By Toby

This week is a research week which means there are no lectures and we have time to catch up with reading and assignments. MG and I are working on New Testament assignments. Mine is abut how chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation (the letters to the 7 churches) relate to the rest of Revelation and MG's is a similar question on chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians.

This week SMBC is also hosting a conference about teaching Acts, which means two things for us:

1. We're allowed to come to a talk from Acts each morning, which is useful for getting us out of bed.


2. We get really nice morning tea.

I've noticed that the use of laptop computers has been on the increase at SMBC. I just had a look around the library and 45 out 59 students working here at the moment are using laptops.
As you might have guessed, I'm procrastinating from doing my essay. Gotta go, it's time for lunch.

We've both recently finished writing an essay about Oliver Cromwell and his impact on the religious and political life of 17th century England. Did you know that England had no monarchy for a decade? That during this time the Baptist Church came about because of Cromwell's tolerance for religious splinter groups? That ever since then England has had a constitutional monarchy instead of a monarch with absolute power?

Anyway, although church history is a really fun subject, I've noticed that it's really difficult to write history essays. The reason is because you generally have to decipher the causes and motives behind the actions of individuals and groups who are no longer alive. Generally causes and motives are a blend of an unbounded number of variables and all you've got to go on are descriptions of the events by people who weren't there and possibly a few things the people involved said or wrote that are distantly related to the topic and very specific to some particular context.

Even so, church history is still a very interesting subject, and I'm enjoying it thoroughly.