Teaching the church fathers

This semester I have been teaching Church History I, which covers the first 15 centuries, up until the time before the Reformation, for first and second semester students. I have one section of the course during the week, with 24 students, and another section on Saturdays with only 11 students.

I have found the class fascinating to teach so far, and when we’re delving into the theological debates of the era I am most in my element. As one of my Colombian friends said when she heard I would be teaching the course, knowing of my love for theology, “Oh, for you that will be pan comido”, that is, “a piece of cake” or, literally, “eaten bread.” (A lot of things sounds normal in Spanish, but are quite odd when you think about it.)

The more strictly historical parts are where I have to work harder to prepare, but it has been rewarding. I was also helped out in the first couple of weeks by a visiting professor, Jon Simons, who largely taught during this time and whose material I have adapted for the Saturday version of the course. Jon grew up as a missionary kid in Colombia and is studying a masters degree at Wheaton College in History of Christianity with a focus on the early church. Knowing both Colombia and church history well, he was a big help in this part of the class.

One of the most enjoyable parts of this course is that I am introducing students to a whole new world. As mostly low-church evangelicals, they have largely grown up in a world where the church fathers essentially end with the last of the apostles. An example of such mentality in the church is that when I went to a Christian book store here looking for books on church history, the clerk was confused, not really knowing what I was asking for. “Church history?” she said. “Hmmm, I’m not sure. We have this book on the church here…” and she pointed me to a theology book by Wayne Grudem on the church and some other popular christian book related to ministry topics. Eventually we found the right section with a few titles, but few substantive works. I had to go searching at the Catholic bookstores to find texts of the church fathers in Spanish.

To give you a little idea of what we’re covering, here are the main topics we have covered and some ways I’ve gone about approaching the topics:  

Persecutions in the second and third centuries and the church’s response: Students were especially moved by a reading from the “Martyrdom of Polycarp,” where they could see his unwavering commitment to the faith and take that as a challenge for the often half-hearted Christianity that we see today. Also, in a Colombian culture where the family (and especially one’s mother) is perhaps the most sacred thing in the world, to hear of early Christians encouraging their family members to stay faithful to Christ unto death was a tremendous challenge for some. Some students also did a presentation on Ciprian, and we looked at the tricky issues of how to respond to people who had apostasized during persecution and want back in the church later.

The second-century apologists: We looked at the positive and negative contributions of apologists like Justin Martyr in their attempt to show the plausibility of Christianity in their cultural context. While a lot of people can see the apologists as being sold out to Greek philosophy, I take a more positive, yet somewhat critical approach, showing how their approach to culture was actually quite varied. In this regard I have found helpful some categories from Dean Flemming’s analysis of Paul in his book Contextualization in the New Testament: at different moments accepting, rejecting, relativizing, or transforming culture. Thus, it is very different to uncritically accept certain cultural tendencies (as with certain tendencies toward allegorical interpretation in an attempt to save the authority of the Old Testament) than to take a cultural concept and transform it (as by talking of Jesus as the Logos, but giving the concept some new Christian conceptual content). I think these same distinctions have relevance when we look at topics like how the church took over certain pagan holidays or traditions. From my perspective, if they transformed the content sufficiently, it’s a legitimate contextualization, not syncretism.

Early heresies of Gnosticism, Marcionism, and modalism: For Gnosticism and Marcionism we looked at the problems of cutting off Christian faith from its Old Testament roots and accepting alien presuppositions that don’t mesh with a biblical worldview. Marcionism, for example, rejected the authority of the Old Testament, seeing the God of the Old Testament as a harsh, vengeful god not worthy of worship, contrasted with the loving Father of Jesus. My main goal here has been to show that this is a massive misunderstanding of both the Old and New Testaments. God’s character doesn’t change between testaments—he always has been loving and always has taken sin seriously enough to judge it—but praise be to God that those in Christ don’t have to experience that judgment since Christ did! On modalism, we looked at it in the context of the development of attempts to formulate Trinitarian terminology and made some connections with United Pentecostal beliefs today (a significant church in Colombia, having around 1.6 million members in a country of 47 million).

