CEM Sample Class "L'Ancien Testament"

We just finished up "The Pentateuch" in our year-long class on the Old Testament! Now we're starting the Books of Wisdom. For those of you interested in the style of instruction at CEM, in knowing what we learn etc., here is a sample from my notes this past Thursday. Imagine this spoken live and in French, and you're practically here with us in class!

Introduction to the Books of Wisdom
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
Ecclesiastes: First of all, why is this book in the Bible?
Why are all of the "books of wisdom" in the Bible?
What is the theme of Ecclesiastes? Vanity, vanity.
What is the theme of Job? Suffering.
What is the theme of Song of Songs? Love.
You can read these three books like Dante's Divine Comedy. Ecclesiastes as 'Inferno', Job as 'Purgatorio', and Song of Songs as 'Paradiso'.

3 "Philosophies of Life" in these Books
BOREDOM: Ecclesiastes. There is no meaning to life, and that makes existing boring!
Hope: Job. Job suffers, but with hope of an end!
Joy: Song of Songs.

Biblical Approach to the Books, each representing a virtue.
FAITH: Ecclesiastes shows that without faith, life is boring.
HOPE: Job lives life with the faith lacking in Eccles., but he has no hope.
LOVE: Song of Songs, this book definitely has love.

The questions posed in these books will be answered over the course of the entire Bible, through the entire Bible.
You have to remember who you were to better understand who you are now.
These books aren't great revelations of the Divine. These books discuss the experiences of life. In each of these books, you will see people living with one of the 3 philosophies above.

Introduction to Ecclesiastes
The author of Ecclesiastes is looking for the supreme good of life; what we are all looking is looking for, to live a good life. This book is the most accessible to our modern world. You can quote it to your friends, and they will agree with you. It is filled with questions to which the author keeps saying, "I don't have the answers! I keep looking, but I don't have the answers!"
The author of Ecclesiastes is EXTREMELY honest. He wants to communicate all of his experiences.
The author appears to live in a securalized world. God is there, but he is not a character who intervenes. God is presented as a way of attaining a good life. As in the modern sense, he is just an aspect of life and not as a speaker.
The structure is very easy to follow and the thesis is clearly indicated:
These: Every thing is Vanity. Eccl. 1: 1-3
Argument Eccl. 1-12
Conclusion Eccl. 12:8-14
Who is the author of Ecclesiastes? We assume it is Solomon. Towards the end of the great kingdom of Israel and the reign of Solomon, he was led more and more into idolatry by his many wives. The original title, Qoheleth, means "Speaker before the crowd." Normally, Biblical authors communicate the word of God. Here, the author communicates what HE thinks!
The ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM of Ecclesiastes, the BIG QUESTION, is why do we exist? What is the meaning of life? Like the proverbial elephant, it is very possible to avoid this question our entire life, i.e. by pursuing pleasure, using propaganda (such as: there is no elephant in this room!), showing indifference, pursuing happiness, returning to subjectivism etc.
The courageous author of Ecclesiastes does not avoid this question, he attacks it!

(Quick Logic Review!) Syllogism! Fact=>fact=> conclusion.
Syllogism of Ecclesiastes:
Fact #1: All work is done under the sun.
Fact #2: Everything under the sun is vanity.
Conclusion: Works = Vanity

What is vanity? Vanity is "smoke." Smoke rises, diffuses and disappears. In the Old Testament, the gods of the nations are described as smoke-they disappear and no one remembers them.

In his search for meaning, Solomon tries to do 5 great works:
1) WISDOM (Solomon's wisdom comes from God). He tries to fill his soul/mind with good things.
2) PLEASURE: good things for the 5 senses.
3)RICHES and POWER: Materialism (Solomon is the richest King of Israel, ever!)
4)ALTRUISM: Do good for others.
5) RELIGION: piety. Trying to fill up the hole in our soul.

What are we trying to fill? Our minds, our pockets, our soul?


Note taker's note: At this point we started to discuss the different works pursued by Solomon to achieve "a good life." In this introduction, we opened up and speculated on some of the most important questions in life, as posed by the Bible's Books of Wisdom. Over the next month, the CEMistes will be noting what these books have to say on these topics. I hope that you continue to speculate on the question of and the answer to the meaning of life. If you haven't already arrived at a conclusion, I will give you a hint that it has something to do with God and his will for your life.

The mayor of Rothenburg, Germany was a very wise man. He built his house on a tower so that the local citizens could not come up and visit him whenever they wanted.

