Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday

Tuesday we finished 1 and 2 Timothy, Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude. Many of the questions that they ask are either not directly answered by scripture, or far outside my experience. I do try to answer their questions, but I also have told them them that I would rather them learn HOW to think than WHAT to think. There are some core issues. There are some things about which Christians must have agreement to be truly Christian. But there are also matters about which good Christians will disagree, about which there is no clear statement in scripture. There are many places where the Bible simply does not answer the questions that we have. And as people who will likely, by the very nature of having this education, be leaders in their churches, I want them to be able to study well and to reason well, and to be people full of compassion as they work to reconcile lost people to the God who loves them.

Tuesday afternoon we went to a nearby handicraft market. It was a cultural experience as much as a shopping experience. I have never before been to the sort of market where there are almost no prices, but rather you wheel and deal and haggle. You walk by shops (most of which are selling mostly the same goods as the shop before) and people ask you, people almost beg you, to come in and “just look.” Garry kept asking various shopkeepers “what do you sell here?” and invariably the answer was “everything.” People kept offering us their “special Tuesday prices” or the “special price because you've been so kind” or in one case “special birthday prices because it's my birthday.” It kind of left me wondering how many birthdays he's had this year! They quite cleaned me out of the emalangeni I had left – not that I had that much, but I hadn't quite expected to spend all the rest of it. I probably paid more than I ought to have, but I did haggle, and paid less than I might have, and I was really impressed with some of it (particularly in the “birthday” man's shop).

Tuesday evening some of the staff invited us for dinner. Sydney and Misozi Mhango are from Zambia, but after coming to ACC they stayed on, Sydney as the director of the Tree of Life operations, the macadamia farm that provides so much of ACC's expenses, and Misozi as their librarian. I have rarely felt such incredibly warm hospitality

Wednesday

Today I finished lecturing, concluding with the gospel, letters, and revelation of John. In a school such as this where the students come from a variety of denominational backgrounds, we had quite a diverse set of viewpoints on Revelation. I explained to them first the main interpretive options, a few interpretive keys that I use to try to understand apocalyptic literature, and then I dove in and explained to them how I understand it: a message of hope to the suffering people of God, that no unjust human or demonic power can stand against the worthy risen lamb who fights for his people and promises a day of final renewal.

No outings today – a quiet afternoon, a time to finish up some work, and dinner and evening service tonight. A good day to relax and reflect, and to get my last bit of work done – marking the assignments that they had to hand in at the beginning of the week, and figuring out how I'll mark their sermons. I am glad to be done teaching, and I am sad to be done teaching. I am looking forward to the next two days of getting to be on the receiving end as I hear them preach as part of their evaluation.