Things I’ll miss most

I don’t think I’ve officially announced on my blog that I have been accepted for doctoral studies at the University of Munich, Germany. A few weeks ago I received an official acceptance letter stating that I should matriculate in March and begin studies in April (their semesters are a little different than here). I quickly responded and said that March was a little too early; thankfully the school was fine bumping back my matriculation date to September. This gives us a little time to sell everything we own, except what we can fit into suitcases, for me to possibly take an intensive summer language course, and for us to get settled overseas. We also are awaiting word from a scholarship-stipendium, which, if not received, will delay our plans by a few months.

With this in mind, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic as I was watching the Superbowl Sunday night with a bunch of church-friends, munching on food, and cheering for the Giants. I couldn’t help but think, “I really enjoy this every year!” And then I thought, “This’ll be one thing I really miss when I move to Germany.” I’ve been going to Superbowl parties since I was a kid. The first one I can remember was when the ‘Skins won in 1991 — I was 7. To me the games are always memorable, but even more so is the camaraderie of watching a game with friends. I did boycott the Superbowl a couple of years when Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction occurred. They say that the Superbowl will be available next year online, so maybe there will be some Germans interested in finding out what a Superbowl party is like.

Other things I’ll miss when I’m overseas:

• living in driving distance to family.
• my church family at Union View. Sure, we’ll get involved in a church in Munich, but we’ll miss everyone here.
• having a car; we’ll only use public transit in Munich
• mild winters. This week it is 3 degrees Fahrenheit at night and 15 degrees during the day in Munich.

Preparing spiritually for Germany

In a recent post I described several ways in which I am trying to prepare academically for studies in Germany. Now in this post let me share some ways that I am preparing spiritually.

1. I am looking at my time in Germany not only as a 3 year academic stint, but also as a chance to live as a missionary in a foreign country. Sadly, many parts of Europe, including Germany, are very dark when it comes to the gospel. In fact, I read just this past week that nearly a third of Germans are atheists, with the other two-thirds being Catholic and Protestant — but most of these being “religious.” So living in Germany will mean living in a place that desperately needs to hear about Jesus. Sometimes being a missionary means reaching people who live in huts and work on primitive farms; being a missionary in Germany might mean reaching people who drive Mercedes and work as succesful professionals.
2. Living as a missionary begins now, not just when I get across the ocean. We are seeking to be involved with our local church in every way possible. We as a family are continuing to pray for our neighbors and to reach out to them and to seek opportunities at our jobs and in our community. If we are not sharing the gospel now, why should we expect it to be any different when we get “over there”?
3. As one who will study in a German University, I am bracing myself for several possibilities. Since I will be studying the New Testament with very conservative beliefs, I am expecting to have to defend my positions on these. For example, I expect to be challenged on my belief about the inerrancy of Scripture. Now, I’m not planning on going into the University broadcasting such a stance, but I’m sure it will eventually come up. I doubt that it will be a huge issue, however, if I have developed a reputation as a good student, a hard worker, and a careful reader of the New Testament.
4. I intend to make time for spiritual growth while in Germany. It will be easy to get lost in studies and to neglect prayer and devotional reading. Therefore it will be important to get to know some other believers, to be involved in church, and to daily seek the Lord. I am also planning on reading my fair share of C. S. Lewis while studying. That may sound odd, since he was not a NT scholar. I think he models one, however, who was willing to take a bold stand for his faith within the context of a European University, even though it cost him in many ways. Having such an example will help, I think, during the times when I’ll feel challenged or out-of-place.

Preparing Academically for Germany

As I’ve mentioned recently, my family is preparing for a move to Germany. As you’ve probably also noticed, I’m pretty excited and will have a lot to say about the process. Let me share with you what I am doing to help prepare myself for the academic studies in Munich:

