In January, Mother Lisa and the people who have come together for Adult Christian Education on Sunday mornings, got together and thought over what might be the next stage of our studies. We have completed the three-year cycle of Gospel readings, and perhaps – we thought – it would be time to do something new.
Background Explored
The something new we agreed upon was to concentrate on the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) readings given us each Sunday. But before we could devote our time to the exploration of the Old Testament readings, it would be necessary to provide ourselves with the background that we needed for understanding: context, history, culture, literary, geographic and linguistic information – much as we had originally sought when we looked at the Gospel readings.
So, we decided on several “lenses” to look through in our readings: and each participant that day agreed to be one of the leaders at a specific Sunday. Our “lenses” include: What is the Good News in the Old Testament; what did Jesus know about the Hebrew Scriptures, and such topics as the building of the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures; the archaeology and geography of the Old Testament; the language/s of the Old Testament, and so forth.
Our Leaders
During Lent, the Rev. John Hickey of Seedling Ministries will be leading us through a study of the Prophets. In April and May, Mother Lisa and Sheryl Slocum will look at the Psalms and their various genres, and in June, Jill Littlefield and Mother Lisa will be looking at the Midrash (how the Jewish scholars interpret the Hebrew Scriptures), and topics such as History, Culture, Custom and Context will take us to early July (thank you to leaders, Linda Steiger, Sheryl Slocum, Robert Wilson and Mark Shaw).
If you have any curiosity about all “that stuff” that happened before Jesus came about, come join us on Sunday morning in the lounge at 9:00AM. We love to ask questions about these things, and sometimes even provide some answers!
Gust Olson
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