Day fifty-three, seventeen remaining. Beware - this will be a longer post, as I have not written for three weeks. By God's grace I will blog every day from this point to my departure and during the duration of my time with Pastor Steve Graham in Vlad. It has been a long and hectic three weeks and now (of course!) October 6 and the prospect of flying out of Charlotte to JFK Airport in New York seem on top of me. Time marches on to a ceaseless indefatigable drummer... In fact, I had promised on that day (August 29) to provide my approach to teaching a class on Christology. Let me deal with that first.
I will build the class on three foundation stones: First, we will seek to build our Christology from a study of the Scriptures. That is not to say we will not read or respect the writings of Christian authors outside of the Word. But these will retain a subordinate position to the Scriptures. Second, we will study with the belief that in this life the Lord Jesus Christ may be known adequately for salvation (see the Shorter Catechism, Questions 1-3) but not exhaustively. Third, while presumably we are studying the Lord Jesus Christ in all His glory as the eternal Son of God we eventually understand that it is He who is studying us all along. It is is King Jesus' Spirit who shines the light of His word in our hearts, exposing our hearts and consciences for they are, and more importantly, who we are. This brings us to a moment of worship as we realize the Lord of Glory loved us even unto death, though we hated Him. There you have it - three foundation stones. Of course in the study we will look at Jesus in His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. We will see Him in the proto evangelium (first Gospel word, if you will) of Genesis 3:15 as the one who would "crush the serpent's head". We will hear Him with John in the final verses of Revelation say, "Surely I am coming soon" (Rev. 22:20). I will use John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied, the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, John Calvin's Commentaries, J. I. Packer's Knowing God, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' God's Ultimate Purpose, Edmund Clowney's The Church, and A.J. Conyers' A Basic Christian Theology.
Some of you heard that my visa application process was stalled. That has been remedied and everything is in the works. We re-sent my visa application, $, and passport to our NY travel agent in Brooklyn, NY this past Friday. She called on Monday and confirmed she had received it. We understand she immediately sent it on to the appropriate party. We're on go!
For those of you wondering about my preparation, pray for me. Essentially I am attempting to have forty (40) lectures prepared by the time I leave on October 6. My goal for each lecture is about 25 minutes of material, allowing for equal time for translation plus questions from students. The truth is I find the preparation of lectures joyful labor. What is greater than teaching God's glorious Gospel? Cheryl has been a wonderful support in the whole endeavor. I only wish she could accompany me.
More tomorrow on Christology...
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