An introduction to the current discourse on the Torah, comparing the various methods and presuppositions of critical scholarship that have increasingly defined the studies of the Torah in recent times. The student will evaluate the salient contributions of this mainstream study, and the significant neglect of mission and mission-related themes in its discourse.
Through this course, the student will be able to interpret, study, teach, and preach from the Torah. Similarly, the student will also understand the world of the Torah and the enduring message of the Torah, particularly on the centrality of mission. The ministries of teachers, pastors, evangelists and missionaries will be greatly enriched and enhanced by the diligent study of God’s mission in each book of the Torah.
The moral vision of the Torah has fundamentally shaped the laws, morality and discourse of modern society. In this way, the study of the Torah has significant implications for Christian life and ministry. It also occupies a strategic position in the history of divine revelation by its placement at the beginning of biblical canon. In this position, the Torah becomes the theological fountain from which every doctrinal stream receives its source. Understanding the Torah as the origin of God’s mission to the world naturally provides the justification for this course.
The course is committed to the study of God’s word through the diligent study of Hebrew prophets.
The study is missiologically-driven by its quest to read and understand the Torah from the perspective of mission.
The Torah is the foundational part of the Old Testament. Its message has contextual character. However, this context transcends the immediate context of the Torah to climaxes its message in the New Testament.
God’s message of salvation in the Torah has an intercultural dimension especially in its descriptions of ancient Israel’s relationship to the surrounding nations. The intercultural disposition of the course in this aspect fulfills the intercultural goal of Missional University.
The Torah has a practical core which directly reveals that the God of the Torah is a practical God with laws and instructions to guide the moral life of ancient Israel.
The Torah largely describes the experiential encounter of God and ancient Israel. This course seeks to reenact this experiential character of the Torah in the lives of the students, thus fulfilling the experiential goal of the University.