Americans, Assemble!

The CEMistes just returned from a week of traveling in Germany, France and Switzerland.
Last Saturday, we drove 10 hours from Marseille to Rothenburg, Germany, for the 49th Annual Euro-American Family Retreat for the Churches of Christ. On the way, we passed through Switzerland and Liechtenstein!

Now I can say I’ve been to Liechtenstein!

The Euro-American retreat began as a retreat for families in the military and over the years has morphed into a retreat for American missionaries and military personnel working in Europe. It is put on every year by a church in Texas that sends speakers, song leaders and Bible class teachers for the adults and children. This year, there were about 100 people, including 10 CEMistes, four of whom were hooked up to headphones for an English to French translation.
To me, entering a room full of people singing in my native tongue, with the songs I grew up with, and speaking with the same kind of folksy idioms and love for “sermon illustrations” as the church where I was raised, was like entering a little oasis in the desert. To be able to sing again with my eyes closed and knowing what every word means greatly encouraged my spirit.

a scene from down-town Rothenburg odT!

During the 5 day retreat, we were encouraged to break our CEMiste group into smaller, more manageable chunks, and visit, talk and eat with as many different people as possible. There were all sorts of missionaries in attendance: families with kids, single women, internet outreach-ers, old-style campaigners, camp counselors, preachers, chorists, pub evangelists, short term and long term. Ireland, Germany, Albania, Switzerland, France (us), Romania, the Netherlands and Austria were represented.
During the “break-out session” time, I attended a class on “Transitions,” particularly applied to the transition of changing cultures.
During the copious free time during the retreat, I went on a hike down to the valley surrounding the town with tour-guide Wayne, a member of the church in Stuttgart. I walked along the ancient wall surrounding the town, went in bookstores, ate a "SpaghettiEis" and a “Schneeball”. As a group, we went on the Rothenberg “Night Watchman” tour, hosted by a sinister character who kept the city safe. I had a great time meeting people and learning about God's laborers in Europe.

Me attempting a siege over the Rothenburg wall!

After the retreat in Rothenburg, we went to Geneva, Switzerland. We were hosted by Lorine’s family, who live on the border of France and Switzerland. We had a 2 day, 6 HOUR PER DAY, seminar on evangelism, instructed by Doyle Kee. Doyle and his wife have been missionaries in Geneva for over 30 years. Doyle’s evangelism seminar was very different from what I expected; the other evangelism trainings I've attended focused on methods of getting people talking about faith and how to lead Bible studies. We did discuss some popular Bible-study approaches, but the main crux of our seminar was WHY and WHAT of evangelism: why we need to evangelize, and what message of salvation we are spreading.

Doyle's illustration of a complicated-but-yet-simple response to the question that our non-christian friends may have for us: "If I become a christian, and then I mess up by sinning, what happens?" For the response, we have this illustration. A bomb is about to strike your hypothetical country. You can either quickly get on the lifeboat, or stay and be blown up. The lifeboat represents the church, and the gangway is baptism. You're hurrying on the boat, so you're not entirely ready; you don't have your sea legs, and you fall down all the time (falling down=sin). If you stay on the boat, your friends will help you walk. If you give up on staying on the boat, because it is too much of a challenge for you (leaving the church) then you are no longer saved by the lifeboat. But you can still grab onto a life-vest and return to the lifeboat (God/the church) if you decide you want to give the lifeboat another try. CONCLUSIONS: 1. People in the church still sin and make mistakes. 2. You don't have to be saved if you don't want to be. 3. God will always take you back, if you decide to return after leaving.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN (in the church)**

After the teen retreat, one of the CEMistes posed the question: “what is the role of women in the church? Is it just to make food and watch children?”

This launched a two-week-long discussion during our Boite-a-Question hour. Rather than jumping right to 2nd Timothy, our professors began with the idea that culture changes. Perhaps Paul’s letters were written for a specific cultural context and/or perhaps our culture has changed so much that it refuses to recognize the role that God has established, since the creation of man, for the different genders.

During the Church Family retreat, we split up into groups and listed all of the ministries we have at the Chapelle de Fuveau. We came up with over 60!
A sampling of the list: Group and individual Bible studies, pasturing, visiting the sick, visiting nursing homes, supporting an orphanage in Madagascar, Club Cool, teen group, dance classes, summer camp, homework help, agape meals, welcoming, cleaning the church, encouraging, women’s Bible study, preaching, making cards, media and brochures, prayers, organizing various retreats, etc.

