Even though I'm right...

Today I sat in my preaching class and heard what I thought was a really great lecture. Mostly I sit in preaching thinking things like, "Why did I take an 8 am class? Oh yeah, I have to graduate" and "that person's coffee smells good" and "I wonder if it's time for my chocolate chip Muffie." But today I thought, hey, this is a really great lecture. It was about preaching the Old Testament. Especially, it was about finding a balance between the fact that the Old Testament contains the fullness of God's revelation on its own, and the fact that for Christians Jesus is God's definitive revelation of Godself. Dr. O'Day didn't have answers so much as she gave us some really good ways to think about the issues. That was what I thought. I was inspired.

Dave was not inspired. Dave sat next to me muttering things like "...bordering on Arianism." We got into a few short whispered verbal scuffles during the lecture. So at the end I said, "Dave, I just wanted to say that I thought that was a really great lecture." And he said, "Hey, I affirm you in that. I've definitely heard lectures before that I thought were great and other people thought were the worst lectures ever." Something we could agree on.

We all want people to appreciate the things we appreciate. But it's also kind of beautiful--not to mention an important lesson for preaching--that God speaks to us in different ways. Things that are meaningless to some people inspire others, and some things are guaranteed to be neither a complete success nor a complete failure as long as Dave and I are both listening :) The important thing is that in the end, God speaks to everyone--and that's what revelation's all about, right?


Also, just because it's awesome, found on Dr. Blevins's office door: http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/are-you-a-christian-hipster/