The Course

This 4-unit course is a "survey of the New Testament in the historical and cultural context of the Graeco-Roman world" with "special attention to literary forms and theological contexts" (Undergraduate Catalog). Of the General Education requirements, it meets the New Testament component.

Class time will feature structured discussions of the texts and lectures, student presentations (mainly homilies), spontaneous debates and sermons, and edifying tangents. Readings introduce complementary and competing accounts of the background, lessons, and uses of the New Testament of Holy Scripture.

Luther was right that the church is where the Word is kept. You could practically turn that saying on its head: the Word is where the church is kept. In this course you'll be engaging biblical texts along with God, with significant people in your life, with fellow students, and with some experienced interpreters. Our course equips you to hear and understand God's Word, keep it, share it, and equip others to do the same.

The category of Scripture is so profoundly deep that it almost defies description. (This did not stop me from giving it my best shot in my dissertation, Living and Active: Scripture in the Economy of Salvation.) The Bible is a historical artifact whose original home is a distant culture at the epicenter of human and cosmic history, but has taken up residence in every tribe, tongue, and nation, or will eventually. It is the standard by which Christian faithfulness is measured. It demands the same interpretive skills as all other texts, yet still reaches the barely literate. It is a work of vast intertextual and intratextual interpretation. It is the Word of the Holy Spirit, and that demands faith and calls for theological discernment, not just grammar and vocabulary and historical background. It runs through every Christian tradition around the world and over two millennia. The worshiping church is its home and lifeblood. It is an object of centuries of scholarly scrutiny, much of it helpful even when unfriendly. It is the constitutive text of the people God, bound up with the identities of those who find themselves confronted by it in unfamiliar, exhilarating, troubling ways. To teach New Testament is not merely to teach a text, but to teach this text and its worlds of old and new creation, and that is a great honor and solemn responsibility for all who who get to.

This course contributes to Westmont's GE curriculum by serving a key biblical aspect of our vision of Christian inderdisciplinary liberal arts collegiate education. To quote from the syllabus of my colleague Karen Jobes, "Study of the New Testament is inherently inter-disciplinary. You will recognize points of contact with many of the other disciplines in the liberal arts curriculum. You will become more aware of the issues in reading and interpreting an ancient text (i.e., hermeneutics). Questions of history, philosophy, comparative religions, sociology and anthropology, theology, critical scholarship, literary theory, rhetoric, and linguistics will challenge you to read the New Testament in a new and deeper way."

Purpose, Vision, Goals, and Outcomes

Westmont was founded "for the systematic and comprehensive study of the Holy Bible, and any and all other courses which are academic in nature, … and for practical and efficient training in Christian work; to create, maintain, and operate a center for the diffusion of Christian and secular knowledge ... for the dissemination of missionary information and the quickening of the missionary spirit ... for the publication and distribution of the Holy Scriptures and other evangelistic and academic literature" (Westmont Articles of Incorporation, 1940).

This course, then, serves those original purposes: study centering in the Bible but not restricted to it, training in Christian work, diffusion and publication of especially Christian knowledge, and enlivening the missionary spirit. Like Westmont itself, it stands or falls on how it succeeds or fails to do so.

The God of Israel plays a long game. What am I hoping you'll have gained from this class ten years out? Here's the intended fruit of a semester's engagement with course materials and concepts, from most important to least:

1. A manifest life change in the direction of new creation, bearing fruit of the active love of fellow disciples, the God who loved us, and God's beloved but lost world.
2. A life-trajectory-altering facility with key resources: the New Testament writings, church practices such as worship and prayer, the Old Testament writings, and so on.
3. Experience in spreading these to others through key disciple-making practices in fulfillment of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20) and Great Commandment (John 13:34–35).
4. Lasting skill acquisition in thinking and acting "biblically."
5. Affection towards the discipline, with a resulting enthusiasm for pursuing its learning further (say, by reading good books or listening to good teaching).
6. A persisting (if foggy) knowledge base in the Christian tradition, with more precise memory of a few key centers that will have been reinforced by your study, worship, and service as a graduate.