We then went through the list and noted the things that women don’t do at this church: preaching, Lord’s supper etc.

The conclusion was:
“If you think of “church” as Sunday morning from 11-12 PM, women have hardly any role in the church. But if you see the church’s work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, women can do 95% of the work of the church.
The role of a woman in the church is to be a servant.
What is the role of a man in the church?
To be a servant.”



**Opinions expressed in this post may not express the views of the blog author. Depiction of opinion expressed by CEM Professors is not complete and may be inaccurate.

Prayer Room

Retreat!
For the past two weekends, the CEMistes have been on retreats! Both retreats were at the church’s camp in the Centre Massif. Last weekend, November 1-4, we had the all-Francophone teen retreat, with teens from the churches in Lyons, Geneva, Lilles and Paris. The best represented church with the largest group was, of course, Marseille, with two van-loads of CEMistes and teenagers. The theme was “The Mission” and every session came with a discussion group/prayer time afterwards, which was a great way for the teens to share their experiences and encourage each other. I was really impressed by two teens from Lyons, Naomi and Constance. Naomi said that she had prayed to have a Christian friend in her class, and this year she had two! The two talked about the difficulties they have in getting their friends to listen when they talk about Jesus. Nevertheless, it sounds like they share their faith a lot in class.

A photo from a walk in the woods during Free Time at the teen retreat.

This past weekend, November 8-10, we had the Marseille Church “Family Retreat,” a time where all church members were welcome to enjoy Centre Bonnefoi, share great meals together and have a mini retreat. The theme of the retreat was “make me a servant.” On Friday night, we shared stories of persons who helped lead us to Christ and our “dreams for the church.” Some of the dreams were rather humorous. Katie’s dream was that some of the old CEMistes would come back and help serve and expand the church in Marseille. Joelle has her own version of the same dream: that all of the CEMistes (except for her of course; she is going back to Paris) find spouses in Marseille and have at least 3 children. That would be a very effective way to expand the church. What terrifies me is that I am never sure if Joelle is serious.

Derek, Esther and I worked on making a “Prayer Room” for this retreat. I went on 3 out of 4 of Campus Crusade for Christ’s “Fall Retreats” while at college, and each one had a “prayer room,” a dimly lit, quiet place with various stations, prompting prayer for different subjects.
The CEMistes worked to put together something similar for this retreat. We wanted to make 5-6 stations, each with a corresponding verse, an activity, and a prayer-prompt. Our prayer room:

1. Adoration-worship the Lord. Psalm 104. Praise the Lord for his marvelous creation. Each person drew a picture of something God created and that they wanted to praise him for.
2. The world/my country. Verse: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” and, from Revelation, “every tongue, tribe and nation will confess that Jesus is Lord.”
3. My church. At this station, we provided paper and envelopes for people to write a note of encouragement/thanks to someone else in the church, particularly someone who wasn’t able to come to the retreat. I delivered about 10 notes at church on Sunday.
4. My friends/my family. For this station, I made a less sophisticated version of Dan Cooper’s “Friendship Evangelism” cards, encouraging people to pray for five friends or family members to come to know Christ. When Philippe asked for prayer requests at church on Sunday, Benjamin (one of the teens) spoke up and reminded the church family to pray this week for the people on their card.
5. My Enemies. We read the story of a Christian martyr, who saved a soldiers life and, as a result, lost his own.
6. Moi-meme, myself. At this station, we posted 2 CEMistes who offered to pray with the people finishing the prayer circle, for whatever requests were on their heart. In my 30 minute “shift” I got to pray with Monique and speak with Hughette. Rather than sharing her prayer request, Hughette shared a Psalm:
“How good and pleasant it is
When brothers live together in unity!”
Psalm 133

I was very honored to get to pray with the people of my church. I ended up spending (almost all) of my free time in the prayer room, watching people go through the stations, seeing the CEMistes at the 6th station praying with each other when there were no visitors, and even seeing a few church members linger to pray in their own corner after finishing all of the stations.
Even if I had been the only one to use it, it would have been worth all the work on the prayer room.

The CEMistes are trying to think of more ways to better integrate prayer into our everyday lives. We may set up a prayer group, a prayer room, and/or have a few fasting events.
We appreciate your support through prayer! Thank you for your prayers for the CEMistes during our year of christian-apprenticeship.