Getting settled in

I can't believe it's already been two weeks. They've gone pretty quickly. God has been good. I haven't started to work hard yet, but I'm enjoying spending time with so many people who love God. Today I said goodbye to an American I got to know. He was telling me about his family and it was amazing to hear of God's grace in his life. His family were strongly Catholic (his grandfather even received a medal of service from the Pope) so when he was saved in college, there was trouble coming. His zeal for Christ led to his father disowning him - forcing him to leave the house, yet in every difficulty God would give him a verse (i.e. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life). It's wonderful how God was able to provide a family for him in the church. Eventually he saw five of his sisters and two brothers come to faith. He will baptising some this weekend.

It is such a blessing to meet people with stories like this of the greatness of God. I have been so encouraged by conversations with really mature Christians. I've also enjoyed helping out with a couple of things at the Christian school up the road. Today I did the P.E. lesson. It's nice to find somewhere I can serve a little.

I should mention how brilliant some of the lectures have been. Today we had Biblical Theology. We were learning about different methods of Rabbinical interpretation of the Scriptures. One method is to see many passages of Scripture and apply them directly to our own experience. This isn't wrong but the first step should always be to ask what it meant in its original context. Another method pulls verses together with a small link (perhaps the word 'love') and creates a new meaning from the two which wasn't present in either verse. It's funny these methods aren't restricted to some Rabbis but are seen in many Christian books and sermons.

We were encouraged not to impose a method or information from outside sources to the Bible but let it speak for itself. We need to pray that we develop a hunger for God's Word, not needing anything else to be our daily bread.

I'm probably going to post some slightly confusing things over the next few weeks. Hopefully by the time I have to hand in essays, things will be much clearer - especially my communication!