Before beginning my first semester here at Vanguard I often found myself questioning why I believe what I believe. I had a hard time understanding the bible and an even harder time finding answers to my questions. It was difficult for me to find the courage to ask questions because I didn’t want to come off as someone who didn’t know everything about the bible. Once I started my freshman year I began understanding that I am not alone, every one has questions or things that they don’t quite understand. Encountering The New Testament broke down parts of the bible and made it much easier for me to understand.
Starting classes at Vanguard was a terrifying experience for me, I didn’t really know anyone and I had been homeschooled most of my life, as soon as I walked into New Testament Survey I felt at peace. If there was any class that I was going to really enjoy and take things from and apply them to my every day life I knew it would be this one. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the bible, and gaining more and more insight each time I went to class. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:30 I was excited to be going to class. Each week when I did the reading for the quizzes I learned more and more and each day I developed a stronger knowledge of why I believe exactly what I believe.
The more I attended class the more I got my questions answered. I learned what it must have been like for God to suffer on the cross for my sins. I also learned exactly how much Paul loved Christ and how far he would go to make Christ proud of him. I become more knowledgeable about the bible and when my eight year-old niece had questions I was able to answer them. Coming to a Christian school and attending Doctor Sims class honestly made me a better person. ...
... middle of paper ...
...and evangelize. Before reading The Silas Diary I never knew how significant evangelizing is. After reading and learning about the Apostle Paul I know want to become a missionary and evangelize around the world.
New Testament Survey shaped me into a better person because it helped me understand my faith. I always grew up with my faith, I was never taught to challenge my beliefs and myself. Through this class I learned to ask questions because through questions you can strengthen your own understanding. Doctor Sim is always so caring and so sweet. He genuinely cares about each and every one of his students, I believe that is why I did as well as I did in this class. Doctor Sim made me interested and he made me want to become a better person each and every class. There was never a class when I didn’t walk out in a good mood and ready to put the lessons into practice.
In the first half of Theology 104, we went over many different topics. All these topics gave me a wonderful and better understanding of Theology and Christianity. I got a better understanding of Jesus claiming to be God, as well as our character development and how it plays a very vital part of our lives as Christians. By asking Jesus into our lives, we will be highly rewarded. For this I am
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every nation. (Mark 16:15)
Time sure does fly; in the blink of an eye, yet another 7.5-week class has come and gone. Just like life, it is scary to think that in just a few short years I will be graduating college and be in search of a future career. The magnitudes of readings, assignments, PowerPoint lectures, and videos have all contributed to the valuable knowledge I have gained since taking this course. Nothing that was presented or required was seen as invaluable towards my progression of career development. This career development course has allowed me to do some self-exploration, career research, and help me understand what influencing factors were related to the job market. Ultimately, this class helped me gauge and find a suitable career path, which will forever shape my future.
... history and learning about the stories in the bible it has encouraged me to engage myself in my spiritual life more fully. Knowing all I do about the history of Catholicism I can understand what is being talked about in church and in CCD class. I can now contribute to discussions on religious topics in my CCD class freshman year and the years before that I would not know anything about religion and would sit there not paying attention. But, I finally understand and know about it so I am very intrigued by some of the things people have to say because I can reply to them and not just sit there and take it in but I can contribute to what they have to say. Another thing learning about history has done for me is it has inspired me to take part in religious gatherings because I find it enjoyable to become closer to God and to learn even more about my religion and faith.
middle of paper ... ... ned to help lead others to christ. I can also be a more effective witness. That is exactly why I need to study and find out the real meaning of scripture. Bibliography: Bibliography: I did not use all of these sources directly, but I would like to acknowledge the books, references, and other resouces that I did read.
Sequence: I use sequence first in all areas of my life such as school, work and also personal relationships. I need step by step direction before I can start any tasks and delivers what is expected of me. I am well-ordered, very detailed oriented and I like to know what is going to happen next. I need time to complete my work so I set a schedule for everything since I thrive on a well-organized life.
