Last week, on the eve of the transfer of the office of pastor in my local congregation [1], there was a meet and greet meeting among the congregational deacons and elders, among whom I have several friends. Over the course of the past week, not only was I told about the homework but last night I ended up helping a deacon and his wife work on the homework at their house after we enjoyed a lovely dinner. Of course, the homework was announced to the congregation at large during the announcements at Sabbath services today, and despite taking two pages of paper to cover 21 questions, the questions themselves only cover the first half of the first chapter of the Book of Romans. Clearly, my new pastor is aiming at depth rather than breath when it comes to Romans, which is a sublime and excellent book to examine in detail [2].

There are a few elements that are striking about the homework assignment itself. For example, some of the questions contain within them loaded assumptions. One of the questions asked who was the Roman Caesar during the time that Romans was written and what he was known for, and that happened to be Nero, who reigned between 54 and 68AD, and who is known for fiddling while Rome burned, for persecuting Christians after Rome burned to distract the suspicion others had about himself, to the point where he made Christians, who most Romans viewed as being more than a little strange, an object of sympathy and compassion. He is also known for killing his family members, his teacher, and many others. As far as Roman emperors go, he was one of the worst, and there were a lot of terrible Roman emperors as competition. Technically, there were only five Julio-Claudian emperors, but if one counts Julius Caesar, one gets the six that another question asks about it. Other questions ask about questions of theme as well as the connection between the language and content of Romans and that of other books of the New Testament. All in all, the questions are a mix of biblical interpretation and knowledge as well as a knowledge of the cultural and historical context around Romans.

All of these questions come with a context. For one, it appears that Bible studies are to be more interactive, and require a certain commitment in time and effort. No one who undertakes to complete the questions for this Bible study and does so successfully will leave being ignorant about Roman history or the Book of Romans. Unfortunately, given the fact that I will likely be working until 7:30PM or so four days a week until the end of January, and almost every first day of the week as well on top of that means that the odds of me being able to make it to Vancouver for any of these Bible studies is pretty slim. There was a comment made in the announcement of the bible study series that there are hopes of a skype line being provided for those of us who wish to call in and listen to the Bible studies remotely, and that is certainly an option that I will take if it is available, assuming I can get the skype to work on my phone, that is.

So, what are the takeaways from this? For one, it appears that our pastor wants the monthly weekday Bible studies in Vancouver to be a much more serious event, with preparation and focus devoted to them. Even those of us who find it impossible to make it to them, given the horrific traffic, for example, from the West side of town, will still have something worth tuning into remotely. Likewise, the fact that these Bible studies look like they are going to focus on some of the in-depth portions of books of the Bible, and that is certainly something to pay close attention to. The combination of content and availability for those of us who live far from the Vancouver core area of our congregation is likely to be an important one, after all, I am not the sort of person who tends to ignore the homework I am given, regardless of the context of that homework.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/a-lesson-once-learned-so-hard-to-forget/

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/romans-1-18-23-concerning-foolish-atheists/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/romans-16-17-20-for-those-who-are-such-do-not-serve-our-lord-jesus-christ/