Phill Sacre

Tag: college

  • Reflections on a year of theological college

    Well, I’ve done it. I’ve completed a year of tuition at Oak Hill. Unless I have to do any retakes, academically this year is over for me. “For me, ze year is over…”

    It’s gone scarily quickly, and I can’t quite believe we’ve reached this point. It feels like hardly any time is past since we packed our bags, waved goodbye to our friends in Colchester and came to the Big Smoke. Anyway, I’d just like to post up a few reflections about how I think I’ve changed since being at college for a year.

    Firstly, the thing which I feel has really changed is my confidence in the Bible and the Christian faith (and, of course, the God behind both of those things). At Oak Hill in particular, it feels like everything is based around the study of the word. It’s been great to look at some of the reasons why we can have confidence in the Bible, all the way from apologetics to church history to archaeology to Biblical theology. All in all, it has given me a real confidence in the way that the Bible comes together as a coherent whole. Although I feel like I’ve changed in other ways, I think this confidence underlies pretty much everything else – it’s the base point from which to judge everything else.

    There are a couple of specific things which I feel have spoken to me particularly:

    • It was fantastic to study the Old Testament and get to grips with how it hangs together. Particular highlights for me were studying the Pentateuch in term 2, and Isaiah in term 3. Our Old Testament lecturer is so enthusiastic about the Old Testament, it’s infectious! And it’s been incredible to go a bit deeper into books which, to many, are perhaps somewhat obscure and impenetrable. I feel now like I’d be much more comfortable to preach from the Old Testament, having a more solid picture of how it fits together.
    • I’ve really enjoyed studying church history and doctrine (at Oak Hill they are taught as one course – historical theology). I think having an overview of how, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity came into being has opened my eyes to systematic theology and how the different doctrines of the church came about. One particular highlight for me was studying the doctrine of God – asking questions like “how do we know God is trinity?” and “what does it mean for God to be love?” Beforehand, I think I’d had a view of systematic theology as something fairly dry and academic – things which people do in ivory towers (I paint a picture blacker than it actually was, but it wasn’t far away from that). What I’ve discovered is that actually learning more about God intellectually has helped me in my own faith. Learning more about God has just elevated him in my mind, to something far greater than He was before.

    All in all, I think it’s been a good year! I still feel woefully inadequate to serve as an under-shepherd of God’s people, but slightly less woefully inadequate than I did last year. Now there’s a testimonial for you!

  • Two down, one to go

    I’m talking about terms, of course. After this week (in which I have two exams), we have one week of holiday, and then we’re back in to the third and final term of the year.

    So, how have things been going this term? I thought I might post up some reflections similar to my reflections after one term.

    The workload has definitely increased this term, which was only to be expected really! I think next term is going to be even worse (with the elective modules I’ve chosen, I have an additional three assignments to be handed in as well as the five required ones).

    These are the main courses I’ve been studying (in no particular order):

    • The Development of the Church and the Doctrine of God – it’s a bit of a mouthful, but basically it’s a church history / doctrine combo module. I’ve found it a great way to study doctrine – learning about it via the medium of early church history and the various heresies that had to be dealt with. As part of the course I wrote an essay on the Trinity which I really enjoyed writing, but more on that story some other time. This course continues through til next term.
    • Old Testament 1 – Genesis to 1 Samuel – I’ve really enjoyed this module. Seulgi, our lecturer, is so enthusiastic about the Old Testament it’s difficult not to enjoy it! The Old Testament is fascinating, and it’s been great to look at it – even at a fairly speedy pace. Just getting an overview of the theme of each book and some of the context, history etc has been invaluable. Next term we will also be continuing with the Old Testament module.
    • Foundations of Philosophy – I’ve never studied Philosophy before, so it’s been great to look at Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Augustine and so on. This course also continues over into next term so I will talk about it properly some other time.
    • Pastoral Epistles – Looking at 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. We’ve just finished looking at 1 Timothy, we will do 2 Timothy and Titus next term. This has been fantastic as well, it’s great to go further into a particular part of the Bible and the Pastorals really are fascinating books.
    • Apologetics – following on from Cultural Exegesis last term. I’ve learnt a lot in this module about the ‘presuppositional’ model of apologetics, which I kind of knew a little about beforehand but makes a lot of sense to me. Of everything I’ve done this is probably one of the most helpful, practically speaking – I would definitely like to post something up about this in the future.