How can this little course do that? Simply by staying true to its subject, and by a medium that suits its message. A formidable challenge here is the present structure of college, its coursework, grades, costs, and intellectual culture. Did you notice that units and grades aren't on my list? That's because ten years from now they will hardly matter to any of us. Then there's popular culture, anemic churches, distracted institutions, rivals claiming and demanding our loyalty, confusions of the gospel with human traditons and ideologies and of the Triune God with other gods and lords, and on and on. These forces are much stronger than when I started teaching here, so the challenge is growing. But the power of the gospel outdoes all that and more—if we receive it with our whole hearts. And sometimes even if we don't.

The Bible is an incomparable treasure, and we all need its riches. I believe God sees this course as a fellowship. We are a team brought together for a season of growth through mutual training, challenge, equipping, and discipline. All these serve several ends: First, that every participant gain and share new and lasting familiarity with the Holy Bible and especially the New Testament and ability to interpret it correctly and fruitfully, and gain new and lasting appreciation of Jesus of Nazareth, his good news, his church, and their mission in the New Testament and beyond. Second, that every participating follower of Jesus gain and share an improved relationship with the Bible in his or her faith, learning, life, and service in the Kingdom of God.

Our Course Learning Outcomes (adapted/copied from other department syllabi and assessed through class discussion, written assignments, and exams) are as follows. Students who put forth their best effort in this course will:

1. articulate both knowledge of the (social, cultural, theological) background of the first-century societies in which the Christian movement originated and developed, and content of the New Testament books, especially their relevant themes and/or passages with important theological, human, and historical issues. This links to GE SLOs "demonstrate literacy in the content of the Old and New Testaments (i.e., books, genres, literary structures, themes, stories, chronology, major characters, histories, and theologies" and "apply appropriate interpretive approaches to Scripture and other sources to recover original meaning and subsequent significance of the texts (for Church, kingdom, and wider world), taking into account historical backgrounds and critical issues," RS department PLO "apply a range of recognized skills in the interpretation of biblical and other religious literature," and Westmont ILOs "Christian Understanding" and "Diversity."
2. practice the skills of reading co-textually (i.e. with an eye to how a smaller idea or passage fits into the larger book where it is found) and interpreting in communities such as churches, discovery groups, families, classrooms, and the academy. This links to GE SLO "apply appropriate interpretive approaches to Scripture and other sources to recover original meaning and subsequent significance of the texts (for Church, kingdom, and wider world), taking into account historical backgrounds and critical issues"; RS department PLO "apply a range of recognized skills in the interpretation of biblical and other religious literature"; and Westmont ILOs "Christian Understanding" and "Diversity."
3. explain how the three main New Testament genres (narrative, epistle, apocalypse) communicate. These link to GE SLO “demonstrate literacy in the content of the Old and New Testaments (i.e., books, genres, literary structures, themes, stories, chronology, major characters, histories, and theologies),” RS department PLO “apply a range of recognized skills in the interpretation of biblical and other religious literature,” and Westmont ILO "Christian Understanding."
4. describe and critically evaluate several key academic and theological issues in New Testament studies (e.g. Paul and the Torah, unity of the NT, its role in Christian and missional life, and the OT in the NT). This links to GE SLOs "demonstrate literacy in the content of the Old and New Testaments (i.e., books, genres, literary structures, themes, stories, chronology, major characters, histories, and theologies," and "apply appropriate interpretive approaches to Scripture and other sources to recover original meaning and subsequent significance of the texts (for church, kingdom, and wider world), taking into account historical backgrounds and critical issues," RS department PLO "apply a range of recognized skills in the interpretation of biblical and other religious literature," and Westmont ILOs "Diversity" and "Critical Thinking."
5. articulate how the New Testament writers (as committed followers of Jesus) contextualized Jesus for their ancient contexts, and practice contextualizing Jesus for our context(s) today. This links to GE SLO "apply appropriate interpretive approaches to Scripture and other sources to recover original meaning and subsequent significance of the texts (for Church, kingdom, and wider world), taking into account historical backgrounds and critical issues," RS department PLO "reason according to the logic of the Christian faith" and Westmont ILOs "Christian Understanding," "Diversity," and "Critical Thinking."