Old Testament Midterm Reflection 1.

Concerning my attendance, class participation, and discussion posting, what is my general overall impression/feeling about my learning in this class up to this point? Have I participated fully? Intentionally? What have I done well? What could I do better? I feel like I have gained a better comprehension of the events in the Old Testament that we have studied so far. Before taking this class, I knew of many of the stories in the Old Testament but I never looked at them with an outsiders view as we have in this class. By studying the stories that way, I have gained a better understanding of the stories I have been taught since I was a child. As for my personal class participation, I could always speak up more in class. I have never been one of the kids to participate in class discussions but I know that would help me to do better in any class that I am enrolled in. Also for the discussion questions on Blackboard, I dont think I have been going in depth enough with my answers or responses. I need to use more specific examples from the book, as well as the scriptures, and also put more analysis into my responses. I believe that I have done fairly well with attending classes and keeping up to date with my assignments. As with any other class, I could always do more but the majority of the time in this class I think I am doing well. 2. What have I learned through the Scripture Analysis Journal project that will help me interpret the Bible in the future? In what ways have I been challenged to think differently about the Bible and about God? Through the scripture analysis journal entries each week, I have learned that scripture passages arent always as they appear the first time you read through them. In order to

fully understand the point the writers were trying to get across, you need to understand the passage in context with the surrounding scriptures as well as historically. Some chapters make much more sense when you have a comprehensive knowledge of the events of that time period. I have been challenged in my faith to understand the ways of God more. In most sermons, you only hear about the goodness and mercy of God. It is difficult for me to keep in mind that God is also a jealous God who punished the entire line of David for committing adultery. I know that there will be more instances where I will have to do some searching in the scriptures on my own time to better understand the mysterious ways of God. 3. What have I learned about God? What have I learned about people? What have I learned about the relationship between God and people? I have learned that God is generally a forgiving God, but He also has high expectations and standards of His followers. He expects them to follow Him wholeheartedly and give Him all the glory in because He is the God that works in their favor. The people of God, or the Israelites, are a rather stubborn group of people. Regardless of how many times God proves to be caring for them and watching out for their best interests, they continually disobey His commands such as to keep no idols and to have no other gods before Him. God and His people have always had somewhat of a rocky relationship. There are always people who are loyal to the law and are model believers to the readers of the scriptures. These people, however, seem to be in the vast minority. Something that can be taken away from these interactions is that God will always love His people, so matter the sins they have committed as long as their hearts are solely committed to Him.

4. How comfortable am I now when asked to look critically at a passage of scripture? Do I feel competent to interpret the passage in light of historical, textual, and contextual issues? What do I think will help me in this area? I am fairly comfortable looking critically at scripture passages and analyzing their content. I have learned of many wonderful resources and techniques to do so through this class. I less confident in interpreting scriptures according to historical, textual, and contextual issues. Most of these areas are left up to interpretation and cannot be pinned down to mean specifically one thing. I do, however, feel confident in interpreting the scriptures according to the current state they are presented in. Something that could help me with this is to do more extensive research into the shady areas of translation issues and the specific historical events happening behind the Biblical stories. 5. How do I approach a scripture passage differently now than at the beginning of the semester? What do I want out of the rest of the semester? What grade do I intend to make, and what do I need to do to achieve my goal? Since the beginning of the semester, I have learned to look at passages of scripture with an outsiders perspective. I cannot read into a passage expecting to interpret something specific, but rather to take in as many meanings as possible. You should always take the surrounding chapters into consideration because a passage taken out of context can be manipulated to say almost anything conceivable. My personal goal for the rest of the semester is to understand my scripture analysis passage better that I may be able to tell others of the truths I discover in those few verses. I intend to make an A in this class, or as close to that as I can get. In order to achieve this grade, I will need to set aside more time outside of the classroom studying the chapter content to better understand it.