Featured BBN: Update on my Progress

I am on my third BBN course. I really enjoyed the first two classes, but the one I am taking right now is painful for me, though.

I loved 10500 Dispensational Theology. I took it slow and took lots of notes. The information is organized and presented in a fairly consistent manner, and things that I wanted to write down were said slowly and more than once. I want to take everything that this professor teaches! Final Grade 100%

10600 Doctrine of the New Birth is solid and there are no surprises. I am neutral to positive about further classes with this professor. Final Grade 100%

00100 Foundational Beliefs should be the easiest, but it is NOT for me. The presentation of information is rapid. I am overwhelmed. If this information was not review, and if this were not my third course, I would be tempted to drop BBN instead of resolving to power through. My anxiety climbs every second that I listening. I just want this to be over. I know I sound ungrateful. I know that taking any complete program includes lessons and courses that feel like this. I am just going to put in a reasonable effort, and allow myself lower grades instead of endlessly rewinding and rewinding and rewinding. Quiz 1 was a 93%. There are 7 more quizzes and the final exam to go. I have to keep this moving, and stay focused on the bigger picture.

 

I did another lesson and it went a little easier. The professor actually chastised the audience if we were doing what I have resorted to doing. He actually slowed down enough to discuss something that I understood enough to disagree with.

I see that the main topic of this 2nd lesson is expanded into an entire minicourse later, so I am just going to make sure I pass and keep it moving.

It went easier, though. I can do this.

 

12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

So very very true! This has been an important guiding scripture to me for a long time.

But at the same time, I am not in college right now, and won't be back in college until at least next fall. I still consider my primary occupation to be "student" and see the lack of funding for my secular education as an opportunity to take some Bible courses. I don't know where God is going with all this, but it is going somewhere.

 

LOL

I powered though another lesson. Three down and five to go. My scores are a steady 93 and I know I have not mastered the material, but that is good enough for this course.

I am been having terrible trouble with my eyes since just before I started college, but God used that to help me as much as it has harmed me. To be BOTH a "student" and "print disabled" gives students free access to digital textbooks and reference books that low income and community college students do not have general access to. One of the main reasons that I did so much better in my classes than my peers was that immediate access to supplements for the rushed classroom lectures and anemic assigned text.

At this time of year, I usually need to reregister for that access, and I don't know if I still qualify as a "student". I trust God to use opened and closed doors to funnel me where he wants me. A closed door forces us to do something different and sometimes that is an opportunity.

From a secular worldview, BBN is not accredited and inferior to a accredited institution. I have peace and enthusiasm for doing this right now, though.

 

I have had very little control over my life the past few years. God creates funnels that narrow my options to few or no choices. At the beginning of this process I was terrified and frustrated; now I trust that the process.

I am also curious about the endgame.

My imagination is never great enough to imagine what comes next. As I am about to make each new jump, people disbelieve that I can do it. God sets me up for these jumps with things that the secular world labels as worthless. I am being set for something, but I don't know what it is yet.

I am just confident that this is what I am supposed to be doing right now, and I have learned to trust my ability to discern what I am supposed to be doing even when everyone else thinks I am wrong. My favorite professors began to enjoy watching other professors pull their hair out at initial choices only to have to reward me for them later.

God has an imagination that is beyond what humans can imagine. He also has a sense of humor and a heart for the underdog. I often feel like I observe my life more than control it. People have told me that watching me is better than watching reality TV. Sigh. My intent is not to provide entertainment for people, but I guess I do.

I am going to throw myself at this course of study with everything that I have, until I am diverted to the next stage of the journey, whatever that is.

 

The absolutes that "none" of Acts should be used for Doctrine and that the presence of the Epistles have made some things "unnecessary" and therefore they don't happen at all anymore. And quoting scripture that warns about tampering with a single book to include the entire library of the made-decided cannon.

 

Yup, exactly as you said it, but not with the absolutes that the professor stated. God is not as small as some conservatives paint him.

I move around too much to take much paper with me. Many of my moves were made with just what I could carry. Digital is not safe either: it can all disappear in one second, and it has.

Since I know I cannot keep anything, I try to live as fully as possible with what I have in the moment.

 

I needed this reminder. Thank you!

 

Twice, I have been so confused that I stopped calling myself a Christian. People can judge me for that, but they don't know what happened, and I let the father be the judge, and not the other children.

Both times it was a specific Baptist teaching about application that set things in motion so that I eventually found my way back. Baptist doctrines that state cautions and generalizations are critical for me to learn. Even in Baptist churches, controversial Baptist teachings are often skipped, even one-on-one when a parishioner is desperately faith-shatteringly confused and tearfully begging for clarification. I can imagine that teachers who have seen the results of the abandonment of these teachings will be prone to state absolutes. God is bigger than man-made absolutes, though. No matter how bad something is, swinging too hard the other way could be just as bad.

Many a parent has resorted to telling a 3 year old. "Don't touch the stove! Never, never, NEVER touch the stove!!!!" But at some point, that 3 year is going to grow up and need to be aware that some grownups sometimes need to touch certain parts of the stove.

I understand, but do not agree with some of the absolutes that this unnamed teacher is stating in the course that I am taking.