2007.12.18

Covered Joshua chapters 1-9. Not a particularly exciting morning. Because some of this gets repeated, I explained to them the multiple-source hypothesis for the OT. We also talked about the act of exchanging oaths, since the people of Gibeon fool the Israelites, but the Israelites are still bound by their oath not to harm the Gibeonites.

2007.12.13

Topic: Deuteronomy
Music: Fairfield Four, Standing in the Safety Zone

Covered circumstance of Deuteronomy--Isrealites ready to enter Canaan; Moses preparing to leave them. 3 speeches--nostalgic and instructive. We reconstructed the timeline of Moses' life and reviewed the significance of several of the events--reminders of the power of those experiences to teach the Isrealites and us.

Ready to enter Canaan w/ Joshua on Monday; tomorrow I think I'm doing scripture mastery (if there is Seminary tomorrow--watching school cancellations).

2007.12.07

Morningside this AM. The teacher just had everyone write down a "Christmas fact"--a tradition, memory or some such. It was nice, I thought.

T-Benz and Jessie brought stuff for breakfast. Many of the other kids didn't show.

2007.12.06

Covered Numbers 13-17, and the rebellion of Korah.

I really just tried to build on the discussion of 12/5. Part of the time we discussed how to do scripture mastery, since I also had Friday, 12/7.

It turns out that once/month they have a "morningside," like a fireside with all the seminary classes meeting at the church, plus Arlington kids @ 6am. This is always the first Friday of the month. The kids were not excited, as they don't particularly like the lessons the teacher does.

So, brief discussion of Korah's rebellion, scripture mastery and "morningside."

2007.12.05

This will be brief, incomplete, and from somewhat lost memories.

We covered Numbers 1-13. I really focused on the reconnaissance mission the clan leaders made into Canaan. We discussed their failure of vision and the seeming over-reaction of God. I explained that their notion of gods--with reference to Rachel's hiding the "household gods" from her father--was different from ours and that this colored what we get in the Bible. No time to discuss the implications of that for us...

2007.11.29

Topic: "The Heart of the Ethics of Leviticus" (Leviticus 19)

Music (pre and post): Elvis Costello, Punch the Clock: "Every Day I write the Book," "The Greatest Thing," "The Element Within Her," "Love Went Mad," "Shipbuilding"

Reviewed topics from the last several days to catch me up: sacrifice, redemption, atonement, guilt, responsibility, shame, tabernacle... I focused on how repentence and atonement are the center of the Gospel, and how we *do not* have to carry the weight of sin around. Repentence works, and it is a miracle, and it is liberating, empowering, life-giving. No one should carry weight around that is related to sin--Christ has offered to take that burden.

Read Matthew 22:35-40, "...two great commandments.... on these...hang all the Law and the Prophets"

Reviewed the same commandments from the OT (incl. scripture mastery Leviticus 19:18)

Talked about how the 10 commandments map into those 2.

Talked about how all of the Law of Moses maps into those 2, and if we could live them perfectly, we would need no other laws (nor would the Isrealites).

Read a list of specific Mosaic "laws" from Leviticus (and some other books) and translated them to the guiding principle and applications today.

Tomorrow: Elders Mahe and Matele coming to share their "stories" (everyone has story :) )

-db

2007.11.28

Prelude: "Debo Partirme en Dos," Silvio Rodriguez; "More than this," Roxy Music

1. Covered Leviticus 10-16, roughly. We walked through the annual ritual of purification, with the scapegoat.
2. For tomorrow: next few chapters of Leviticus. Although, have we gone through the golden calf episode in Exodus? I think that'd be good, now that they've seen the atonement ritual.
3. Just tried to get them to understand the group atonement vs. the individual repentance process.
4. More on repentance might be nice.

Postlude: "Jellyfish Genes," The Sprites; "Mr. Malcontent," Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

2007.11.27

Prelude Music: X, "Los Angeles"; Aceylone & RJD2, "Junior"

1. Covered Leviticus 1-10
2. For tomorrow, Leviticus 11-16
3. Focused on two things:
- how the sacrificial rites of the Children of Israel foreshadowed
Jesus
- how moral responsibility, shame and guilt are related in the OT
4. Much more engaging today; group worksheets went reasonably well.

I gave them a worksheet, with a table. I'll attach to this entry--not
sure how that'll work, as I'm emailing this entry in. I broke them
into small groups and then we went through their answers.

Next, we read where people are responsible for "inadvertent
transgressions" and the sins of priests infect the entire community.
We talked about what's fair and not in evaluating "sin" vs.
"transgression."

