MT520 - Bible reading report - Pentateuch

Section: Pentateuch
Passage: Genesis 1-5

In the story of Creation and Fall, we see God’s initial missionary activity.  Though this passage is often not read missionally, we see important precedents for God’s missionary work in the world.  First, God is the universal creator.  Everything in the cosmos has its origin in God and his initiation.  Therefore, God is separate from and Lord over all of creation.  God is shown in the first scene of scripture to not be a particular deity of a people group, rather the Lord of all.  We see the first hints of God’s all-consuming and universal love for the world even in these opening passages.  Second, God’s creation is designed with humanity in mind.  The apex of the Genesis 1 account of creation is verse 26, “Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves.  They will be masters over all of life”.  God’s provision and blessing for humanity is evident in the creation narrative.  Humanity is blessed and honored by being made in God’s image, but is also provided for by the process of creation, “seed-bearing plants [and]… fruit trees for your food” (1:29).  Third, God’s grace is experienced throughout the opening chapters of the story.  Even in the banishment from the Garden of Eden God provides clothing for the newly exposed first couple (3:21) and food (3:18).  Likewise, God’s graciousness is apparent when Cain is cursed (4:15) by his mark of protection.  In all of these ways, we evidence a God who is active and intentional with his creation, in particular the apex of his creation - humanity.

MT520 - coursework

I’m taking the week off of work to finish my coursework for the Fuller Seminary class I’m taking.  Here’s what I have to do:

Course Requirements Overview
1. Completed reading log
2. Bible reading report, containing a summary paragraph for each of the ten sections (5 chapters each) of the Bible that are read
3. Six two-page book reviews (on required texts)
4. One 15-page (minimum) to 20-page (maximum) paper tracing a biblical theme of missiological significance through the Old and New Testaments

I’m going to post my writings here for 2 reasons:  1)  to share the wealth - whatever I’m learning isn’t for me alone, its for the church.  This is one way to seed our ongoing conversation of God’s missional activity in our lives and in the world.  2)  for feedback - I would love any additional thoughts, grammar corrections, writing clarification notes, or thoughtful critiques of what I’m writing.

Library App

I love my library! The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is really a wonderful library, and their online resources are pretty good….. but there’s an application that would totally rock.  What if you could create an RSS feed out of your checkouts, holds, etc…  This could serve as a “What am I reading now” list that you could port onto your blog, Facebook, Del.icio.us, etc…  You could also set up RSS alerts whenever you were getting close to the due date of the return or even the mounting library fees that I seem to be good at accumulating (up to $27 at the moment).

Here’s what has circulated through our household of late:

A place of my own : the education of an amateur builder by Pollan, Michael.
A potty for me! : a lift-the-flap instruction manual by Katz, Karen.
An introduction to biblical hermeneutics : the search for meaning by Kaiser, Walter C.
Baby Wordsworth [videorecording] : first words, around the house
Blue’s checkup by Albee, Sarah
Blue’s sniffly day by Egan, Brigid.
Clifford and the big parade by Bridwell, Norman.
Contemporary theologies of mission by Glasser, Arthur F. (Arthur Frederick), 1914-
Crossing the chasm : marketing and selling high-tech products to mainstream customers by Moore, Geoffrey A., 1946-
El laberinto del fauno [videorecording] = Pan’s labyrinth
Greed by Tickle, Phyllis.
I love it when you smile by McBratney, Sam.
Missions in crisis; rethinking missionary strategy by Fife, Eric S.
My first signs [videorecording]
Pirates of the Caribbean. At world’s end [videorecording]
Second nature : a gardener’s education by Pollan, Michael.
Smotherhood : wickedly funny confessions from the early years by Lamb, Amanda.
Strawberry Shortcake. The sweet dreams movie [videorecording]
The natural garden book : a holistic approach to gardening by Harper, Peter, 1945-
The new world [videorecording]
The Sweet dreams movie storybook by Bryant, Megan E.
Toward an exegetical theology : Biblical exegesis for preaching and teaching by Kaiser, Walter C.

(Can you tell we have a 4 year old girl!)  It would be so sweet to integrate my library activity with the social networking world.  Anybody know of a library that is doing this?

Meme Watching

Sorta like Whale Watching or Bird Watching only different. According to Wikipedia:

“A meme (pronounced /miːm/^[1]) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a “culture” in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus.”

I like Meme Watching and keeping tabs on early adopters, trend setters, and innovators is key to the process.  But not everything that these creative-types latch onto ends up with the stickiness for the main chunk of society.  I like checking in on those gatekeepers who proliferate “ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms” from the margins into the mainstream.  Apple is one of those gatekeepers.  So a good place to look is on their RSS page - Apple - RSS Information. This handy tool lets the emerging ideas (anything from applications to iTunes songs) port directly into your daily reading without you having to seek them out.  That is particularly helpful because memes, like birds and whales, can be particularly difficult to spot.

Wesley-ified.

So, I took another one of those Facebook apps quizes.  I took one a while back that said I’m “Very Reformed”, now apparently I’m also “Very United Methodist”.  Is it possible to be a Reformed Wesleyan?  If so then I might qualify.  According to the (fun) FB quiz I’m….

John Wesley’s other brother

You’re very United Methodist