The One Who Draws Them All

I teach Bible at a Christian school, so I am something of an authority on how Christian teachers decorate classrooms.

I really don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say that what passes for Christianity in the art that most Christians surround themselves with has all the perception and Biblical depth of Thomas Kincaid meets Precious Moments.

If the use of art were the measurement, Christianity is about a God who gives us the occasional upbeat slogan. Sort of a Mountain Dew….spirituality speaking.

I moved to a larger classroom this year, and I had to do something with it, so I decorated with new posters. I dropped some semi-serious coin on this, because I knew what I wanted.

A lot of Jesus on the cross.

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Free Booklet on the Historical Study of Jesus

The Gospel Coalition has a free booklet by Craig Blomberg called Jesus of Nazareth: How Historians Can Know Him and Why It Matters.

It’s available as a pdf or printer friendly. This is an original resource designed for use with students who need basics in a short, readable form. Less than 30 pages. An outstanding resource.

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Recommended: The Center for Public Christianity

I’m at the Ravi Zacharias Summer Institute here at Wheaton College this week, and one of our teachers has been Dr. John Dickson, an apologist and historian from Australia. His lectures on the historical Jesus have been wonderful. He’s a tremendous energetic and interesting scholar and communicator.

Dr. Dickson is also one of the directors at The Center for Public Christianity, an apologetics think tank and equipping ministry in Australia. He directed us several times to their web site and I was particularly impressed with the library articles on Christianity. There’s a lot of great information here that will be of interest to readers of JSS.

The CPX (as they call themselves) also produce a vodcast/podcast, as well as a regular e-newsletter. I’d add both to my mailbox.

One sad note: Dr. Dickson has produced an amazing DVD resource called “The Christ Files.” We’ve seen many of the clips here at the conference. Unfortunately, it’s not available in the US or in a format that will play in U.S. DVD players. Hopefully, that will be remedied. It’s outstanding and I could certainly use it with my students.

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