Post-lude: Muppets, "ma nah ma nah"; Lyrics Born, "Do that there thing"

2007.11.26

Following db's convention, prelude music: Bob Marley, "Exodus"; Rufus Wainwright, "Across the Universe"

1. Covered Exodus 25-30 and 35-40
2. For 11/27: Leviticus 1-10
3. Focused on the Tabernacle--it's meaning and significance.
4. Today was a bit dry; I'm worried about tomorrow, too.

Postlude: Flin Flon, "Red Deer"; XTC, "Melt the Guns"

These parts of the OT are not electrifying. There is narrative, but the stories are not compelling.

For 11/27, I'm thinking roughly as follows.

1. cover some of the details of a sacrifice;
2. talk about justice and mercy--the sins of a leader infect the whole group; inadvertent transgressions required expiation

• justice in the OT
• justice in the NT
• justice in the BofM

3. distinguish shame (public, relationship-based) from guilt (private)

A few links

A seminary teacher's website for 2007-8

http://seminary.rushforth.org/

CES seminary study guides

http://www.ldsces.org/Employee%20SG.asp

Old CES seminary study guides

Genesis - 2 Samuel
1 Kings - Malachi

2007.11.20

"Mosaic Law"

Pre-and-post music: The Clash

Had kids describe their 5th Monday at college--make it up. What about the 7th Sunday of their second semester? Got some good answers, and was able to get people to think about what "freedom" would feel like.

Read many verses of Mosaic law--details of 5 oxen for one killed; 4 sheep for 1 killed; can kill a thief by night, but not by daylight; slave's ear is pierced against doorjamb to symbolize being bound to the house; can't keep a man's coat overnight... etc. Talked about the "whats" and "whys" of these verses. Talked about the scores and scores of regulations that made up the Mosaic law, and contrasted it with "Love the Lord thy God...," and "Love thy Neighbor as Thyself." Asked what would be harder. Good discussion.

Talked about where the Israelites were when they escaped Egypt--had no idea how to govern themselves (as evident by their wild orgy when Moses went up the mountain). The only thing that would work with them was the specific, "case-law" form of the Mosaic Law. They couldn't have handled the higher law, b/c they couldn't govern themselves.

Compared to college--speculated about who would try to live the higher law and who would try to live the Mosaic Law, and what the downfalls of both could be in college.... talked about the reason for both...

-db

2007.11.16

Music (pre-and post class): English Beat

Lesson: The Line

Draw a point representing "you are here," and draw another point representing where you want to get (fancy car, good job, eternal marriage, PhD, etc.) Shortest distance is a line, and the line represents choices that are aligned with the direction... off the line vs. on the line is something you have to manage, and when it comes to gospel objectives... off the line is tough to recover from... there is a gravitational force that will pull you further and faster away from the line if you let it...

Recounted story of my good friend and BYU roommate, Scott Swaner, who has the same birthday as I do, and who died in December of 2006. Scott was brilliant, funny, good looking, well liked... and although he chose some points "on the line" from a gospel perspective (mission, temple marriage), he ended up choosing to live off of that line an on a different line. Used a Korean parable: two men floated on a river toward eternity. one reached out and grabbed people along the way to join him. the other floated alone. both ended up in the same place. Scott said he was destined to be the second guy, and he lived that way.

2 ppl in tears (me and Jessie Portugese), and everyone enthralled... Rueben asked what Scott needed to not be lonely. Good question. We will use the "line" analogy a lot...

-db

2007.11.19

Here's a crummy recap of this AM, which, by the way, is better than before, remember?

Music (pre and post): Brian Setzer Orchestra

We covered the 10 Commandments. Here is the basic outline of the lesson:

• Cecil B. Demille quote along the lines of, "you can't break the 10 commandments, you can only break yourself against them... or rise through them.... to freedom..."
• Review of what it was like to come out from under Egyptian rule and be on their own (resorted to orgies and idol worship and general shenanigans--not self governed)
• Class was able to name 9 of the 10 commandments (impressive)!
• We talked about #5: honor thy father and mother... what if they are not righteous?... what is the difference between obey and honor?...
• We talked a bit about #2: false idols.... what are our false idols? do we do what we can for the church with what's left after our other commitments, or vice versa?

Not a "greatest hits" lesson.... kids were engaged, but not entrhalled. Sam had all the right answers. Jessie (Portugese Jessie) engaged around the parent issue... Still haven't gotten Nelson to engage at all...

-db

Instructions

Just spend five minutes blogging what you did at Seminary. A few elements will help:

1. Which chapters of the OT covered;
2. Which chapters should be next;
3. What your emphasis was during the session; and
4. What you think tomorrow's teacher (might be you) should know.

If we create a post for each day, we should be able to keep up.

Also, let's use the date as the title convention. So the title of tomorrow's post will be: 2007.11.19

I figure if we do even a crummy job, it'll still be pretty useful.