We're on Spring Break. You'd think this would be a "WOOHOO!! Spring BREAK!!" kind of break but it hasn't been. I've been in a funk for over a week now and I've considered it to be a bad thing until I did some thinking in the last 2 days. It seems that when I walk away from my History of Early Christianity and Biblical Hermeneutics classes I am leaving with more questions than answers. When I go through the readings for both of them I am caught (most of the time) in the intricacies of things I've never thought of before, and have never been challenged on before. Now I feel as though I'm questioning everything as though I'm a new believer in Christ. This has been a bit unsettling since I've been a believer for most of my life. Sadly, I haven't asked, nor have I been asked few of the questions I am now pondering.
At times, they make my head spin because the answers seem so circular. At one point a few weeks ago I was even questioning my faith. Thankfully, a long and blunt conversation with Dr. England cleared that up for me. As I have pondered some of my questions over the past few days, it finally hit me: I have no answers right now. If a lost person were to ask me these questions, I would have no response! That's scary! Me. A lifelong believer. And I have no answers...yet. The fun part about being here and having such open access to scholars like my professors is that they are willing to give up their time (yes, sometimes their class time) to address such questions in order for us to be stronger and more confident in what we believe. This is not a bad thing. Coming away with more questions just means there's more I have to learn. It means that for the first time in a long time or maybe ever, this lifelong believer is being pushed to ponder the hard questions and learning to defend what she believes.
So here are some of my ponderings over the past few months (in particular order of urgency):
- Was Jesus really a rabbi or was that a moniker given to him because of his apparent wisdom?
- As New Testament Christians, are we supposed to continue following the Torah? Not the sacrifices, because those were made obsolete with Christ's sacrifice. If we are, why aren't we doing it? If we aren't doing it, does that mean we are deliberately or unintentionally disobeying God?
- If we have been disobeying God by not following Torah, why would he allow this to continue for over 2,000 years? Is this the God we love and worship and serve?
- Does the modern, or post-modern, church perform the Lord's Supper as Jesus intended it?
Shouldn't it look more like the Passover meal? Or was it only using elements of the
Passover Meal?
- Why do we meet every week at a building en masse? Shouldn't we be meeting in smaller
groups regularly and then only come to 'the church' once a quarter or twice a year? (Simply
looking at the early church and how they functioned.) Have we lost some of the salience of
experiencing God on a corporate level because we simply "do" church every week?
- Which Bible should we be reading: the Hebrew Bible (which is to be organized more
cohesively and chronologically) or the "regular" Bible (the one we have always read)?
So. Yeah. Some heavy stuff in there, but the good thing is that I do have answers to some of them. The rest....well, it's a work in progress.
As Dr. England has taught me from the very first day of Old Testament Survey, "What does the text say?" So, my search continues in God's word and with the help of Andy and some verrrry helpful professors!
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