• Between now and May/June when we hope, Lord willing, to move, I am focusing on honing my language skills. I am trying to read at least 10 verses a day from the Hebrew Old Testament. I refer primarily to Keil and Delitzsch for issues encountered in the Hebrew. I’m also practicing my Latin. Daily reading in the Vulgate is the bare minimum, but I’m also trying to work through a classical grammar.
• My major focus when it comes to language preparation is Greek and German. I’m balancing my time between these since the bulk of my work in Munich will relate to these languages. For Greek I am just about to complete my first reading of the Greek NT. I am also working through a classical grammar that includes translations from English to Greek. When it comes to German, I recently felt that I had hit a wall and was making little progress. Motivation had bottomed out. All of this changed when I was given a few new German magazines and the newest edition of Deutsch Perfekt. I’m finding the Zeitschrift entitled Deutsch Perfekt to be greatly helpful, since it offers contemporary readings on a host of topics and themes, with different levels of difficulty, and with reading helps on hard words. Now I’m finding it hard to put the German down and pick up the Greek.
• There are a couple of things I would like to read between now and Germany. Mostly I would like to read in the area of NT backgrounds: things such as Josephus, Philo, Apostolic Fathers, maybe some Apocrypha, a rhetorical handbook, Homer, and probably Dictionary of NT Background.
• In order to make time for these languages and readings, I am not aiming to try to get much published in the next few months. As of now I am only working on one book review (Letters to the Church: A Survey of Hebrews and the General Epistles by K. Jobes for Criswell Theological Review). I’m also planning on turning down an opportunity to write another article for the Lexham Bible Dictionary since this will take away time from my other pursuits.

In some upcoming posts, I hope to share with you how I’m preparing spiritually for Germany, and also how we as a family are preparing.

 

Blogging Again

Well, let me officially say I’m back and ready to blog again. As you may have noticed, I decided earlier this fall to take a break from blogging. Now I’m going to give you an update on what I was working on and accomplished during my blogging sabbatical:

• I finished my th.m. thesis (masters of theology). My thesis, which clocked in at 172 pages, was entitled “Interpreting Microstructures through Discourse Analysis, with Specific Application to the Text of James 5:13-18.” And, with my th.m. thesis completed, I graduated this past Friday and am officially done at SEBTS (which means I have no books checked out from the library, but soon can check out a maximum of 5 with an alumni account). Family was here for the weekend to celebrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• I was officially accepted by the faculty of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität-München for doctoral studies. Now I am awaiting the final word from the school’s international office. The application process was quite thorough: I had to get several references, academic transcripts (including elementary and high school), even SAT scores from high school.

 

• I completed my application to the DAAD, which offers scholarships for students to study in Germany. In order to apply for this, I had to again gather transcripts, references, etc. I also had to take a German proficiency exam, which included speaking, reading, writing, and listening comprehension. On my test I received a 3 out of 5 on each area, meaning I can communicate in German in general topics and in scientific topics of medium difficulty. Before I can begin at Munich I will need to be completely fluent. Needless to say, I have spent and will continue to spend considerable time working on my German.
• Any spare time I had was spent with my wife and daughter, who is now a year old, beginning to talk, and walking up a storm.

So, there you have it. That’s what I’ve been up to. In my next couple of posts I’ll let you know what I plan on doing now. Also, tomorrow evening (Tues) we’ll be having my German conversation partner over for dinner. I’ll be sure to post pictures so you can “meet” her.

More funding sources

For those of you interested in studying in Germany, I have found some more funding possibilities. Be sure to check out the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. Benefits include:

-monthly stipend ranging from 2,100-3,650 Euros and lasting for 12 months
-4 month intensive language course for those who do not know German
-2 week study travel tour through Germany
-airplane travel costs to and from Germany are covered
-Family members (spouse and children) are encouraged to come, and extra funding is provided for each additional family member
-deadline for application is October 15

Lewis on education

“Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary. He told us to be not only ‘as harmless as doves’, but also ‘as wise as serpents’. He wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head. He wants us to be simple, singleminded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim. . . . The proper motto is not ‘Be good, sweet maid and let who can be clever,’ but ‘Be good, sweet maid, and don’t forget that this involves being as clever as you can.’ God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But, fortunately, it works the other way round. Anyone who is honestly trying to become a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole word” (Lewis, Mere Christianity, 78).

Update

I have updated my link “Preparing for Studies Abroad”. There you will find information regarding studying overseas (Note: I am finding that I have much less time lately for writing. One of the main reasons is because I am preparing for a trip in April to Germany, and am applying for various scholarships and taking care of details related to overseas study. I still plan to write about biblical/theological topics, but since much of my attention lately is focused overseas, many of my posts will be related to this).

