January Meetings Jan 8 and Jan 22: Introducing Paul!

Hi everyone! Happy New Year

Because of New Year’s Day I suggested we flip to Tuesday January 8 this month, and since we have 5 Tuesdays in January it works well to just make our next meeting January 22.  After that we’ll revert to 1^st and 3^rd Tuesdays for the rest of the spring.  I’m looking forward to being with you.

We agreed that we would spend the spring with the book of Romans -- Paul’s letter to the church in Rome.  This is a challenging and beautiful book of the Bible with lots to engage, disturb, puzzle and enlighten us.  I am going to be using a guide to Romans by my VTS colleague Katherine Grieb -- The Story of Romans (Westminster John Knox Press).  It is scholarly in its approach but it is geared toward bringing Romans to a wider audience within the church and I will be using her chapters to guide my teaching. If you want to commit to a pretty in-depth study of Romans in between our sessions I do recommend her book. I’ll also have some ideas for other commentaries but mostly we’ll do what we usually do:  Bring our questions to the text, and try to sort out what we can learn from reading deeply and carefully.

At our first session I will spend some time just introducing Paul.  You might think about what you know/think/have heard about Paul/ St. Paul and the new testament.  It is the case that the letters of Paul are actually the earliest books of the New Testament, written before the gospels.  So coming to understand Paul can really help us to understand even more fully who Jesus was to his early followers, and what the gospel story means - meant for them, and means for us.

I’m looking forward to our study this spring.  Bring yourselves, your prayers and your questions and we’ll begin - As always, if you’re new and want to join us feel free to email me at kathleen.staudt@gmail.com for directions and further information.