What am I doing?

Okay, Just in case you're wondering what's keeping me so busy that I haven't been faithfully updating, I thought I would explain what my weeks entail, and a bit of the inductive study method.

Yesterday was my "Sabbath" day of rest which typically includes church (haven't picked a home one yet, but most of my fellow students enjoy Ecclesia in Hollywood and so at least I can get a ride to that one.) And then something else restful, whether a nap or painting my toenails!

Sunday night, I start my first reading - this means I read through the entire book in one sitting, yesterday was Leviticus, and this week we're doing two books, so Numbers will be on Wednesday.
THEN, I go back through the book and create titles for each paragraph, made up of 4 words from the text of that paragraph in order. Leviticus has 27 chapters (less than Genesis and Exodus, thank you, Jesus!) So that's only a few hundred I think.
Monday Morning, I head up the Breakfast Prep and Cleanup Crew. We get to the Kitchen at 6am, serve at 7am, then are done with cleanup by 8am. I also do this on Wednesday and Friday Mornings... Our Breakfast Crew also is America's next Dance Crew... Or at least we'd like to think we are. Then we rush to the main hall for Worship and Prayer. Monday mornings are nice because we have free time after worship until Lunch, and then class starts at 1:30, at which point, I usually need a big cup of coffee.
This week we have Ron Youngblood, the Editor of the Nelson Bible Dictionary, speaking on the books of Leviticus and Numbers... I'm excited to hear more about WHY the Israelites had so many different sacrifices and sin offerings for things like giving birth or periods... Its kind of funny reading in mixed groups about various... discharges... I love the Bible! Hahaha... No, really, I do!

Okay, so Monday-Saturday Night at 7pm we are busy with homework outside of our lectures.

First, its creating a BRI - Basic Required Information for the book. This is information we research from internal and external evidence about the Original Reader, the Author, the Historical and Cultural Background, etc....We put this into a paper we turn in on Saturday with our Charts.

Then, its Charting the book - this is a process of color coding observations we make in our bible (28 different types of obs from conditional statements to lists, repeated themes to figures of speech...), then we create 2-4 paragraph points for each paragraph (in addition to the titles) that use only words from the text to sum up the paragraph and also, we color code our observations in these points, and write out a description for the observation to the left of our chart. Then, when an Observation triggers a question, we ask an Interpretive Question, such as, "Why is this event/law/whatever it is significant to the Original Reader? Then we answer the question based on what we assume about the Original Reader from our earlier research for the BRI. That process is called Interpretation and has nothing to do with me or us. From our Interpretation, we pull out a Timeless Truth - something that is true for all believers for all times, still not about me. From our Timeless Truth, THEN WE GET TO ME!!! This is the Application where I write about how this timeless truth can be applied in my life today, or in the life of my church, my society, etc. This is the Charting Process, which takes up the majority of our time.

In addition to Charting, we have other assignments. Last week, as we studied Exodus, we wrote a paper on 3 of the laws outside of the Ten Commandments and their significance (from Chapters 21-23.) We also painted something that symbolized the chapters on the construction and laws regarding the Tabernacle.

Oh man, its lunch time, I better get going... but hopefully this gives you all an idea of why I haven't been the best at calling home to chat!!!

I'll write more later about my roommates and classmates and staff, they are LEGENDS!

Blessings!