Tips and Hints

Systematic Theology (Part 2), SYSTH4453

Tips and Hints

Need a little help?

Clipart of books; Actual size=248 pixels wide

HOW TO AVOID PANIC WHEN STUDYING FOR A SEMINARY EXAM

The first time a new seminary student realizes how very different graduate school is from college or university, it is usually during the first test of the term. Remember? As you stared at the intimidating list of questions, a few questions of your own started popping into your head, such as, "What happened to multiple choice?" "I never heard him mention this in the lecture"; or "Who is Xavier and Oecolampadius anyway?" And what was that strange theological vocabulary that Dr. Driver was using in his lecture?" "My mind is going blank!" "What am I doing here?" "Is there a volume button on my brain?" "The cacophony of contemporary Christian music sounds is so loud in my mind I can't think!" "Is it too late to drop this class?" "Maybe if I pass out with this anxiety attack . . . . Get me out'ta [sic] here, somebody, please!"

All of a sudden, and little too late, reality struck. Now what? Drop out of seminary? Change your name and move to Zimbabwe? No, all you need is a crash course in how to study. Here are a few tips from veteran students who've taken exams and lived to tell about it.

Some Time-proven Axioms
1. Most important--don't wait to study at the last minute. Your short-term memory can hold only so much. Once it hits maximum overload, you start losing information fast.
2. Use class time as study time. This doesn't mean study for New Testament Survey in your Systematic Theology class. It means pay attention to the Systematic Theology lecture in that class and take good notes, while devoting yourself fully to New Testament Survey during that class segment. If you discipline your brain to focus on the lecture, studying will be review, not learning new material.
3. Learn to pick out what's most important. If your professor writes something on the board, emphasizes a name or concept, or underlines it three times, those are clues that you may see it again somewhere on a test. Often he will tell you overtly the important exam material.
4. Highlight information in your textbook that clarifies material discussed in the class lectures; also, read carefully all chapter summaries--if you don't understand the concepts, go back in the text and read for details that will assist your comprehension. This will clarify the lecture material.
5. Some people type or rewrite their notes after class. The benefits are two-fold: you can take more notes by abbreviating longer words, and rewriting is good review. In this class, your professor provided most of the lecture material in printed form via the web before the scheduled lecture; so, you simply need to highlight the material emphasized in class and write down only those things not mentioned in the printed lecture material. This makes note taking a lot easier and allows you to focus aurally more on what the professor is saying. This aids memory retention.

Study Mnemonically to Aid Short-term Memory
To remember lists of facts, "peg" them in a familiar place in your mind. For example, if you have to memorize 5 historical figures, first picture your house or apartment in your mind. Pick out 5 pieces of "furniture" in your kitchen. Open the refrigerator and picture Martin Luther eating his "Diet of Worms" off the first shelf; on the stove, John Huss is roasting marshmallows over the burner; in the sink Frederick II and Crusaders sail across the dishwater on the Fifth Crusade of A.D. 1229; Bloody Mary is chopping the tops off red peppers on the table with a big knife; and John Calvin is leaning against the counter reading a Betty Crocker recipe titled Institutes of the Christian Religion. The more unusual the mind pictures the better! lf the list is longer, move on to the living room. With vivid imagination like that, you can't forget those important facts and details!

Studying with Others: a warning
Do not bother to quiz each other as a team effort until each one has mastered personally all of the study material; otherwise, it is a waste of time. Do this only as a final preparation, if at all.

Take this "True or False" quiz on test preparation methods:
1. A good way to study, is to reread all your reading assignments.
2. Making flash cards helps you remember names and dates.
3. It is better to wait till the last minute to study so the information is fresh on your brain.
4. Comparing notes with someone else in your class will help you fill in facts you might have missed during a lecture.
5. It is easiest to study in a place that is free from distractions.
6. The best place to study is in your bed.
7. Worrying about a test heightens your thinking power.
8. Eating a big lunch or breakfast gives you the energy you need to get through a test.
9. Late-night cramming and caffeine cola slamming are the only ways to get through a big test.
10. Writing test dates on your calendar helps you prepare ahead.