The formation of the New Testament canon: The main goal in this class was to give some perspective to understand the process of recognizing the canon and to respond to the claim that the early church invented the canon as a tool to illegitimately suppress minority voices (such as the Gnostic gospels). We also looked at the importance of the rule of faith (an early version of the creed) as a way of helping discern between different teachings in a time when the precise definition of the canon was still somewhat in flux.

The changes that came with Constantine: I used the constitutional changes of 1991 in Colombia as an introduction to get students reflecting on how social changes that favor the church in some ways are often mixed blessings in others. For example, evangelicals have had constitutional protection for their religious liberty, but this has also made the churches more comfortable, opened the door to growing secularism, and given more freedom to other religious groups spreading false ideas. The seminary here has also gained government accreditation, but has certain limitations imposed on it as a result. Just as it is hard to say whether those reforms were “mostly good” or “mostly bad” for the church on the whole, I think we need to move beyond categorical judgments that say that Constantine totally corrupted the church by making Christianity legal. The fact is, there were struggles with accommodation and faithfulness nearly every time persecution waned in the first three centuries. In case we are tempted to think that the church was pristine until Constantine, all we need to do is read the New Testament itself…

The development of early Trinitarian theology and the rise of Arrianism: The key point I hit on here was how subordinationist Christology which makes Jesus less than the Father in some way, and of which Arrianism is the logical extreme in denying that the Son is divine, depends on a faulty concept of what it means for Jesus to be our mediator. Subordinationism tends to see Jesus as a mediator between the changeable world and a transcendent, absolute God who cannot relate to the world apart from a more immanent Son. Philosophically speaking, he serves as an ontological mediator, which smacks of Neoplatonist philosophy more than a biblical worldview, since in the Bible God's transcendence doesn't create problems for him also being immanent. I tried to show that the direction of the theological consensus on the Trinity and the incarnation was to show that this kind of hybrid creature in between God and man wouldn’t do us any good for our salvation: instead we need Christ to be a mediator who is both fully human and fully divine, because our problem is a moral one of separation from a holy God, a problem that only a fully divine and fully human mediator can solve.

Athanasius’s positive arguments about Christ in On the Incarnation: My goal here was to introduce them to the types of soteriological arguments (arguments from the nature of salvation) for the Trinity that would prove so crucial in the course of forming the orthodox consensus on Trinitarian theology. I had two groups of students do presentations on portions of the text. I saw that at least with one student I succeeded in inspiring more real interest in reading patristic theologians.

Next up will be the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople and the theology of the Cappadocian fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus), followed by a week on Augustine. While this won’t be a class of pure theological discussions (and the textbook does a good job on the historical side), these are crucial for understanding so much of what happened in the early church and how the medieval and later Reformation developments relate to what happened in that time. While so much of this is new for students, most are finding it fascinating and finding explanations for aspects of church life or theological ideas that they only vaguely understood before!

The spiritual challenges of teaching (Biblical Interpretation course)

This past week I finished my two sections of a Biblical Interpretation class in the Saturday Ministerial Institute of Medellín (IMM) program. This was the same course I taught last fall, though with some adjustments for the new semester. The biggest challenge this time around was having a ton of students (2 groups of 38, though a few students dropped out early on), which made it hard to adequately respond to students’ questions. Apart from this, though, it was a good experience.

One of the sections of the Biblical Interpretation course last week.

I just got the results from the student evaluations back, which are always something I greet with a mixture of excitement and dread. In general, the results were quite positive, I saw a general trend of more positive evaluation of my teaching and of the course compared with last semester, and I heard a lot of personal positive feedback from students. A lot of students said that the course helped them substantially in understanding how to go about interpreting a biblical text; others commented on ways that studying 1 Peter 2:4-12 for some of the assignments challenged them in their own walk with God. One student, for instance, told me that doing the final assignment, applying 1 Peter 2:4-12 to a contemporary church context, challenged him to take more responsibility in his role as leader of evangelistic outreach in his church. He started the assignment looking for ways to apply the text to critique the shallow commitment to evangelism of the rest of the people in his congregation and ended up realizing it was a message first for himself. 

