Praise the LORD!
Yesterday was the completion of my first semester in my doctoral program. I turned in my two semester papers yesterday which in turn brought overflowing joy to my heart!
I had two courses and two major papers that I’ll discuss briefly in turn.
My first class was New Testament Greek studies. Essentially, this was a semester course on the intricate details of the Greek language—syntax. We dealt with issues such as the verb and if inherently expresses time and if so, how much. We dealt with the issues of linguistics, word studies, reading, reviewing, and critiquing the major grammars, and then we had to write a paper on a major grammar topic. Some guys had papers on infinitives, the middle voice, genitives, and correlative constructions, and I did my paper on word order in the Greek NT. Essentially I went in to the semester holding to the standard VSO (verb, subject, object) word order in the Greek NT (as similar to Hebrew). But this study changed my convictions. My test case was the Johannine literature. I studied every clause in John 1-3, 1 John 1-3, and Revelation 1-5, 10-12 to see how John joins elements together in his writings and if it is possible to affirm that VSO is the unmarked (=standard, default) word order in the NT. I concluded that the VSO standard formula is a faulty paradigm to suggest as the “normal” pattern in the NT—at least in John’s writings (it may be true of Mark and Luke, for example). Rather, I suggested that because a clause can be perfectly legitimate even if it does not contain all three of these elements (e.g., a clause with the predicate only is no less “grammatically correct” than a clause with all three elements—VSO). Thus, when the subject appears first in John’s writings, I suggest that it is there for special markedness (=emphasis). That is to say, it transitions to a new topic, speaker, or location (esp. in John’s gospel). I was greatly encouraged by my study and came away appreciating all that I have learned this semester in Greek syntax.
My other class was Advanced Theological Method. This course rocked my world as it opened a world of study which I had not spent much time considering before. This course was on the definition of systematic and biblical theology in addition to its validation and process. I wrote two papers in this course. The first was observing Louis Berkhof and his theological method (much of which I agree with [soteriology] and some of which I qualm at [covenantalism]). My final paper was to define and validate systematic theology as a legitimate discipline and then show a proper “process” by which the theologian can contrive a systematic theology. Before this course, I never realized that presuppositions play such a large role in everything we do, including theology! In sum, I’ll post my definition of systematic theology here:
Systematic theology is the lifelong discipline which pursues, recognizes, and gathers all truth that can be known about the one, true God from His revealed Word and from every source available to mankind with the intended result of bringing about holiness in the Christian life and growth in Christian knowledge to the ultimate glory of God.
My definition is, as you see, quite different than the standard definition of just taking themes from the entirety of biblical revelation and putting them together to get a cohesive theology. I think this is way too narrow and too limited. In a sense, this is one step of a process in “doing” the task of systematic theology.
All in all, I’ve never worked harder in academics in my life. I’ve never been more busy than I am at this stage of my life (it may have to do with the fact that I preach 2-4 times a week as well). Nevertheless, I’ve never received such rewarding and applicational results than I have this semester in my schooling program. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness.
Soli Deo Gloria.