What 5 Years of Academic Biblical Studies Taught Me

Honestly, let’s be realistic about this. There’s no way I could convey this knowledge and experience, and do justice to a critical process of development and change in my life, in such a short moment of time. It’s unreal, when I think about and attempt to write about these years (still ongoing by the way).

My worldview has undergone significant changes.

When I signed up to be a New Testament major during my undergrad days, I had no clue what was in store. I just knew, it could only be a plus if I continued to learn more about a book people claimed to believe and hold in high regard.

Yeah, I know, it’s  strange… I find it funny when people seem confused when told about my educational background. Especially, when those people are “Christians.” Ironically, I’ve discovered most folk wanna just have the “look” of being knowledgeable- of course, for their own benefit.

I mean, in America, “hardliners” will die to defend what they believe to be “divine truth, inspired by the Word of God.” Again, it’s funny…. with all this concern and energy spent on defending or enforcing certain doctrines, which are important because of the implications that usually follow, that these same individuals would really care to know more about their beliefs.

However, I’m realize many still lack resources; among these are an ability to critically process content, which isn’t learnt overnight. Like muscles, the more we use of brains to carry out certain functions, the stronger we become at whatever it is we’re attempting.

Youth are told – yeah, I was thoroughly involved in the youth group scene during middle to late high school years until right before college – to read their bibles for a numbers of reasons I’ll leave alone for now. Again, bible reading is stressed.

The point: today, it’s much of the same story. Young people are hammered with the same instructions: READ, READ and READ! There’s a big problem, guess what? Grown adults have no clue, but we expect teens to just figure it out?

This is both funny and frustrating because individuals are expected to read and understand without any tools and resources. The approach sometimes goes like this: Just read and listen to what the spirit tells you. Unacceptable. For many reasons I can’t discuss now, that deserves an entire post in itself. Actually, countless books already written on this topic.¹

Back to my five plus years deal… having gone through studying theology, biblical studies, Jewish literature, early church history and so on; here’s a few thoughts to consider.

When it’s all said and done:

• You haven’t answered all your questions or solved most of your problems.
• You’re left with more unanswered questions than before.
• You realize there’s a lot more you don’t know
• You learn to accept the fact, that no, you don’t have a response/answer to every question and that’s okay.
• Most fundamentalist groups (Christian or other) are clueless, they’re not on the radar and don’t realize it.
• A lot more to Christianity that’s being neglected and misunderstood; including, wrongly and misleadingly placing emphasis on aspects of doctrine, living and culture.
• Most of what’s discussed and taught in mainstream western Christian circles is grossly distorted with individualistic, dualistic  and not surprisingly, gnostic tendencies which go unnoticed (more on that later, I promise).
• Again, we don’t have it all figured out.
• Sorry to disappoint, but there are deep theological mysteries we just don’t know enough about; i.e., hell, heaven, so on. That’s fine because it’s not the point of the story; the Christian worldview offers more than silly, flawed fundamentalist teachings about going to heaven after you die (more on this later).
• Jesus’ kingdom announcement speaks about life in this world. Like Judaism, Christianity isn’t a transcendent religion. At least, from what I’ve gathered over the years.
• The Christian worldview: speaks about God’s justice, his good creation, new creation, the defeat of death, beauty, life and how God is putting the world to rights through his messiah (more on this later).
• The Christian message isn’t about going to heaven after you die. As one theologian said, “it’s not about life after death, but life, after life after death.”²
• The Christian worldview asks/addresses: “what it means to be more genuinely human?” PROBLEM: Heard anyone ask this question lately?

This could go for a while, so this will have to due for now.

Quickly, I should mention some other fun facts about my studies:

• Know a little Hebrew but my Greek is sharper.
• My writing has improved.
• My library is pretty impressive.

Photo by: Susan WD

1. See “Problem with Evangelical Theology” and “Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture.” [↩]
2. N.T Wright- stated in multiple lectures & books, as well as other scholars [↩]

Tagged as: Biblical Studies, Christianity, education, Theology