First J-term of my Seminary life has now come and gone, where did time go? The longer I stay in Seminary, the faster it feels like time goes by. This semester has been filled with fun and work; because most of the students only took one class during this time, we were left with more free time than we knew how to deal with. We were able to spend more time just chilling and getting to know each other more. Our mornings and afternoons would be filled with class and studying, but afterwards on weekends, we would have the chance to hang out and catch a movie or play some board games. Some nights when we really wanted to splurge, we would go to apple-bees and get some appetizers that would be half off, and for them to enjoy a beer. I guess beer culture is a real thing up here, but for me... water is good. Anyway, this couldn't have happened during the normal school years from all the work that we usually had and so this time, during J-Term, was a real blessing and treat. We were given the opportunity to take a step back and restore our energy before jumping into another busy school semester in Spring. We also had the chance to enjoy a few New England snow storms in which me and my friends tried to take as much advantage of it as possible. We built snow forts and went sledding on off hours. This all gave us a chance to just share life with each other instead of just studying day in and day out. I also folded many wantons and shared a little taste of Asian culture with them!!
The class that I took during J-Term was Christ in the OT. The general gist of this was discovering and clarifying different passages in the Old Testament that might have made mentions to Jesus Christ as the coming Messiah. We started with a general overview of the number of times that the word Messiah shows up in the bible and it's meaning in Hebrew. Officially, the word "Messiah" appears 39 times in the Old Testament, and the official meaning is "anointed one." Now of those 39 times different people have different arguments to how many of those actually refer to the coming Christ and not instead of some earthly king or anointed person. My professor personally believes that there are only two cases where the word "Messiah" is actually indicative of a future eschatological Messiah, and these two instances are found in Daniel 9:25-26. This doesn't mean that other instances cannot allude to a coming Messiah, or that there aren't other passages that talk about the coming King-Priest-Prophet role that is Jesus, but that the word "Messiah" in the Old Testament used to talk about Jesus are only those two. The class goes on to talk about many different other instances where the Messiah is clearly talked about as a futuristic king-priest-prophet like in Psalm 110, or Zechariah 6. This class gave me a broader perspective on the many different prophecies and allusions to Christ within the Old Testament context. The most important thing seemed to be a Controlled Typology view where we kept in mind and found typologies that readers and the writer of the text at the time would have understood it to be. Even though I did not agree with every point my professor made, and sometimes he would make some pretty incredulous connections; they were all thoughts that I had not thought of before, and thus forced me to think deeper and take a greater joy in reading scripture.
In one short summary, J-term has given me the time to grow deeper in relationship with my friends and colleagues as well as broaden my perspective on the Old Testament, and find joy in passages I always avoided like the Levitical laws. Besides just school and friends, this semester God has also shown his provision for me financially and spiritually. I had more time to spend the mornings with the Lord which really helped to refocus my life on him. God also showed that he was constantly providing for me financially, which was something I always worried about in the back of my mind. He brought along friends and families that supported what God was doing in my life, and opened new doors. Now that J-Term is over, it's time for me to go back to studying Greek again, and start reading all the new books that I had to buy for classes. My first semester seemed much more relaxed than I would have expected, but I cannot say the same for this next upcoming semester. Already I can see the mountains of books that I will have to read, not including the work I will have to put in to understand all the new Greek concepts. Please continue to keep me in your prayers as it seems there is going to be more work to be done. P.S. for those of you who are interested, which is prolly most of you ... Jojo Wu has been seeing a girl. We are currently in that weird phase of getting to know one another, and God has not been closing the door. Please keep us in your prayers... and maybe it's impossible, but please keep it on the dl (down low) until everything works out.
First J-term of my Seminary life has now come and gone, where did time go? The longer I stay in Seminary, the faster it feels like time goes by. This semester has been filled with fun and work; because most of the students only took one class during this time, we were left with more free time than we knew how to deal with. We were able to spend more time just chilling and getting to know each other more. Our mornings and afternoons would be filled with class and studying, but afterwards on weekends, we would have the chance to hang out and catch a movie or play some board games. Some nights when we really wanted to splurge, we would go to apple-bees and get some appetizers that would be half off, and for them to enjoy a beer. I guess beer culture is a real thing up here, but for me... water is good. Anyway, this couldn't have happened during the normal school years from all the work that we usually had and so this time, during J-Term, was a real blessing and treat. We were given the opportunity to take a step back and restore our energy before jumping into another busy school semester in Spring. We also had the chance to enjoy a few New England snow storms in which me and my friends tried to take as much advantage of it as possible. We built snow forts and went sledding on off hours. This all gave us a chance to just share life with each other instead of just studying day in and day out. I also folded many wantons and shared a little taste of Asian culture with them!!
The class that I took during J-Term was Christ in the OT. The general gist of this was discovering and clarifying different passages in the Old Testament that might have made mentions to Jesus Christ as the coming Messiah. We started with a general overview of the number of times that the word Messiah shows up in the bible and it's meaning in Hebrew. Officially, the word "Messiah" appears 39 times in the Old Testament, and the official meaning is "anointed one." Now of those 39 times different people have different arguments to how many of those actually refer to the coming Christ and not instead of some earthly king or anointed person. My professor personally believes that there are only two cases where the word "Messiah" is actually indicative of a future eschatological Messiah, and these two instances are found in Daniel 9:25-26. This doesn't mean that other instances cannot allude to a coming Messiah, or that there aren't other passages that talk about the coming King-Priest-Prophet role that is Jesus, but that the word "Messiah" in the Old Testament used to talk about Jesus are only those two. The class goes on to talk about many different other instances where the Messiah is clearly talked about as a futuristic king-priest-prophet like in Psalm 110, or Zechariah 6. This class gave me a broader perspective on the many different prophecies and allusions to Christ within the Old Testament context. The most important thing seemed to be a Controlled Typology view where we kept in mind and found typologies that readers and the writer of the text at the time would have understood it to be. Even though I did not agree with every point my professor made, and sometimes he would make some pretty incredulous connections; they were all thoughts that I had not thought of before, and thus forced me to think deeper and take a greater joy in reading scripture.
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