Final Exam Week

This coming week is final exam week and there is a LOT of tension in the air! BUT when exams are over we’re off to Turkey so that will be a very welcome change of pace.

Today was our last Old Testament class together. I am constantly behind all throughout the semester, but I was finally able to catch up today and spend time talking about Malachi. I’m always sad at this time of the semester because it is very hard to say goodbye to the students. They will have the other religion teacher, Ron Anderson, for New Testament and I will get the class that he just finished teaching Old Testament to. 

One of my goals is that my students will get to the point that they will want to stand up and testify that they KNOW that the Bible is the word of God!!!! I begin and end the semester with the Prophet Joseph’s statement, speaking about the Bible, “He who reads it oftenest will like it best”! I really believe that statement is true and has certainly been my experience. As we finished class today I reflected with my students about how much I would lose if I didn’t have the Old Testament: my understanding of the Abrahamic covenant would be superficial and incomplete; I would lose the great examples of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, imperfect men, to be sure, but men who God chose inspite of their imperfects and worked with them until they became the great spiritual leaders that they were. I would lose the story, in particular of Jacob’s spiritual journey of not being sure whether he wanted to covenant with his father’s god at Bethel, even though he was invited by the Lord. But by the time that he came back to Penuel, he wanted that covenant more than ANYTHING else! That spiritual journey was critical for Jacob and I learn SO much about my own journey every time that I study that story. Without the Old Testament I would miss those inspiring stories of people like Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and so many others who had to pay great costs to be the Lord’s prophets and in spite of those costs they drew their line in the sand (figuratively) and declared to all that this is where they stood. They were followers of Jehovah! I would miss the stories of Isaiah and Jeremiah and their great hope for future Israel when they would return to the covenant and finally be able to receive the blessings that God had always wanted to bestow upon them, and the reminder that descendants of Ephraim I have the opportunity and responsibility to help bring about the fulfilment of those ancient prophecies. Most importantly, although it is often lost in modern discussions of the the Old Testament, I would miss the myriad of stories and teachings of God’s great mercy to his people! I LOVE the Old Testament!!!! It IS the word of God and has so many things to teach us if we will just give it a chance. I do love these students!

Well, this week our field trip was to Neot Kedummim, a biblical nature reserve. It gave the students a very “hands-on experience.”

The students had the chance to herd sheep and goats and learned that sheep and goats have very different personalities and respond very differently.

Ann and Merick learned that sometimes you have to leave the flock and go and get the goat that strayed!

We learned how to make Lentil soup (I.e., the mess of pottage that Esau wanted so much that he was willing to sell his birthright). I must admit that lentil soup has never been very appealing to me, but this tasted GREAT! If I ever serve in Young Women’s again and go to camp I am definitely going to push for us to make this! Although I don’t have a photo of it, we also fried some whole wheat and then add date honey to it. It was also very delicious.

We ground up some dried hyssop. This is a medicinal plant that is often used as an antiseptic. In Psalms 51:7 it’s medicinal qualities are mentioned, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” In the Gospel of John 19:29 , we learn that when Jesus was on the cross he was given a sponge of vinegar with hyssop put on it: "Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.” And I have some to bring home :o)

We celebrated Passover Seder this week. Here Lana and a group of students are singing one of the songs. It was a fun night!