I’ve had quite a busy day. I wrote an essay about “Should Jesus be seen as a first-century Palestinian Prophet?”. I then met up with harry’s people, and then patrick and ruth and felt very tired so I’ve just been lying in bed the past few hours.

I found this advert very funny!

I’ve just put up quite a few more essays on this site:

• Greek Influence upon Jewish Views of Resurrection and Immortality
• Authorship, Location and Date of Mark’s gospel
• Did Jesus attribute any importance to his death?
• What difference did belief in the resurrection of Jesus make for the development of early Christology?

Pfew! What a hectic week! I’ve been working very hard on my essays and even had time to read a wonderful short book by Tom Wright called “Scripture and the Authority of God”. I also interviewed about 10 more people (in addition to the 7 Oxfordians last Monday) who want to come to China in the summer. Everyone was so good, I want to take them all but alas some won’t be able to go 🙁

Happy Valentines day everyone…

Have just been working most of the day. I went to Jesus’ chapel in the evening to hear Patrick speak, and we then went back to his place, had salmon, rice and brocalii and then studied some writing by St. Athenasius about the incarnation. I came home and then Ruth came round after the HT Risk Living group. She gave me a lovely card and a wonderful picture which she painted this weekend. I’ve put a (very bad) photo of it up. What a talented girlfriend I have!

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Just got back from my trip to Oxford and I’m soooo tired! I took the mammoth 3 and a half hour X5 bus journey each way, and payed £2.50 in total for it, thanks to megabus.com (£1 each way and 50p booking fee). It was good to see lots of people again, especially Jim who I’d not really seen since the summer, although he was quite ill most of the weekend unfortunately. I hope I don’t catch anything!

Anyway, I arrived on Saturday afternoon and had a bit of a catch-up with Jim. I then went round to Anna’s for a while to catch up with her; she has a really nice room in a house just outside Magdalane college. I then met up with Jim and Jo and walked to a girl called Roh’s house where Jim’s Italian/Welsh friend Nick cooked some wonderful Italian food. I also met with quite a few of Jim’s other friends and Roh’s housemates. It was a good evening and we waddled home rather stuffed!

On Sunday morning, I went to St. Aldates with Jim and we met up with Esther there. Jim didn’t feel too well so myself and Esther went out for a bite to eat before I ran off to Ben’s baptism. I really did run, because I’d only just found out that what I’d previously been told was 3pm had turned into 2pm. The service was good and I’ve put some photos of the event on my photo gallery.

After that, I went to Tom’s to talk about the ISEC interviews which we were to give on Monday. I then stopped by Nat’s place for about half an hour before heading back to Braisenose for a formal hall with the choir, including many of the guys I had met the night before. After that, myself and Jim went out to the Turf for a quick pint before running back to Braisenose JCR just in time to catch 2 hours of the new season of 24. It was really amazing!

On Monday, I was pretty knackered after doing 7 interviews and going out with Tom and Nat for lunch. The only other person I really wanted to be able to meet up with whilst I was in Oxford was Adele, also from my China team in the summer, although she was ill over the weekend 🙁 She says she’s better now I’m gone, though. The journey back was rather arduous as we went round all the villages on the way back to Cambridge. Felt rather travel-sick but still managed to do quite a bit of ISEC work on my laptop.

So, I’m writing this on Friday night. Tomorrow I’ll be leaving for a few days in Oxford. It’s been quite a hectic few days. On Wednesday, I had some lectures and met up with Sue for lunch. I’d seen her quite a bit last year because she was virtually living in my flat, but I’d not really seen her at all this year. Was good to see what God had been doing in her life, and especially as she was in South Africa in the summer.

In the evening, we had the “grill-a-Christian” event in the bar, and I was on the panel. We had a lot of discussion about homosexuality, as seems the norm these days and I think we got a bit sidetracked by that rather than explaining the wonderful news of salvation for sinners no matter what we have done… One girl asked the homosexuality question about 5 times and each time we answered she said we were just reverting to the Bible rather than explaining our own views… It’s so hard when you realise what a mess this world is in and how, as Paul says at the beginning of Romans, people have become so corrupted they cannot even understand Christian values or morals…

On Thursday, I spent most of the day reading round Ruth’s for my next essay which is “How did belief in Jesus’ resurrection influence early Christology?”, which I’m really not sure about… I think the answer is basically “look at the whole of the NT – it wouldn’t have been written but for Jesus’ resurrection”…

Today, I didn’t feel particularly motivated and was rather tired so I did about 3 hours of reading and so on and then slept most of the rest of the day. I arose for a bit of Harry’s but then went round Ruth’s to do more reading.

I have been reading some big fat books by Tom Wright, and also one my supervisor recommended to me called “The Seven Pillories of Wisdom” which is all about false assumptions in current (New Testament) theology. I’d worked most of them out for myself, but it was good to have someone else express them and work through exactly why they are incorrect.

Life goes on. Have spent the past week working on an essay entitled “Did Jesus attribute any importance to his death?”. You’d think the answer would be obvious, but no… Had a really good supervision on it just now, the first one with Justin Meggitt who is most excellent. I’m about to start working on an essay about how Jesus resurrection affected early Christianity, which should be a little more fun. Anyway, now I’ve got a little more time I’ll just write about some of the highlights of the past week.

Last Wednesday, myself and Ruth went to have dinner with Dan and Joy. It’s quite strange because we’ve known them while they were engaged, although when one of them was in China, the other was in England and then they switched. Anyway, they got married in the summer (which I was invited to, although was in China at the time) and they’re now going to have a baby, just as Dan’s meant to be having his finals! Scary stuff! It was good to catch up with them again.

Thursday evening, my friend Paul came up from London and also some of Ruths friends came over from Oxford. We all went out for some pizza and then came back to my room and chatted until about 1am. I’m going to miss that about Cambridge 🙁 Friday was spent working and I then went to Harry’s which was good fun too. After that, I went out with Paul and Rachel (from our old bridge group) and had some nice Itallian food, and we then came back to mine and watched “The motorcycle diaries” which was a really good film that Zishan highly recommended to me. It’s a story of two people travelling around south America on a motorcycle and has really good scenery. Not really “Die Hard” but quite good nontheless.

Saturday, I didn’t really do much but in the evening, Paul and I went round to see Tabs for a bit and then I got an early night. On Sunday I was baptised. Eden church was packed with lots of friends and a few of my family came up as well. I’ve put some photos up of the service which you can have a look at (thanks Ruth, Raeko and Joe). My mother put on a lovely meal after it; thanks very much! In the evening, I went to Eden and then went round for a meal with the guys I was in China with. It was really good fun, the 10 of us together again.

On Monday I met up with Patrick for some Bible discussion which is always good fun. I then went to the Chinese Christian Fellowship because my friend Katie was speaking there. She did a really nice talk about the ministry of reconciliation. I can’t imagine ever doing a sermon in a second language but she did really well.