Monday, January 29, 2018

How to Remember Which of Paul's Letters is Which

I like to think of myself as a "why" learner.  I learn things much better when you tell me why I should care - that is, when I have a larger framework to work from.  I got super frustrated in Algebra II when we learned about matrices (a system for organizing numbers into rectangular grids that involves a whole lot of pointless-feeling arithmetic).  I would ask the teacher, "Why?  What is this FOR?" and she would just say, "It'll be important in later math classes."  That didn't help.  It all felt very arbitrary.  I felt like I had to look up every formula every time because I didn't understand the PURPOSE that would have made it make sense.

Other math students were "how" learners, though.  They seemed to just want to be told what they needed to solve the problem, and anything else - any stories, any context, any larger framework - was just extraneous details that confused the issue.  They didn't mind straight-up memorization.  One time in college, when a substitute math professor came in, he told all kinds of funny stories and tried to explain the math from the perspective of why we care - I absolutely loved it, but I was shocked to hear other students complain afterwards about his teaching style.  Clearly, different people prefer to learn in different ways.

But perhaps there are other people out there who, like me, prefer "frameworks" to hang their knowledge on.  I CAN memorize lists of things for tests if I try hard, but I forget it pretty much immediately afterward.  But if you give me a framework for understanding things, I'm much more likely to retain the information later.

I feel that way about Bible knowledge.  As a kid, I remember wondering how grown-ups at church always seemed to be able to quote chapter and verse so often.  Sure, we had memory verses, and I would memorize them for Sunday School, but they didn't stay memorized long.  Is that what the adults were doing?  Memorizing a LOT of verses and which book and chapter they came from?  How did they retain all that info?

Growing up, the information in the Bible frequently felt unorganized - stories and teachings and individual verses would be quoted with no particular pattern to them, so it just seemed like the Bible was a random collection of stuff.  I had no idea how Sunday School teachers figured out which verses to have us go read.  It all seemed kind of mysterious.

It got a little better, though, as I got older.  At one point in Sunday School, they taught us a song with all the books of the New Testament.  Believe it or not, this was super helpful.  It meant that (at least for the New Testament), I didn't have to go to the table of contents to find any particular book.  I knew what order things were in, so I could flip there more or less quickly.  We had "Bible drills," where the teacher would call out a chapter and verse and we would race to see who could find it.  Unfortunately, if you had to stop and hum a few bars of the kid's song, you were at a distinct disadvantage.

Knowing the names of the books is helpful, but it's not really enough.  It still didn't tell me what each book was ABOUT, which is far more important.  One of the most helpful Sunday School lessons I ever had came from Jon Shoulders, our church's youth minister at the time, who came down to the kid's room to teach us about the different sections of the Bible.  This was HUGE to me.  I'm talking about how the first five books are the Law, then there's History, then there's Poetry, etc etc.  Suddenly the Bible felt organized!  I had a framework to go on.  Now if you asked me where such-and-such a story was, or such-and-such a teaching was, I had a much better chance of pointing you to the right part of the Bible, even if I couldn't have told you chapter and verse.

But is there anywhere else to go from there other than memorization?  Just read and keep reading the Bible and eventually get so familiar with it you can impress all your friends and relatives in class with your Bible knowledge (because, obviously, this is what impresses people...)?  Well, to some extent, yes.  But I wonder if there may be another in-between step that we could teach people that would help them bridge the gap somewhat.

That is, what if we came up with a way to succinctly describe what each book is ABOUT in a way that's easier to remember?  Like, say, one of the major themes of the book?

I remember a preacher named Jeff Walling actually did this at a youth rally when I was a teenager, and I really appreciated it.  He went over the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and gave us a single word for each one to describe the difference between them.  The only one I remember exactly is the word for John: "Whoaaa..." said like a surfer.  But I remember the gist of them all.  John was the emotional gospel, the one about all the cool, deep, theologial connections.  Matthew was the Jewish-centric one, Luke was the Gentile-centric one, and Mark was the short one - straight and to the point.  Jeff Walling was giving me a framework.  Because of the way I learn, it was very, very helpful.

So could we do something like that for the whole Bible?  What about Paul's letters?  It's easy to feel like Paul's letters just kind of all run together in a big blob sometimes, but there really are different themes and focuses in each one.

So I'm gonna try something.  I'm gonna try to come up with a word or phrase for each of Paul's letters that describes a major theme or something distinctive about the book, and that STARTS WITH THE SAME LETTER as the book.  And then you can tell me, if you are a framework-based learner like me, if you think this would be helpful!  So here goes:

Romans: Redemption
1 Corinthians: Church
2 Corinthians: Collection
Galatians: Grace vs Legalism
Ephesians: Encouragement
Philippians: Peace
Colossians: Counter-asceticism
1 and 2 Thessalonians: The End of the World
1 and 2 Timothy, Titus: Tending the Flock
Philemon: Personal letter

There may be better choices for some of these - perhaps you could help me think of some!  But I like the general idea.

Romans is a tough one, as it's so central and so important - it's basically the full gospel explained in lengthy detail.  So "redemption" covers a lot, but then, so does "reconciliation," "righteousness", and "right with God."  Could be the "roadmap to reconciliation."  Or "all roads lead to Romans."  There are a number of possibilities.

Thessalonians is also tricky, because the theme is so clear - dealing with Jesus's second coming - but that phrase (or anything related I can think of) doesn't start with T.  But maybe sticking a big "THE" in there is just silly enough to be memorable!

Most of the others I feel a little better about.  Ephesians really is a very positive, encouraging letter.  Philippians has a lot to say about peace (and joy) - the famous "peace that passeth understanding" passage is there.  Colossians is about more than fighting off bad theology like asceticism, but it's definitely in there.  Galatians could be just "grace," but it's such a combative book I feel like a "vs." is required.  1 Corinthians covers a lot of stuff about church practices and has a lot about church unity - communion, speaking in tongues, worship, etc.  To reduce 2 Corinthians to an appeal for money might go too far - but even though there's more to it than JUST that, it's still a big part of the book.  Timothy and Titus have a lot of stuff about being an elder or a deacon, or how to run the church as a practical matter.

So what do you think?  Would something like this be helpful?  How would you summarize Paul's letters?

And then, a bonus challenge... can you do it for the Minor Prophets? (sinister laugh)

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