...eady wrote letters to these churches, but now God want’s him to share the gospel with him. Keep in mind, this is a period that people are starting to rebel against God, so the fact John is being asked to do this should raise many concerns. It was not uncommon for people to be stoned, executed, or sent to jail for sharing the good news with people in this time period. It takes a lot of nerve to follow through with a task like this while maintaining faithful witness, but John is most definitely the man qualified with this task. As a leader through tough times, John is a great model to the people of the earth to hold fast to God’s love. It is people like John that I most admire in our society today. 1 Thessalonians 3:8, “For now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord” (NASB). The most influential people in my life have been those that have stood fast in the Lord.
I must say that I learned a lot from this class both through the readings and through class discussion. I really, honestly do not have anything that I starkly disagreed with in either. I found it all to be very valuable information for me and this class was extremely helpful in assisting me to better understand the current paradigm shift the church is going through. There are three take-a-ways in particular that helped me to better understand the post modern shift in the church and my role as a minister in this changing paradigm. The first take-a-way is the understanding that there is a shift occurring towards focusing more on the congregational life of the church with more attention on the laity and its formation. Second, is how to plan, as a church and as pastors, to adjust to this shift towards congregational life and how to be better prepared as a postmodern church to be relevant in this changing time. Lastly, I received a better way of explaining the meaning of what truth is in this post modern time.
Over the course of this class I have pieced together many things about my own life that before went unnoticed. I am now able to see things in a bit of a different light. Now that I have been introduced to the realm of psychology I understand some of the reasons for behavior around me. I have learned that there is a reason for most everything and a lot of our behaviors and mental processes can be explained through psychology. Studies have been conducted for many years to try and pinpoint the source of our behavior and it is not something that most people think about every day. Having a better understanding of why we operate the way we do will help me to better understand myself and the others around me.
The Bible Student will have more knowledge of how to interpret God’s Word when finished with the work. Fee and Stuart achieve their goal of helping the reader not only with interpretation, but with application.
I began this course thinking my worldview was that of a Christian Theist, as I had come to discover, as the course progressed, my worldview was a mixed bag of beliefs outside the elementary belief of Christian Theism. I was not disheartened by this finding, but surprised. The realization then set in that I was uneducated or did not know God like I thought. In fact my beliefs appeared to be more influenced by society than the deity of God. Fortunately, this is a learning experience intended to bring me closer to the truths of Christianity and an understanding of the beliefs of others.
In my college career, I have had many classes that provided inspiration and personal growth but the two that stands out at this time are psychology and the Bible as literature. In psychology, I specifically enjoyed learning about research and theories regarding human growth and change across the lifespan. This class helped me understand why and how children develop. The Bible as literature was interesting and I learned things I had not known. This class confirmed that when I need to, I can turn to proverbs for
One of the biggest issues for me was a lack of historicity of the Bible. This is true generally for the history of ancient Israel and specifically for events like the Creation Story, the Exodus, the conquests of the Promised Land, and the Kingdoms of David and Solomon. While I generally knew that the creation story was not factually true, prior to this course, I tended to overlook the details of the untruth, i.e., the implications of this inaccuracy. What the course made me confront was how I conveyed this information to those who believed every word. What is it truth that would emanate from the story of creation that I could convey those who held fast in that faith and belief in the accuracy of...
The desire to study God’s word to obtain a personal connection is a pursuit for many believers. Beginning a course to study and engage with the word at a collegiate level can be overwhelming and intimidating. Even though one may read the word countless times during their lifetime, understanding the reading material academically and historically is a different concept to master. Personally, I was apprehensive about my overall ability to retain the information and comprehend the context of the scientific and historical aspect of God’s word. However, Tarwater wrote in a manner that was engaging and invited me into the historical importance of the words and understanding God. From beginning to end, Tarwater
Overall, I have learned a lot from this class. I must say there are topics that I am still confused about but only because I am just know understanding life from a different perspective. I am more open to now ask questions about things that I am not used to or even brought up around. For example, sexual libertarianism has views that sex is one of woman greatest power while I was thought that the vagina is one of women greatest power. I guess they both work together in sense of showing that women have a lot of