I’ve made it through my fourth week of my first doctoral course. What does Virkler, my assigned reading, and Vegas have to do with each other? Well, while I have been in Las Vegas for a conference this week, I have also been doing my course work. For the most part it hasn’t been too difficult to do these things together, far from home. It has made for some later nights than I had intended.

The conference (American Library Association), which is my first attendance of said conference, has been super wonderful and helpful to bring back and practice in my work. I’ve learned that I am a twitter addict, introverts have quiet influence, unconferences can be successful, Alexander McCall Smith is just as witty and charming as his books, Las Vegas is hot in June, conference wifi is not all its cracked up to be, and one Starbucks for 10,000+ librarians is just.not.enough! Also Donny & Marie!

In any case, our textbook for this week included Henry A. Virkler’s “A Christian’s Guide to Critical Thinking.” The first three chapters deal with hermeneutics–“principles used to properly interpret someone else’s communication” (p. 19). While I won’t go into everything Virkler has to say about interpreting scripture, I will say that even though there are principles to follow when interpreting scripture, humans have managed to still be divided when it comes to certain passages or doctrines described in the Bible. I don’t think it was God’s intention to have his church divided into so many denominations. However, we are humans and are imperfect, so the fact that there are so many ways of interpreting scripture is not surprising to me. I think the Holy Spirit can discern who is a follower of Jesus and who is not. We are all his body and can agree that Jesus came to die for us so that we might live.

Blessings to you and yours.