On the flip side, as someone who struggles with perfectionism, reading student evaluations shows me how far I still have to go in growing in humility. Literally I sometimes have to stop and pray in the middle of reading something to recenter myself on God and not take a comment too personally. The comment that most hit home this time around was when a student commented that they really shouldn’t have a foreigner teach this class because it requires a lot of ability to explain subtle distinctions and that I just wasn’t able to do that in Spanish. I realized through my reaction how easy it is for me to fall into pride over my Spanish skills. A lot of times people comment that my Spanish is really good for a missionary, especially one who hasn’t spent a long time in Latin America. But, these students remind me that I still have my work cut out for me and that I’m still far from a native speaker. I’ve noticed that especially in this program, at a lower academic level where students have a harder time grasping theoretical concepts, students seem to make more comments like this and have a harder time grasping my explanations. This can be frustrating, but it helps me identify areas to grow. Perhaps even more importantly it helps me see where I continue to need the gospel to shape my identity more than putting my confidence in ministry in my own competency. Resting in God’s love and grace sounds so simple, but it is a long, ongoing process for me as a teacher.

Intro to the New Testament "Leveling Course"

This last month (or, really, most of the semester) has been full to the brim with teaching, class prep, and other work responsibilities here, but thankfully I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the semester! This week, on Thursday and Saturday, I taught an 8-hour "leveling course" in Introduction to the New Testament. These "leveling courses" are designed for students from our Ministerial Institute of Medellín (IMM) program (our five semester basic Bible Institute program that students can attend on Saturday mornings or weekday evenings) who hope to now study the complete undergraduate program in theology. Over the course of this semester they have had the opportunity to take up to eight of these courses which seek to deepen their knowledge and make up for competencies that they didn't cover in the IMM program. This gives them the chance to enter the undergraduate program with up to 20 credits already under their belt.

We have 16 students who are going through these courses and, while not all have the financial resources to enter into the undergraduate program right away, or at least not full time, I think we will have good enrollment for the coming semester with a lot of them starting full time studies.

Given that the IMM program has a very strong biblical studies component, I didn't have to cover any of the basic introduction to the content of the New Testament books, but rather cover a few things that make up part of the New Testament Intro course here as it relates to the academic study of the New Testament. While I am sure that doesn't sound particularly exciting, it's very helpful information for enabling them to navigate the different commentaries they'll be using in further New Testament courses (or in preparing sermons or discipleship classes) and understand a bit of the context of some of the quite confusing discussions found therein.

Basically we covered three main areas:

First, an overview of textual criticism of the New Testament. Textual criticism is the study of the different manuscripts to establish what the New Testament originally said by comparing the different small variations from the ancient manuscripts we possess from different times and geographical regions. While this can consternation in students at first when they realize that there are a number of small errors that have become part of their most well-loved Bible translations (especially the Reina-Valera 1960; the KJV and NKJV in English have the same issues), the reality is that by having so many copies of the New Testament from early on in diverse regions we can actually determine with great certainty what the New Testament originally said (for example, this is why most modern translations omit or put explanatory notes regarding Acts 8:37, part of 1 John 5:7-8, Mark 16:9-20, and John 7:53-8:11). I know this class won't give my students many tools to evaluate the evidence for themselves (especially not knowing Greek), but I hope to at least have given them the ability to understand what commentaries are talking about on these points and to respond to the pastoral questions that arise when someone runs across these ideas and starts wondering whether they can really trust the Bibles we have today.

Second, we looked at historical-literary criticism of the New Testament, specifically form, source, redaction, and literary criticism, as well as touching on a couple of other issues such as pseudepigraphy, the idea that some epistles were written by different people than their supposed authors. This is one of the parts of seminary that many students would probably prefer to avoid, but it is actually crucial if we are to understand and respond to historical skepticism regarding the New Testament documents, especially the gospels (such as Bart Ehrman's books, for one). We looked at the presuppositions beyond these academic approaches to studying the New Testament, what positive things we can learn from each approach, and what dangers can arise from uncritically accepting each approach wholesale. Especially interesting was applying these methods to a study of parallel passages in the gospels, applying redaction criticism to the story of the rich young ruler and literary criticism to the portrayal of the end of Jesus' life on the cross, looking at how each writer portrays Jesus' death as part of his overall narrative portrayal of Jesus. We talked a lot about the importance of finding complementary perspectives in the diversity of the New Testament instead of assuming there is a contradiction that the text never actually explicitly affirms.