This Semester

A lot of important things are going on for me this semester:

1. I am investigating Universities in Germany and the U.K. to discern where to pursue a doctorate

2. I will be making some trips to visit these schools, and then submitting applications

3. I hope to submit a formal prospectus in order to get approval on the thesis I’m writing

4. I hope to write another chapter of my thesis

5. I’m only taking one class so that I can have some more free time to work on these matters

To be honest, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by this. Just the process of looking at schools is dizzying; your prayers are appreciated. I’m taking great comfort from the words of Proverbs, “The Lord directs your steps.” I praying that he direct my steps through the whole process.

The dumbing down of college

This may be old news, but in case you haven’t read the article yet I thought I’d link to it and provide some excerpts. The article is about the limited learning that goes on in colleges and states:

A study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years. Not much is asked of students, either. Half did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week. . . . ‘It’s not the case that giving out more credentials is going to make the U.S. more economically competitive,’ Arum said in an interview. ‘It requires academic rigor. . . . You can’t just get it through osmosis at these institutions.’ The findings also will likely spark a debate over what helps and hurts students learn. To sum up, it’s good to lead a monk’s existence: Students who study alone and have heavier reading and writing loads do well.

Leisurely reflection?

I’m reading Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind with a slight mental red flag. Noll argues for the absolute importance of developing the Christian mind, and of the rightful place of the Christian scholar. He bemoans the fact that there are no influential Christian Universities in America, no great Christian thinkers interacting with culture. I have not reached the end of the book, so I’m not sure where Noll is going yet, but the big question in my mind is, “What is Noll’s goal?” For what purpose does he want the Christian mind developed? Let’s say his vision and goal are accomplished and there is a real, viable “Christian intellect” in America. So what? How is that going to help serve the Lord and fulfill the great commission? Does he simply want there to be a respected Christian think-tank that can give the John’s Hopkins and Harvards a run for their money? Does he merely want to prove “We Christians can think too!”?

In other words, my biggest question as I read this book is how will this fulfill Jesus’ command to go into all the world and make disciples? Noll states,

People are in a hurry to get out of the university and start earning money or serving the church or preaching the Gospel. They have no idea of the infinite value of spending years of leisure in conversing with the greatest minds and souls of the past, and thereby ripening and sharpening and enlarging their powers of thinking. The result is that the arena of creative thinking is abdicated to the enemy (Noll, 26).

Did you catch that? Should my goal be to spend years of leisure so that I can sharpen my mind and enlarge my powers of thinking? To me, that sounds very self-serving. I’m over half-way through Noll’s book and I am not getting a sense yet that this cultivation of the mind is aimed at service. Rather, he seems to be arguing for the right and importance of the intellectual to sit withdrawn in an ivory tower, contemplating the complexities of the world from the safe haven of the university, and all at a leisurely pace.

Now yes, the mind by all means needs cultivation. Christians should be thinkers and have their scholars. And yes, this process takes time; the mind isn’t cultivated overnight! But what would it be like if the greatest Christian minds made it their goal to disciple the blossoming church in China, to move to Africa and suffer alongside the churches, to train a new generation in South America? Honestly, the only way I personally can justify the years I am currently spending in school is that I plan to go out to the front lines and use whatever resources God has given me to help bring his light to the nations.

The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of what I’m talking about: one of the most brilliant minds the Kingdom has ever known, using it to plant churches; spending most of his time, not in leisure, but in prison; reflecting, not on the complexities of the Roman empire and culture and art, but on how to reach Spain with the Gospel.

C. S. Lewis provides another example: One of our generations most brilliant Christian thinkers said the thing he feared in his move to Cambridge was that he grow “too comfortable and over-ripe” (The Letters of C. S. Lewis, To Edward A. Allen). And at one point he also said he feared he was growing too comfortable and complacent, so he took to the radio and the speaking circuit, using the mind he had cultivated to serve God and others.

So yes, cultivate your mind, but for the purpose of service. More specifically as you cultivate your mind ask, “How will I use my intellect to reach the nations?”

***UPDATE***

Well, it seems I spoke too soon. Noll concludes that effective evangelical thought will produce worship for the Redeemer (241), and that “profound trust in the Bible as pointing us to the Savior and for orienting our entire existence to the service of God” is essential to Christianity (244). What he aims for is “conversion along with consideration of lifelong spiritual development and trust in the Bible along with critical use of wisdom” (245). One of his closing remarks is a commendation for the way evangelicalism fueled missions (251).