Answers:
1. False. You should only need to read your assignments once. Highlight important information and review only that. Rereading wastes precious study time.
2. True
3. False. This kind of cramming makes fact-learning obsolete when your mind goes blank. The only way to have good, consistent memory recall is to review several times over several days.
4. True
5. True
6. False. People who make a habit of studying in bed do more
studying of the inside of their eyelids than their homework.
7. False. Worrying creates anxiety, and anxiety makes the brain freeze up. Give your worries to the Lord. Praying before every, test reminds you that God is in control.
8. False. How do you feel after Thanksgiving dinner? Like sleeping, usually. Eating big before a test will make you feel sluggish and apathetic. However. not eating will disturb everyone else with your loud stomach rumblings! The ideal is to eat lightly.
9. False. That is the technique of a desperate person who
procrastinated too long. Also, the caffeine is often wearing off during a test, making you feel jittery and exhausted.
10. True

DO YOU EXPERIENCE FEAR WHEN SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH OTHERS?
A major goal of this course is to help the theological student have a better comprehension of the gospel and how to share more effectively the content of that good news.
John Benton relates a clear example of HOW TO POINT THE WAY FOR SOMEONE "COMING TO FAITH IN CHRIST":
[Note: This brief work presents a straight-forward summary of the gospel for those who may be considering the Christian faith for the first time. Bible references are given throughout to encourage the reader to search the pages of Scripture and see for himself the message of Jesus Christ. This is particularly comforting today when many so-called gospel presentations fall far short to the apostolical kerygma and the strong theocentric emphasis as seen in the recovery of the gospel during the Protestant Reformation.
John Benton received a science doctorate from the University of Sussex and is the pastor of Chertsey Street Baptist Church, Guilford in Surrey. He is married and has two sons.]

The message of the Bible starts with God. What is God like?
God is the Creator of the World and of Every Person in it.
God rules his creation and everything that happens is decided by him (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:16 ). Because God made us, we are his property and he has rights over us (Psalm 115:3; Proverbs 16:33; Romans 9:19-21).

Though God made all creatures, only man was made a spiritual being as well as a physical body. Originally man was made perfect in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), being closely related to God as his father and enjoying deep friendship with him. But the first man spoiled this by rebelling against God. By his action the whole human race has fallen under God's condemnation (Genesis 3: 11-12,; Romans 5: 18).

God is invisible to our eyes but sees and knows all things (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 4: 13). Without our realizing it, God is in every place, and there is nothing we can hide from him. He even sees into our minds and knows us better than we know ourselves.

God is Holy.
God's holiness means that God is good in the highest possible sense. He differs from us in his absolute moral perfection. God is pure and he hates all evil. The Bible says that God's holiness is light in which there is no darkness at all. He is therefore to be held in respect and fear.

God is Triune.
We often have to admit that we do not understand ourselves, and we ought to realize that we will never understand everything about the great God who made US. God's word, the Bible, tells us many things about God which we find above our understanding. It tells us that there is only one God, but there are three persons who are God. They are the Father, the Son Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Each of them is God, equal in power and glory, yet there are not three Gods but only one.

God is Love.
We usually love the people who love us. But the love of God is far greater than that kind of love. Every day God shows love and does good to people who are his bitter enemies (Isaiah 6:3; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 1:5. 2. Matthew 28:19;John 5:18; Acts 5:3-4. 3. Matthew 5:45; John 3:16).

What Sin Is [NOT WHAT "IS" "IS"!]
God, who made men, has given them a law by which
to live. This law is for our own good. It can be
summed up like this:
1. We may worship no one else but the true God.
2. We should not have wrong thoughts about God, and should only worship him as taught in the Bible.
3. We must not use the name of God thoughtlessly or as a swear word.
4. We must keep Sunday as a special day set apart for God, and complete our work on the other six days of the week.
5. We must respect and love our parents and obey them.
6. We must not murder or have hateful thoughts about others. 7. We must not commit adultery, with our bodies or in our minds.
8. We must not steal.
9. We must not tell lies.
10. We must not be jealous of other people's possessions (Exodus 20: 1-17; Matthew 5:21-3 2).

Sin is the breaking of this law (1 John 3:4).
There is nothing bad in the law and anything that is good does not break this law (Romans 7:12). Jesus said that the two great principles on which the law is built are these: "You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind: and love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27-28; Mark 12:30-31).

The Law and Ourselves
Now as we read this law we realize two things. First,our conscience tells us that the law is right and good. But second, we realize that none of us has kept the law and, if we are honest, we do not even want to keep it. Why? God says it is because we are sinners. Since the first man's rebellion against God, our nature is to love to do those things which break God's law (Romans 3:23; Romans 3:10-12; Ecclesiastes 7:20).

When we break God's law we insult him, we spit in his face. God is not hard. God is not malicious. God is "slow to anger" (Psalm 103:8). But our sinful hearts and the evil things we do are so serious that God's anger ought to make us afraid. God will punish all sin (Exodus 34:6-7; Psalm 7:11; Romans 1:18).

The fact that God is angry with men and women is the chief explanation for the present state of the world. But further, unless his anger can be turned aside, after we die we will be sent to hell and experience the wrath of God for ever (Matthew25:3 1-46; Revelation 20:11-15). "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).

