Weekly Email: November 25, 2024
What a busy week it’s been here at Southern! Many of your professors and OTAS (myself included) traveled to San Diego for the Evangelical Theological Society Conference. Scholars submit proposals earlier in the year and only a handful are selected to present. This conference is a fantastic opportunity for scholars to share their latest research and connect with others in the academic community.
I’m particularly proud of three members of our online learning team: John Baker and Anthony Baldwin, both Instructional Designers, and Barry Evans, Instructional Design Assistant, who all presented papers at the conference.
You can find a list of everyone from Southern who presented here.
As we step into the busy season of November and December, I know how challenging it can be to balance the demands of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and school. Please know that the online team and I are praying for you during this season. This can be especially difficult since you’re finishing up the Fall 2 term and the winter term is right around the corner.
Student Tip
Here are three simple ways to stay grounded and intentional this holiday season:
Approach your studies with prayer and a worshipful heart. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and let your schoolwork turn into just another item on your to-do list. Before you begin, take a moment to pause, pray, and center yourself before God with the right mindset.
Plan ahead. I talk about planning a lot in these emails but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of planning, especially when life gets busy. Take 15 minutes and map out your week, your future self will thank you.
Keep school in the proper perspective. Your grades don’t define you. During the holiday season, you may find that family and relationships take priority, and that’s okay. You might spend less time on an assignment or accept a slightly lower grade but the time you invest in your loved ones will be far more meaningful. Balance looks different for everyone, so reflect on what’s most important for you this week.
Program News
The online offices will be closed on November 28th and 29th. If you have questions in your classes, be sure to email your OTA or professor earlier rather than later.
Faculty Devotional
This week’s faculty devotional is from Dr. Mitch Chase reflecting on Luke 24:44
When the disciples learned that Jesus had risen from the dead, there was more learning in store for them. The subsequent days involved encounters and fellowship, but they also involved instruction. Jesus said, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Those three divisions—the Law, Prophets, and Psalms—represented the whole Old Testament. In other words, Jesus claimed that the Old Testament testified about what he had come to do. The discipleship of these disciples would include understanding the various ways in which the Old Testament anticipated the person and work of Christ. The Old Testament contained direct messianic prophecies, like the Messiah’s descent from Judah’s tribe and the house of David, as well as his birth in Bethlehem. But the Old Testament also foreshadowed Christ through various patterns, like suffering and vindication, humiliation and exaltation, sacrifice and acceptance. The Old Testament patterns were types of Christ. Various people, institutions, events, and offices were types, or shadows, of Jesus’s person and work. God had ordered redemptive history in such a way that the Old Testament was a Jesus book. As we study and preach the Old and New Testaments, we are studying sixty-six books of Christian Scripture. And our responsibility, as well as our great privilege, is to herald and teach Christ from all of Scripture.