Third, we looked at some basics on the historical context of the New Testament, looking at the history of intertestamental judaism and the philosophical and religious context of the Greco-Roman world. This part was unfortunately too brief, but students said it helped unify a bunch of bits of information they had heard here and there in past, fitting it into a coherent framework.

Overall, the course went well. What most impressed me was how much students participated and the great questions that they had throughout. While Saturday was a long day with almost 6 hours of class, I can see that these students are both bright and pastorally minded, just the kind of people that will make great students as they transition to our undergraduate program.

Intensive course on how to study the Bible in Valle de Cauca

My Methods of Bible Study II group.

This past Tuesday through Friday I traveled to the department (Colombian equivalent of a state) of Valle de Cauca to teach a continuing education class for a group of pastors from the Evangelical Missionary Union of Colombia. The denomination has three large meetings per year at their camp in the eastern part of this department, about an hour and a half east of Cali, the third largest city in Colombia. The first two days of their meetings deal with matters within the denomination and in the final three days they divide into four groups to study different diploma programs, two groups studying diplomas in Biblical Interpretation, one group in Old Testament, and one group in Counseling, with the first three groups being taught by professors from the Biblical Seminary of Colombia (my seminary) and the counseling group being taught by professors from the Baptist seminary in Cali. They also have services each evening, and I got to preach on Jonah last Tuesday night.

Praying to finish my sermon on Jonah.

To give a bit of background on the denomination, they are particularly strong in this region of Colombia and, as is the case with many denominations here, have a generally Wesleyan theological perspective with some Pentecostal influences, especially stylistically in music and prayer (the continuing ed director told me they were “pentecostalized” rather than Pentecostal per se, since who counts as Pentecostal or charismatic can be very fuzzy in Latin America). They are strongest in the departments of Valle de Cauca and Cauca with influence extending in all directions from there. This location gives them an interesting ethnic makeup, having a very significant Afro-Colombian presence and some significant ministries among indigenous groups as well. One pastor in my class, for example, had worked in various towns, including a stint among an indigenous group in the Pacific coastal region.

Given their geographical location, many ministers are also on the front lines doing ministry in regions that are known for being caliente—that is, “hot”—regions where there has been a history of armed confrontations between the army and the FARC guerrillas. This region is not far from some of the rural mountain areas where the FARC originally started and have had some of their most consistent presence. Since I was at a camp or retreat center and travelling with two other professors from the seminary, I did not feel any particularly significant risk being in the region. Most armed confrontations take place exclusively between the army and the guerrilla, whereas the most common effect on civilians who live there are extortion or robbery, although in some areas with stronger guerrilla presence robbery and other run of the mill crimes are actually low, since thiefs who disrupt the order imposed by the guerrilla may not be spared. To put it in Colombian terms, I didn’t have any problems because I wasn’t dando papaya—“giving papaya”—an idiomatic way of saying when someone is “asking for it” by putting themselves in a situation where someone would want to take advantage of them, like strolling through town by myself as a foreigner or visibly displaying money.

(While I didn’t know it at the time of the class, there was a FARC attack on the army on Tuesday night in the department of Cauca to the south of Cali, killing 11 soldiers and imperiling the progress in the peace talks between the FARC and the government. Please pray for wisdom for Colombia’s leaders in how to best respond and for lasting peace and reconciliation in Colombian society.)

With that background, back to the course. Methods of Bible Study II was the fourth course in the Biblical Interpretation diploma. They started with an introductory module a year ago, took a course on Literary Genres last September (the course I taught in early March elsewhere), studied Methods of Bible Study I last December, will take a course on Applying the Bible this September, and will finish with a final course on Biblical Theology this December. In my group were 31 pastors, all of whom have at least 10 years of ministry experience.

Their first methods course covered the inductive Bible study method, using Philemon as their text they worked on throughout the 15 hours of class. My course looked more in depth at different aspects of the historical context, literary context, other literary features of texts, identifying the main idea and theological principles of a passage, and then briefly touched on application of these principles (which they’ll look at in more depth in the next class). We used Haggai as our text to which we applied the different concepts, which turned out to be a great choice.

