Today was the 3rd and last Final of Paul's Life and Letters. It was definitely bittersweet to be closing another chapter in my book... in my journey. As much as I struggled with the Chinese translation... as much as I disliked the structure of the material... I walk away having a deeper and newfound appreciation for the new testament and what the Holy Spirit was doing in the life of a man named Paul.
Today's sermon was quite timely.... it was on the very difficult parable "The Dishonest Manager" where Jesus tells a story of a manager who just got his pink slip. And to end his term as a manager... he started compensating and changing all the debt owed to his master. One can say... he was being dishonest. But Jesus, amazingly, compliments this dishonest manager as being shrewd while saying, "For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light." I'll leave it up to certified theologians to explain the hidden meaning behind this passage.
What really struck me was... in today's final... I saw so many of my classmates open up their bibles, the only material that we were able to bring with us... and inside their bibles... were pages and pages of hand written notes from all the assignments and quizzes. One person went as far as writing everything out, photocopying and shrinking it so that it fits inside the margin of the bible. Was that cheating??? Well.... the rules were, you can bring your bible and nothing else. No where did it say you can't write notes in there. And just like college...where we often times are allowed one sheet of notes... it's the process of writing out that 1 sheet of notes where the material actually goes through our minds and onto a paper, thereby, helping the student remember the details.
I envied those people. Kicking myself, even, for not having that forethought of doing the same thing. Cuz ultimately... the goal of the class is to learn the material, digest it, and use it in our own lives. For those who were shrewd enough to perform that act... haven't they achieved that goal??? I won't say that I'm an angel and I'm a true son of light. Cuz at times, I did peek at my neighbor's answer to see if we were on the same page. But I will say... I have much to learn and much to do in order to be as shrewd as the sons of this world.
Now that I'm done with this class... onto my next adventures. Thankfully.. the next class is the Books of Moses. After having done that with BSF... I don't think I need to re-live Leviticus and Numbers (in Chinese). Or do I???
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