Romans

I've started studying the book of Romans this past week. I imagine it will take me a few years to plug my way through it. I used to be much better about personal study time in the Word. When I was in college I spent about 2 years working through the book of Hebrews word by word. That was extremely profitable and I hope to reclaim that kind of devotion through my current study of the book of Romans. I feel a lot like the people the writer of Hebrews addressed in chapter 6, those who ought to be teachers but were still in need of going over the basics again. I feel like I'm always going over the basics again and again. Not that its bad to constantly refresh the basics in your mind, but sometimes I feel like that's all I have the mind to do. I often wonder at the ability of other people to retain information and at my ability to forget it! But I know that the mind is something that can be trained with use. I also recognize the fact that I have been quite lazy with my mind for a good while and that I will not see a recapturing of it without considerable devotion to studies. Entertainment is just so much easier than the hard work of study. It's quite a shame to because entertainment is really so pointless. Its pleasure is fleeting and its rewards cheap. Hard work and study are different, very different. The pleasure of study is lasting and its rewards can be eternal.

That's why I've endeavored to go at it full speed ahead this coming semester. I'll be taking 12 hours, 4 classes: Greek 3, Theology 3, Methods and Issues in Biblical Interpretation, and Philosophy. I hope that they will be challenging, but manageable as well. I don't want my wife to forget what I look like and I don't want to get burned out. However, North Greenville really taught me to work hard and take the hard classes, so that's what I'm going to do. I hope that if I am able to go on to do PhD work that it will be both thoroughly challenging and rewarding. I'm tired of people laughing about how dumb they are and how poorly they did on their exams/paper/whathaveyou. I want to be in classes where people are motivated to do their best and where the institution doesn't pat them on the back with extra-credit when they fail to give something their all. Hopefully, if I keep my nose to the grindstone, the Lord will bless me with a sharp mind that is like a sponge instead of a sieve.