A few of the ways we got to see how these aspects provided a deeper reading of Haggai were:

• We saw how the historical circumstance of drought was explicitly connected with the problem of priorities in Haggai’s hearers in Haggai 1. In theory they thought rebuilding the temple was a good idea, but said the time wasn’t right because of their economic problems. God’s message to them was that they had it precisely backward—their economic problems were the result of their failure to prioritize the temple project, not a legitimate pretext for delaying that project. God drives this point home by intentionally choosing to call the temple his “house,” setting up a contrast between their attitude toward their own houses versus their neglect of God’s house.
• We also worked to identify the main idea of Haggai 1. While it sounds simple to identify what the passage is talking about and what it says about what it’s talking about, it can actually be quite tricky in practice. Students invariably struggle with putting the main idea in one sentence, but I have found it is one of the most important steps. This exercise helps students synthesize all the details they’ve learned from the study of the historical and literary contexts.
• We looked at the significance of the fact that the political leader of Israel was a governor under a foreign king rather than a king himself and how this showed an incomplete restoration of the nation. Later we looked at the prophecy in 2:20-23 to that governor, Zerubbabel, compared with the background in Jeremiah 22:24-30. By looking at this literary context of Haggai among the other prophets, we saw how Haggai’s message shows God’s reaffirmation of the Davidic covenantal promise to the post-exilic generation, reversing the curse on Jehoiachin (Zerubbabel’s grandfather), one of the last kings of Judah before the exile.
• I had students read 2:1-9 in three translations and discuss how each understood 2:7 (“Desire of the nations” or “wealth of the nations”), seeking clues for understanding the phrase in its immediate context and how it impacts the interpretation of the prophecy. This was the part that caused the most consternation as many students didn’t want to even consider the possibility that 2:7 may not be messianic. I think there is likely at least some messianic element or undertone to the passage (in 2:9 at least, and given the use of 2:6 in Hebrews 12:26), but am not entirely positive whether it’s best to see that in 2:7 itself, so I sought to show how the different readings understood the passage and how to use comparative analysis of translations to identify interpretive issues when one doesn’t know Hebrew or Greek.
• We looked at the comparisons between Deuteronomy 28 and the consequences Haggai’s hearers faced to understand the blessings and curses of the Law. Then we discussed the importance of knowing where a text is in redemptive history and in what sense the teaching on blessings for obedience applies under the New Covenant. While we don’t have specific promises related to fruitful harvests in a promised land (since we live as exiles on the earth awaiting a heavenly inheritance), God does urge us to seek first his kingdom trusting that he will supply our needs (Matthew 6:33) and he does indicate that he still uses adverse circumstances as a form of discipline (Hebrews 12), whether directly for a specific sin or for more general character formation.
• We noted the importance of paying attention to the historical moment of a message, such as that Haggai’s first two prophecies occurred on Jewish feast days (the New Moon and the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles) and that the name Haggai means “festal”. This points out the importance of the temple project for Israel’s religious life and relationship with God.
• We saw how there is a general pattern in Haggai of how in the face of the people's necessity, in each of the four prophecies God responds with his grace, promising his presence, blessing, or faithfulness. While Haggai emphasizes the need for human response, he does so in a way that clearly highlights God's grace in the face of our spiritual and practical needs (note especially 1:13 for God's role in stirring their hearts to respond!).

Overall, the course went well and students commented that they were challenged both in learning some new approaches to interpretation and also in the powerful message of Haggai regarding proper priorities in life. I pray that this course has served as another step in learning to be better readers of Scripture and more faithful preachers and teachers. It was a tremendous blessing to be a part of training so many people with a passion for the gospel and serving in what are often quite difficult contexts.

Afternoon soccer game amongst the different pastors. They were surprised I actually played decently. Playing since kindergarten has paid off in Colombia!

Camp/retreat center facilities.

View from the car of agricultural region in the Valle de Cauca. The valley there is one of the largest in Colombia and is known across the whole country simply as "the valley". This region grows almost exclusively sugar cane, and at times we saw trucks with five or six trailers attached that were hauling sugar cane away from the farms. I'm not sure how they can possibly drive them safely, but I'm sure they find a way.