I am taking New Testament as Literature because it completes my common curriculum religion courses. Beyond this reasoning, I am also interested in this class material and learning more in-depth information about the New Testament than just what is taught at a Sunday School level.
Although I have attended Catholic schools since the first grade, I think that my knowledge of the Christian faith should be more advanced. I want to discuss the Christian faith on a more intellectual level, with more questions and discussions than a rambling of apparently indisputable facts. I also have enjoyed many religion courses I have taken over the years, especially some at Loyola such as Christian Ethics. I was looking for a good religion course to take, and many of my friends encouraged me to take this course because they greatly enjoyed the material and thought the class was very valuable.
I also am interested in this course because I am unsure of my own faith and beliefs. I have been reading several different books, such as Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz” in order to explore and educate myself on the Christian faith. I desire a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God, and I believe that more education on the Scripture will help to instigate that relationship, as well as provide insight into Christian beliefs. This class will hopefully broaden my perspective of Scripture and encourage me to read the Scripture more. I hope to also be able to contribute more in intellectual discussions of the Christian faith with examples from this class referencing the New Testament. I am interested in having a better understanding of the Gospels in hopes to be more accepting of the Scripture and have more appreciation for the Bible as a whole. I would like my faith to develop to a point to where the Scripture becomes an important source for encouraging my faith life, so a course that would educate me on the New Testament would hopefully begin that aspect of my faith.
In conclusion, I hope that this course leads to the reading of the New Testament “for information [and] in the view of transformation, that is to be intellectually enlightened or to be personally converted.”
Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Test: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred
Scripture (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 13.
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