BEING AN IMAGINATIVE EXEGETE

EXEGESIS OF ROMANS & FIELD ED.
Through my time at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary it has been a particular blessing to me to have courses in both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek. Although I must admit that I have come to love the study of Hebrew perhaps more than Greek, I thoroughly enjoyed diving into the book of Romans this summer with Dr. Marion Soards. I have submitted for SLO1 both my final exegesis paper and resulting sermon for St Andrew UCC on Roman 13:-8-14. Both artifacts, I believe, demonstrate both the skills needed to engage in the rigorous preparatory work of study, that LPTS has equipped me with through language and biblical studies classes. As well as, my growing understanding of the role and importance of proclamation through the act of preaching as an act of giving testimony to God’s redemptive work in Christ. 
 
Preaching is a powerful and what I have come to believe a profoundly sacred aspect of how I understand my call to ministry in a congregational setting and something that I believe is evident in both my exegesis work and sermon manuscript. Preparing to preach during the dual crises facing our country today, that of the global pandemic and police-brutality towards black people, demands that the preacher be deeply attuned to the needs of the congregation, listening and hearing from their experiences as well as contemporary social and political events. This has not always been something I've been comfortable doing, but LPTS and its many professors, in a broad range of courses, have guided me to ask difficult and rigorous questions of the text AND my role as pastor and preacher to my congregants.

As I prepare to graduate, be ordained and seek a call to congregational ministry I anticipate a continued reliance on resources available at LPTS and the relationships with fellow ministers made during my time here. My faith journey, and I suspect the journey that so many of us make, will constantly involve exploration, interrogation and indeed mess-ups, even in important things. I trust that by always being a student not just of scripture but of the wider world, current issues and context-specific challenges, I will serve and equip a congregation to strive for justice, mercy and love in everything they do.
Exegesis of Romans 13:8-14
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Order of Worship_Romans 13:8-14
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CRITICALLY ENGAGING SCRIPTURE

BIBLICAL HEBREW
One of the things that I've most enjoyed doing as a teenager and young adult was read through whole books of the Bible in one sitting. Since coming to seminary, however, finding the time to read through whole books of the Bible in one sitting is next to impossible with large class loads. I have had to, therefore, approach scriptural study in this season of ministry a little differently. 
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However, it's not just that time constraints that have dictated the shift in my Bible study practice. Since learning biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek, slowing down and digging in deeper to a couple of verses at a time, or single phrases or words have become a wonderfully enriching experience.  I find myself, in preparing for a youth lesson, Bible study, or sermon being able to interrogate the language, the author's intent, the historical setting, as well as taking stock of the metanarrative, the literary structure, and editing patterns. 

I have discovered, in my first year of seminary, that I have a particular pension for the Hebrew language. In the Fall semester of my Second Year one of our assignments was to memorize Psalm 121, and over the next 8 weeks, its words became ingrained in my memory. I knew it verse by verse in Hebrew. I recited it in the car every morning on my commute, multiple times. I listened to Hebrew audio recordings. I learned it to a melody. I translated it myself, which opened up a whole new world of meaning and depth. The practice of prayerfully slowing down and being attentive to every part of that Psalm became an act of worship comma and prayer. Throughout the preparation for that final recitation, I grew to appreciate the value of meditating on scripture for the work of ministry. Even though I was not teaching this Psalm, or preaching on it, the blessing and comfort I received from it was without measure and sustained me through school, ministry, and home life.