    Overall, I’m still enjoying the courses, and I’m looking forward to the next term!

    So, that’s how my term has been. Apart from academic stuff, Phil and I have settled down into life at our placement church, and have also been going to Christ Church, Cockfosters in the evenings (including joining a home group there).

    And despite missing Colchester and all the friends we have there, I think we’re pretty much settled into life in London and are happy here 🙂

     

  • Reflections after one term

    I’ve now been at Oak Hill College for a whole term. I had my one and only exam for this term this morning (New Testament Greek). I thought I’d do a quick post up with my reflections on being here after having completed the initial courses.

    My attitudes have changed slightly since my previous post on the subject, now that the courses have finished here’s a quick summary of what I now think:

    • Creation & The Doctrine of Humanity – I think this is probably the course which has had the most personal impact in terms of my understanding of God. We often talk about God as redeemer and saviour – but not often as creator. This module really got me thinking about that, and in general I think our understanding of creation could probably do with being taught more in churches – it’s so important!
    • Biblical Theology – This was fascinating stuff, particularly when we got to Solomon and typology. That said, I wasn’t sure about how far you could take typology (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry.) This is a topic I’d like to blog about a little bit more in the future so I’ll continue thinking along those lines.
    • Greek – the exam this morning was pretty hard! But overall I’m finding it really good to learn to read the New Testament in the original language… it’s fascinating to be able to pick apart some modern translations and see which decisions they’ve had to make.

    In general I think it’s a great college and community, very supportive. The teaching we’ve had has been excellent as well. And this term has been a fairly well-pitched introduction – it hasn’t been too stressful in terms of assignments and deadlines, the workload has been about right for someone who wasn’t in the academic world before coming here.

  • What I’m studying

    I said a while back that I’d post up a little bit about what I’m studying. It might be useful for anyone who’s considering studying at Oak Hill, or it might just be interesting if you’re wondering what an ordinand (i.e., someone studying Theological and Pastoral Studies) actually does!

    Here’s a rough guide to the courses we’re doing:

    • New Testament Greek. Every TPS student at Oak Hill studies Greek, at least, they do if they come in in the first year. I don’t think you have to do it the whole time, but you do at least have to do it some of the time. I’m really enjoying it so far – although I don’t think I’m a natural languages person, I feel like I’m beginning to gradually get the hang of NT Greek after a few weeks. It’s hard work, but I think Greek isn’t too bad in that you get a much quicker payoff than with Hebrew!
    • Cultural Exegesis. This is a really interesting module: what is culture? How do we understand what’s going on – and, more importantly, how do we interpret it from a Christian perspective? Of all the modules we’re doing this year, this is probably the one I’m finding most interesting. We have to write an essay for this on a cultural artefact, which is pretty much licence to write an essay on virtually anything in the modern world: as long as it is the product of culture in some respects, you can analyse it. I’ve been thinking about writing an essay on smartphones, or something a bit more specific (i.e. smartphones and relationships).
    • Pastoral Leadership. This is about the practicalities of actually leading a church. I’m finding this another very interesting course, partly because I’ve not done anything like that before! We had a seminar this week on how pastoring works in different sized churches, which was fascinating.
    • Biblical Theology. This is a course which is trying to put the Bible into its proper theological perspective – how it relates to systematic theology, how we need to see the Bible as a coherent whole. Similar to some studying I’ve done with the Moore Course before, but worthwhile nonetheless!
    • Creation and the Doctrine of Humanity. I must admit, I found this module a bit hard to grasp to start with, but as of today it has really started to click. I can see the relevance that it has to us, and I’m looking forward to doing the rest of the course.
    • The Word of God. This is a module where various lecturers from different areas tell us about their particular specialities regarding the Word of God. We started with Mike Ovey giving a sort of Bible overview, and we’ve spent the last couple of weeks with someone else looking at the Old Testament – specifically, about archaeological evidence and various criticisms of it such as the Documentary Hypothesis.

    Also, all students are doing a course on “Theological Reflection”, but I will talk about that some other time.

    So… that’s a whistlestop tour of where I’m at in terms of my course! Let me know if you’d like me to go into anything further and I’ll do my best to explain some of it. Explaining things I think would definitely help me to get my head around the material at least!