Not sure what to call this…
So lets talk about how crazy things have been lately. Taking 18 hours of school and about to take on six more at the beginning of November. My life is consumed with going to class, working at the school, going to church, and spending any spare time trying to read and write papers that seem to stack up more and more by the day.
I have an article due to the SBTC by November 1st, a girl’s retreat that needs planning, and somewhere in there I have the whole loving my husband, and maintaining a home. I often wonder what on earth I would do if I didn’t drive myself the way that I do. I think I have this drive for being over-consumed. Maybe with a busy schedule, a list of to-do’s, and a couple of good grades I can some how look at this semester and think that I have accomplished something.
For my Women’s Issues class I am reading a book called Understanding People by Larry Crabb. I am having write a personal journal for each chapter that I read. One of Crabb’s main drives in his book is charging pastors to stop hiding behind pulpits and really start ministering to their congregation. Personally I read the first couple of chapters and came off rather offended at his accusations of trading scholastic knowledge for ministry, but as I stepped back and look at pastor’s as a whole I could at least agree with him in regards to certain pastors. Thankfully I have only been in one church whose pastor only was involved in trying to create a resume instead of being a shepherd. Crabb argues that we are so involved with trying to understand the root of the original texts and parsing them for our congregations instead of making the text applicable to our members life in the here and now.
Now in the long haul of my degree, I look back at a lot of people in school who arrogantly walked the halls knowing all they could about the church Reformers and when each book of the Bible was written, and their view on babies going to hell or not, and yet when faced with people they buckle under the hard life questions. No flunk the test of compassion and sincerity as they callously quote a verse taken out of context to only see their church member crumble with the hope they thought was about to be shared.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think a solid biblical foundation and the education that I am receiving is one of the best offered, and as ministers a priority should be to continually learn and grow, but if it stops in the grade of a test, we have done ourselves and those we minister to an injustice.
Is this one of the reasons that our churches are failing at the call to minister and be the hands and feet of Christ? Our status is that we are so closed off to the world that we don’t even have an opportunity to minister to others.
So even in my pursuit to get my degree in Bible, which is a noble and biblical womanhood kind of thing to do (see previous post), if the academia of my days surpasses the hurting heart of a co-worker or teen girl that I am to minister to, what more have I done than busied myself with academics instead of Jesus.
Homemaking Hype
So there has been a lot of hype about the new “homemaking concentration at SWBTS. I blogged on it in the first developments of hearing about it in a very opinionated and rash manner. Although I can’t say that I completely am for the agree, I am not opposed to it either.
It seems like many are blowing it out of proportion and making a huge argument out of nothing. There is no need to break fellowship or throw some big hissy fit about the degree concentration, mainly because I don’t see Southwestern throwing it out.
The strengths are that yes, students will learn Old and New Testament along with Latin or Greek, and evangelism. Obviously I believe all of these are great tools in any Christan’s spiritual walk. Now to the homemaking concentration….I think if a woman chooses to take this because she wants to learn how to sew and cook in a degree program to go for it, but practically I don’t really see the point.
They stress to have biblical women in homes and teaching children, great I’m for that too, but I don’t think you have to have a college degree for that. I would rather get a bible degree and then go down to the ‘Y’ and take a sewing class and make friends and be a witness to some of the other women in the community, or maybe go to one of the women in my church to learn how to cook a certain meal. For some reason spending nearly $600.00 on a class to learn how to sew doesn’t ring so well in my head.
That being stated, I don’t think anything is ethically, morally, or scripturally wrong with this degree plan. If someone chooses to take it, great. I personally won’t take it, but my opinon and someone elses opposing opinon doesn’t make it wrong.
So although my initial response to such a degree was rather intolerant, I have repositioned my stance on the “concentration.” If someone has the money and chooses the concentration then go for it, but I don’t consider myself more of a biblical woman due to my bible degree just as I don’t see them as more of a biblical woman for learning how to sew and cook in a seminary setting.