The Work of Jesus Christ
All people are under God's curse because of their sin. But God has not left it there. He has done a very remarkable thing (Ephesians, 2:4). God the Son became a man. He did not cease to be what he had always been-God. But he became what he was not before-a man. At the beginning of the first century he was born in the town of Bethlehem in Israel and named Jesus. He worked most of his life as a carpenter in the town of Nazareth (John 1: 1-14). As a man He was not different from any other man except for one thing, he was not a sinner. He did no sin. Jesus fully kept the law of God in every detail (Romans 8:3; 2 Peter 2:22).

At about the age of thirty, three years before he was crucified at Jerusalem, Jesus began going about telling people to believe in him as the Son of God and follow him. During this time he did many miracles, so that people could see that His claim to be God the Son was true. Why did Jesus urge people to believe in him? Because God had a plan in all this to save people, to rescue people from the awful consequences of their sin. "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:3 6). Jesus Christ in the Sinner's Place
A substitute is a person who takes the place of another person. The very heart of the Christian gospel is that Jesus was a substitute.

What do we mean?
We have seen that the Bible teaches that all sin will be punished. There is no sin, small or great, which God will pass over. Every sin must be paid for (Romans 6:23; Genesis 18:25; Romans 12:19).

But God has ordained two places where sin is finally punished. One is hell. The other is the cross of Jesus Christ. Hell is where finite people suffer eternally the punishment for their own sin. The cross is where the infinite God-man, Jesus Christ, suffered 'in history for sins which were not his own. He suffered for the sins of others (Mark 9:43-48; Isaiah 53:4-12; 1 John 4:10). "For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh" (1 Peter 3: 18).

The pain which Jesus endured on the cross was far more than that of a violent death. He suffered the wrath of God as he bore the penalty for sin in full (Matthew 27:46). Jesus was the God-appointed substitute. He took the punishment due to others, so taking away their sin.

He did not die for everybody in the sense that He purchased everyone's redemption and, therefore, insured each one of eternal life. He died in the place of particular individuals. Which individuals? Anyone who believes in Him. He died in the place of all who in every age trust in Him, Jesus said: "I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd gives his fife for the sheep ... My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:11-27; Romans 8:28-32).

Right Standing with God
Jesus died on the cross and was taken down and buried. But three days later he was alive. God had raised him from the dead, never to die again (John 20:1-23 ; Acts 2:24-3 2; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8). This was God's proof that the guilt which Jesus bore for others had been fully taken away. It was God's way of showing that Jesus really had delivered people from the penalty of sin.
"God raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God" (1 Peter 1:21).

Jesus died for those who were in God's love and plan united to Him from eternity past (Ephesians 1:3-14). It is only, however, when a sinner trusts Christ for the forgiveness of his sins that union with Christ becomes a fact in his experience. The Christian gospel is that God treats believing sinners as though they had personally obeyed and suffered all that Jesus obeyed and suffered, because they are united to Him. God dealt with Jesus on account of what we deserved, and he deals with us on account of what Christ deserves.

The believer must therefore say:
Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die, Another's life, Another's death, I trust my whole eternity. The sins of Christ's people have been paid for and forgiven, and the perfect obedience of Christ positively guarantees their acceptance with God (2 Corinthians 5:2 1; Philippians 3:9). This is how it is that people are put right with God.

How Can I Be Saved?
'Will I be accepted by God if I try to live a good life?' No. (Isaiah 64:6).
'Will I be saved if I promise God I'll do better? No.
'How can I be saved then? There is only one way to be saved (Acts 4: 12). That is by turning from your sins and receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior (Acts 16:31).
Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6. 2. Matthew 11:28). The Bible teaches us some most wonderful things, but perhaps one of the most wonderful is the fact that ordinary men and women may have their sins forgiven by God. The door of salvation stands wide open. The Lord Jesus Christ says: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

A person whose sins have been forgiven by God, and who therefore knows and obeys Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and Friend is called a Christian. Perhaps you have some questions about becoming a Christian. In the remainder of this booklet we will consider some common questions.

Is there a cost involved in becoming a Christian?
We cannot buy forgiveness of sins. it is a free gift of God. But if you become a Christian it means that in the future Christ's will must rule your life. He will tell you to give up some things which you have done all your life. He will tell you to do other things which you have never done before. God's word is the rule of life for Christians. People may laugh at you for being a Christian. Perhaps you will find opposition from your friends or even from members of your family. All this is not easy to bear. Some of it is very hard. But it is the cost of being a friend and follower of Jesus Christ (Luke 14:25-35).

