I'm Still Here

The summer is zipping by and I haven't posted anything here in a while. Well, what's going on in my world? In a nutshell, I've been busy. This summer began with a 1 week class followed immediately by our trip to Greece. After that I took a 3 week class on Hebrews, General Epistles and Revelation. While that was getting started, I was also turning in the first 2 chapters of my thesis. However, I'm still ready for the fall. Classes begin soon but fall also means cooler weather and football season. I hope my teams do at least as well as they did last year. The Saints made it to the NFC Championship game for the first time and the LSU Tigers won the Sugar Bowl against Notre Dame. Fall also means woodworking. It has been too hot to spend time in the garage so woodworking has been on hold. I'm looking forward to working on the lathe and scroll saw again.

This fall I'm taking a pretty full load of classes. I'll have Gospels, Evangelism, Ecclesiology and Sanctification, and a class on Greco Roman Sites (New Testament Archeology). As busy as I'll be with classes, 2 of them are only 10 weeks long so the end of the semester should be fairly light.

I'm continuing to work with the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts in preparation for a likely return to Europe next summer. I'm in the process of refining the way we take pictures and process the files on the computers. I'll also be checking photos that were taken over this summer to make sure we have the pictures we should have. The probability is high that we will be given permission to return to Patmos and I pray that all of the arrangements are able to be made. We are developing a very good relationship with the Orthodox in Greece and I hope we are able to continue to photograph manuscripts and preserve them electronically for them and for scholarly use. This year we were able to give the Monastery 76 DVDs full of the 7000 pictures we took.

I haven't done a word of the day in a while so here goes...
Ecclesiology - the study of the doctrine relating to the church as a community or entity. "It's coming from the Greek ἐκκλησία meaning assembly or congregation." (You have to read the part in quotes like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding).