Lent Devotional 2

When I attended seminary Emory operated on the quarter system and all incoming First Year students took either an OT-NT survey course or a Church History-Systematic Theology survey. I took the CH-ST survey.

During that first quarter of seminary I had to learn a new way of thinking and this class gave me some clues about what it meant to think theologically. I had taken no philosophy and only required Religion classes at Florida Southern. I was a Math major with almost 60 hours of additional science and psychology. I was good at solving problems and doing statistical analysis. Good skills, but not always useful as I learned to think “theologically”. Theology is how one thinks about God, and I had to learn that that required trusting something other than empirical data. All this to say I really had my horizons stretched that first quarter.

One of the survey professors was Dr. Manfred Hoffman. He was a Luther theologian and spoke a language of theology that intrigued me. So in quarter #2 I took his Theology of Martin Luther class. I had no business sitting in class with PhD students, but I did not quit. The two primary course requirements were a major paper on an assigned text and topic and an oral exam. My assigned paper topic was “the importance of Hebrews 11: 1-13 to Martin Luther’s understanding of Justification by Faith”. Hebrews 11:1 states “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Dr. Hoffman knew me too well. He understood that my great intellectual and theological challenge would be learning to live by “faith” and not “proof of”.  Years later when I reread that paper I realized how important it was for all of us as Christians to trust in God’s great mercy and live with that as our guideline, and not base our life decisions on just what we know to be true. Luther’s life was never the same after he trusted God… things not seen…. with his eternity … of things hoped for above all else.

Memorize Hebrews 11:1 and think about what you place your greatest hope and trust in.

Have a challenging Day #2 of Lent.

SHALOM,

Tom Mc