Saturday, January 16, 2010

Old Testament Survey with Dr. Walter C. Kaiser

This week I have been in an intensive Old Testament Survey class at the Jacksonville extension of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (For the record, thank God there is a Gordon-Conwell in Jacksonville!)

This OT Survey class was taught by Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. Dr. Kaiser is the former president of Gordon-Conwell and a very respected scholar, teacher, and author.

This class has been a such a benefit to me this week in helping me to put my Bible together, as it were - the unity of the Bible.

Dr. Kaiser’s focus has been the promise-plan of God in the Old Testament and that this promise-plan of salvation is a unbroken cord that unites the Old Testament and New Testament.

There are four “mountain peak” Dr. Kaiser points to that affirm the promise-plan of God: Gen. 3:15, 12:1-3; 2 Samuel 7; and Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Over the course of the week, Dr. Kaiser gave enough preaching to get me through a year. Literally. I have already mapped out my preaching plan for 2010. But I have a new and greater motivation to do more preaching in the Old Testament in the years to come, God willing.

We were assigned three texts for the class:

1. The Messiah in the Old Testament by Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (Zondervan)

2. The Promise-Plan of God by Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (Zondervan)

3. Recovering the Unity of the Bible by Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (Zondervan)

This past Monday, Dr. Kaiser also did a seminar on Christian ethics-morality. The text for that seminar was “What Does the Lord Require?: A Guide for Preaching and Teaching Biblical Ethics” by Walter Kaiser.

You can learn more about Dr. Kaiser and his more than forty publication through his website: www.walterckaiserjr.com