact we had. I was encouraged by how willing members of the Church were to invite their non-christian friends and neighbours along to events. We didn’t see all out revival in the suburb but some people are thinking further through the claims of Jesus over their life.
The highlight for me was the friendships that I’ve built with other people on the team. I’ve struggled a bit with feeling lost in all the people at College. It was nice to have a smaller group of people and get to know them well. On Thursday morning we went out for Brunch together, and there was lots of time in the afternoon for louging round the Parish Hall chatting.
Here are some photos from the Friday ‘Monster Games’ – two hours of kids club that we ran on Thursday and Friday afternoons.
The week has made me realise again how much I miss the hands-on ministry from FOCUS. There is something infinitely rich about spending time reading the Word with people and sharing lives in prayer. It’s something that is difficult to do at College when everyone is on a similar level in understanding and overly conscious of ‘ministering’ to each other. It worthwhile being here to get the skills for future ministry, but it’s definitely not the end of the road.

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Live from West Lindfield

Themes: Moore College, Personal

This week is Moore College mission. The students from the College head out to work with local Churches around Sydney (and further afield) in reaching out to people to share our hope. I’ve been packed off to the jungles of West Lindfield. A suburb on Sydney’s North Shore. It’s about a 20min drive up the road from our house. The mission week is supposed to be residential, but the decision was made to let us stay at home. It would be a bit weird to go away for a week, not see Emma, and be only a couple of minutes drive away.
West Lindfield is part of the little fortress which Anglo-Australia has erected on the North Shore against the tough realities of the Big World. Everything is beautiful, the houses are huge, the suburb is full of trees and beautiful gardens. All the kids are polite and well brought up. It seems like a different planet to Newtown.
Mostly it just seems to vaccinate people against real Christianity. It reinforces belief in Australian folk-religion:
“Sure, I believe in a Higher Power, God if you will. I’m a decent person, everything will be alright. If I live in Lindfield, I must be a decent person.”
You hear it from every door you knock on…

Don’t get me wrong, the people are really decent folk – which makes rejecting God’s goodness to them even more inexcusable and tragic.

Today started with handing out CDs at the main bus stops to people commuting into work. The CDs have short talks giving Christian perspectives on ethical issues and a clear gospel presentation. In the mid-morning we went to Roseville College, and Anglican girls school in a neighbouring suburb. It is a great school. They have a very committed Chaplain and a strong group of Christian girls in the school. The Chapel service was very encouraging, the students were engaged in the singing and listened really well to the talk. I spoke from Acts 17, Paul’s speech to the Athenians.
I never feel like I do a very good job with Evangelistic preaching. I had 5 minutes for this talk, and it is so tempting to try to do too much. You can’t cram in all the intricacies of creation, fall, redemption, kingdom, and make sure that you’ve properly spelled out penal substitutionary atonement. I’ve got a lot to learn about how to make it short, simple, and still thoroughly gospel.

This afternoon we went out doorknocking around the area. I really don’t like doorknocking, I’m overly sensitive to the invasion of people’s privacy. However, this time I enjoyed it. The Church had sent out letters to the whole area on two occasions in the weeks before we went around. The letters let people know we were coming and invited them to ring the Rector if they would object. It meant that when we knocked on the door people knew who we were and they appreciated the warning. We had some great conversations with people. I like the mental challenge of starting with whatever small opening people give into their attitude toward God, and moving the conversation into a place where we can consider the implications of Jesus’ life – while making sure that every comment is sensitive and not confrontational. It’s a workout

One of the other teams told us about knocking on the door of a house, someone answering the door, and the team-person saying, ‘are your parents home?’ – thinking that the person was a child. On a closer inspection the lady turned out to be at least 50 years old.
There was quite a lot of confusion and embarrassment.

I’m enjoying getting to know the team, we are heading off for brunch together tomorrow. Mission is hard work, but the relationship building is great.
Best of all though, we are out on the ground, talking about Jesus with people. That’s what I’ve been missing over the past few months. Theology without much opportunity for practice seems like it might slowly drive me mad sometimes.

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