It is morning. I am in the library at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is almost difficult to believe that I am here, so long have longed to be here, with my entire family safely ensconced in a good home. We live in university housing and my wife is looking for a house to buy and make it her permanent dwelling. She says she will sell only when she is too weak to care for herself anymore. (She blithely assumes I will die first and leave her behind to fend for herself, being fourteen years advanced. We'll just see about that.)
I hope, rather, that she buys the home I most favor, the old Brewer Home at 229 N. Main Street, and that we keep it in our family. Surely, of five children at least one will be interested in preserving this historic landmark. It is the oldest home here, at 170 years of age, and its peculiar structure makes it less feasible for most family needs. It has five bedrooms spread out on three floors, two on top, one in the middle and two on the ground floor.
What that means is that she does not plan to accompany me on future mission work. I have hopes of going to two places, North Korea and Sweden. These two may sound as if they comprise an odd collection, and while they do, they seem to fit with my distinctive competencies. I have experience in both nations and I speak some of the languages, Swedish and Korean.
The paucity of people who have had much word of Christ in North Korea draw me, as does the utter ignorance I found among the desperate teens in Sweden, with whom I hung out, teaching juggling, in the summer of 1993. Two of those jugglers came to visit me for a month in 1994 in Boone, NC, and then for another month in Daejeon, South Korea, in 1998. They are the essence of modernism, well educated, but greatly lacking in any spiritual fundament. Hence, they drink. And carouse, chide one another, and dance about avoiding sincere subjection to Christ.
To me, it seems that in America, young people who reject Christ generally have a much closer approximation of just who Christ is. Sadly, in Sweden, there seems to be much depravity in knowledge of Christ, though He lives in churches and the few Christians there. Perhaps it is the considerably lower percentage of Christians, accounting for this disparity. I am not sure. But the difference is palpable.
Whenever I brought up the topic, or even casually interjected certain Christian bases for my behavior or opinions on some popular political or quotidian topic, they were almost bewildered, unable to see the connection, or theretofore incapable. However, they listened and understood, unhindered by previous weaker arguments. It was in a way, all fresh to them, the application of Christ to contemporary problems in culture. This was, as you can imagine, electrifying to me, A Christian yearning to affect others towards Christ, however marginally, even just planting seeds, but real seeds with salient potential.
These teens were bright, and respected my Christ-in-me kindness and my status as a juggling teacher to them. I was "cool," if dorky and about 10 years their senior. I felt God had a special place for me there, and flirted with the idea of seeking a post in teaching English then. But, I lacked any clear ESL qualification, qualifications which I later earned upon completing my MBA studies at Appalachian State University. I merely postponed graduation after finishing all my credits and took more student loans for the Spring and summer semesters of 1995, filling them with ESL courses, earning a certificate in that area. It was a wonderful curriculum, taught by a retired Baptist preacher, Richard McGarry, who later went on to get a Ph.D. in ESL at Gainesville.
Rick was very enthusiastic and encouraging, and from his Christian background, very tolerant and sensitive to cultural differences. He had worked in Africa and could speak Swahili. I was very inspired by him in my preparation to go and serve in another culture. That, and I got all A's, something I had not done in any field since high school, to the best of my memory. Dunno.
Speaking of A's, It seems clear I will not get an A in my hermeneutics course, which is fine by me; I have learned so very much. It is not an easy course, am while I write fairly well, I am certainly in the weakest quadrant of my peers in this course regarding exegetical experience. Exegesis is not easy, in that you need a fine and comprehensive knowledge of the Bible.
And that knowledge does not really count just casual readings of the Bible, from personal Bible study, as in my experience. Rather, you must remember specific details for later comparison, and you need to have memorized many verses with their verse and chapter numbers, for subsequent reference. I don't have that, though I have read the Bible in large blocks throughout my life.
I have a feel for the Bible, which has developed over time, and it informs my life, governing the way I live and treat others. However, I cannot put my finger on specific verses so well as my peers, and I must work hard these next few years to remedy that weakness. I wonder, though, how Christians read the Bible before it was divided into verses. Perhaps they read larger blocks, not having a convenient stopping point. And surely they read the epistles in single sittings. How else should a letter of love be read?
Love, Nathaniel
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