How do I know that Christ will accept me?
"Do I have to do anything before I can ask God to save me?" NO.
"Is it necessary that I feel God's presence in a special way before I can ask him to save me?" NO.
"Am I too sinful to be saved?" NO.
The answer to these questions and all questions like them is that Christ is ready to receive anybody. Who ever you are, whatever you have done, whatever you feel, Jesus 'invites you, just as you are, to come to him and be saved (Acts 17:30; 1 John 3:23). You do not have to come to Christ pretending that you are a better person than you really are. Remember, Jesus knows you better than you know yourself, and he has said: "Him that comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:37). In becoming a Christian a person must repent of his sm and believe and trust in Jesus Christ to save him.

What does it mean to repent of sin?
Without Christ we are all sinful people and are always doing and thinking things which make God angry. We willingly go the way of sin. To repent is to turn round and go the other way. It means to hate sin and to seek to finish with it so as to please God (Ezekiel 14:6; Acts 26:20).

What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ?
You must believe that God sent his Son into the world for the purpose which he has declared: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). Put your trust in him to save you. Depend on him alone. How do you know if you have put your trust in him? When you trust a person, you listen to him and do what he says. It is the same when we trust Jesus (Acts 15: 11; 2 Timothy 1:12).

I feel too weak to repent and trust Jesus; I would give up too easily; what can I do? None of us by ourselves has the strength and willpower to repent and believe. We are unable to do these things. We are all weak. But God is all-powerful. We must turn from our sin, but we must ask God to make us truly turn from it. We must put our trust in Christ, but ask God to make it real trust.

It is God who enables us to repent and believe.
"By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). When we become Christians we are not only forgiven, we are in an entirely new and permanent relationship to God. We are adopted into God's family. He is then our heavenly Father. And God the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us. The Spirit gives us new desires to live for Jesus Christ. The Christian knows love for Christ and a feeling of debt that can never be repaid. The Almighty Holy Spirit is at work within the Christian and He is committed to bringing him safe to heaven (Romans 8:14-17; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Philippians 2,:12-13; Philippians 1:6).

The Christian is able to say:
From Him who loves me now so well
What power my soul can sever,
Shall life, or death, or earth, or hell ?
No; I am His forever!

Can anyone else speak to God for me?
Other people can pray for you, but no one else can make you a Christian. Becoming a Christian, being saved, is something between you and Jesus Christ. It has nothing directly to do with anyone else. Are you .sorry for your sin and do you want to finish with it ruling your life? Do you want to be saved from the judgement to come? Do you want to know Christ as your Friend and Lord? Then God's word to you is: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isaiah 55:6-7). You should find a place where you can be alone, and there seek God in prayer.

What shall I say when I pray?
God is not interested in fine words or speeches. But he will listen to anyone who is sincerely wanting to speak to him, whatever words are used. As you pray you should:
Confess your sins to God.
Confess that these sins are evil in God's sight and you deserve to be sent to hell for them.
Tell God that you have no power to save yourself.
Ask the Lord Jesus to help you repent and believe. Ask him to save you.
Tell Jesus that you want him as the Lord of your life.
Then trust God to hear and answer your prayers because of Jesus Christ, according to his promises in the Bible.
"Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Jesus spoke of a man praying for forgiveness of sin: "The tax-collector standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house right with God" (Luke 18:13-14).

What should I do next?
There are two important things you should do.

First, if you do not have a Bible you must get one and begin to read it. You could start by reading John's Gospel (John 20:30-31). John God is the author of the whole Bible. The Lord Jesus always speaks to his people as they read it. Second, as soon as possible, you must go and tell a Christian friend what you have done. If you have no friends who are Christians you should try to find a church which believes the Bible and tell people there. It is very important that you find Christian friends as soon as possible. You will recognize them because they love Christ and trust him, and obey his word, the Bible.
'Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is no other" (Isaiah 45:22).

John Benton, "Coming to Faith in Christ," Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977.

General Study Tips

No sweat with the weekly quizzes covering the test readings! The 10 short answer questions on each test will cover material obvious to the reader -- areas of theological study that the author of the text intended to convey clearly. There are no "trick" questions. As a general rule, go for your first response to each question.
Most are in a true and false format.

Each exam will have a variety of matching (with no widows), brief true or false questions, listing, and short essay. An hour or less will suffice for taking each of the four exams.
Your professor tests you during each of the four sectional exams from the material discussed in class. Print the lecture material each week from this web site or store the digital data on your personal computer. Your professor will tip you off by focusing more intently on certain areas in the lecture material. Mark these with a highlight marker and review them repetitiously well in advance of the exam.