{"id":1152,"date":"2010-04-06T06:49:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T13:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2010-04-06T06:49:54","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T13:49:54","slug":"hope-in-a-troubled-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2010\/04\/06\/hope-in-a-troubled-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope in a Troubled World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starting this Sunday, I’ll be teaching a six-week course titled “Hope in a Troubled World” at 9:00 a.m. at my home church,\u00a0Cornerstone Christian Church<\/a>.\u00a0 Here’s the info:<\/p>\n

Hope in a Troubled World<\/strong><\/p>\n

Summary<\/em><\/p>\n

We live in a world that seems to be falling apart.\u00a0 The rise of terrorism, the earthquake in Haiti, poverty, AIDS, corruption, war, the breakup of families, lingering illness, the loss of a loved one \u2013 these and many other tragic circumstances can cause us to wonder how we can dare hope for something better.<\/p>\n

Yet the scriptures tell us that \u201cfaith, hope and love\u201d are the basic virtues that characterize life in Christ (1. Cor. 13:13).\u00a0 What is Christian hope, and how does it connect to the other cardinal virtues of faith and love?<\/p>\n

This study will reflect both a theological and spiritual exploration of the theme of hope.\u00a0 We\u2019ll dig into the theme of \u201chope\u201d in the scriptures and in the great statements of Christian faith from past ages in order to establish a theological perspective on hope.\u00a0 We\u2019ll also engage with Christian writers, poets, philosophers and others who will help direct our spiritual perspectives towards enjoying and living out the hope we have in Christ.<\/p>\n

Text<\/em><\/p>\n

Our primary text will be the Bible.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll also explore portions of the following books (these are not required reading, but you may find it edifying to read one or more of these):\u00a0 NT Wright, Surprised by Hope:\u00a0 Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (Harper One 2008); Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart, Hope Against Hope:\u00a0 Christian Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium (Eerdmans 1999); Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Fortress Press 1993); Blaise Pascal, Pensees (various editions); Augustine, City of God (various editions), Confessions (various editions); C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (various editions), A Grief Observed (various editions), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (various editions), The Last Battle (various editions); Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross:\u00a0 Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (Baker Academic 2006); Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes:\u00a0 Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality (Oxford Univ. Press 1998); Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge:\u00a0 Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Zondervan 2006).<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/em><\/p>\n

Week 1:\u00a0 The Hope of the World.\u00a0 What does scripture say about the human condition?\u00a0 What does it mean to be separated from God? What is the story of God\u2019s pursuit of relationship with us?\u00a0 We\u2019ll set the stage for our conversations by framing the Bible\u2019s grand narrative of creation, fall, and the hope of redemption.<\/p>\n

Week 2:\u00a0 Hope and the Cross.\u00a0 How did the cross, a symbol of shame, become a symbol of hope?\u00a0 We\u2019ll discuss how various theories of the \u201catonement\u201d \u2013 satisfaction, Christus Victor, and moral example — complement each other and offer hope against the power of sin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Week 3:\u00a0 Hope in Loss.\u00a0 Can we find hope in the losses of life?\u00a0 We\u2019ll discuss Biblical themes and images of comfort, solace, trial, testing, and perseverance in the face of suffering.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ll also examine how God participated in our suffering and loss through the incarnation of Christ.<\/p>\n

Week 4:\u00a0 Hopeful Desire.\u00a0 What is your greatest hope?\u00a0 What does it mean to love God with \u201call your heart, all strength, all your soul, and all your mind\u201d (Luke 10:27)?\u00a0 The Bible and the Christian tradition have much to say about the ordering of our desires, the true meaning of hope, and the link between hope, faith, and love.<\/p>\n

Week 5:\u00a0 Abiding Hope.\u00a0 Where does hope reside?\u00a0 The Bible uses the metaphors of \u201cabiding\u201d in Christ and of Christ being the \u201cvine\u201d in which our lives should be rooted.\u00a0 These pictures teach us about hope in seasons of growing as well as seasons of waiting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Week 6:\u00a0 Hope in the End.\u00a0 The line between hope and despair intersects the present at the point of our beliefs about the future.\u00a0 What will the future bring?\u00a0 Will hope be left behind?\u00a0 We\u2019ll conclude our study by examining \u201ceschatology\u201d \u2013 the \u201clast things.\u201d\u00a0 We will see that although the Biblical imagery of judgment is dark, the final word in scripture is one of hope:\u00a0 that God will put an end to the ravages of sin so that the desire of all creation for peace can be realized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting this Sunday, I’ll be teaching a six-week course titled “Hope in a Troubled World” at 9:00 a.m. at my home church,\u00a0Cornerstone Christian Church.\u00a0 Here’s the info: Hope in a Troubled World Summary We live in a world that seems to be falling apart.\u00a0 The rise of terrorism, the earthquake in Haiti, poverty, AIDS, corruption, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hope","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-iA","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}