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So, just to let you in on the insides of my academic life here at college and to expand on the lesson of centricity mentioned in my previous post, I thought I'd post my first "paper" although it's a summary of a book that we were required to read during our first modular course, so it's more personal and yet formatted essay-ish style. Here 'tis: 

On the completion of reading the assigned chapters, it was challenging to look back at the beginning of the week when I had begun, to the end and the lessons that I had learned in between. Although there were many minute lessons that I gleaned from the pages, there was one big lesson, and as I examine it, I found it to be the most worthwhile one that I could have learned, that being the centricity of Christ in every verse of the Bible.

Starting with the preface, the book challenged my assumptions about the Bible and my thoughts towards reading it. In the preface, I was challenged with the “slightly off-looking cheese sandwich at an old lady’s house” vs. “a huge chocolate sundae at Joe’s ice-cream parlour” analogy that the author offered in terms of how the Bible is seen. Too often I take God’s Word as something to be devoured akin to vegetables; something that’s been instilled within you since your childhood as essential to good nutrition, but without the presence of a maternal figure would never partake of. In this way, the analogy challenged me to view reading God’s Holy Word as a delight rather than something obligatory.

The concept of the centricity of Christ kicked in heavily at the start of the book with the examination of the Old Testament books, as I have often been guilty of writing them off as history and not as applicable to my everyday life as the New Testament is. Yet another consequence of reading about the Old Testament was that I began to see that I had for quite some time been reading the Bible for the particular commands and challenges that could be found, instead of looking at it for Christ. Although those commands and challenges are useful, I had gone from reading about the One who is behind it all, to just reading about all the other things that were simply additional.

One of the biggest challenges for me was discovering the part Jesus played in the Old Testament. For some time, I have wondered what the specific job entitlements or positions the Trinity played but when the author brought up the fact that when people in the Old Testament had seen God, they were seeing Him through Jesus, it caused me to pause. Unknowingly, I had previously stuck Jesus into the context of the New Testament and had rendered Him utterly useless any time previous to that. Although the author’s words struck me as really strange at first, the more that he explained the work of Jesus being the revealer of the Father, the more I realized what a misconception I had of the Trinity.

Through all that I read, it brought me to an appreciation of how the whole Bible works together to tell one grand story with only one Star, and how each part of the Bible is essential in telling that one great Story. Instead of viewing the Old Testament as out-of-date or full of worthless rules now that we are freed by grace, I now realize how much they are pointing, urging, and depicting the coming of Christ in an eloquent display of longing. This longing is then fulfilled in the New Testament and the Story does not stop there. Rather, it continues on into my own life and the work that God can do through me to further His story. Through reading the book, I came to realize how each verse of the Bible points towards Christ and how I really am just a glove, and He is the power that is working His Story through me.

And it's hard to write papers on things that touch my soul. It's not like Social where I'm expounding on a war and the effect it had on the citizens or politics, etc. Rather, I'm expounding on the only Truth and the impact it has on me as a person. It's so wacky... but great. To take everything that I'm learning and apply it in my every day is one of the biggest challenges yet.