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Your final paper is a three-page, double-spaced pastoral reflection on ONE gospel.
A pastoral reflection is a thoughtful response to a real-life issue in the church community. You think non-judgmentally about that issue and what can be done to address it, using a resource from the Christian tradition. Your resource will be ONE of the gospels.
You can come at this paper from one of two directions:
Direction #1
From a current issue
Murphy, GAPH ch. 8 |
Direction #2
From the gospel
Murphy, GAPH end of chs. 3–6, +
video lectures and your notes from class sessions |
Pick an issue that people in your church community are struggling with.
Find a similar issue that one of our gospel authors was facing.
Identify how that gospel author responded to the issue in his teaching about Jesus’ ministry.
Figure out how that response might speak to your church community today.
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Pick an issue that one of our gospel authors was facing.
Identify how that gospel author responded to the issue in his teaching about Jesus’ ministry.
Find a similar issue that people in your church community are struggling with.
Figure out how the evangelist’s response might speak to your church community today.
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When you sit down to write your paper, break it down into the following parts:
- Identify the pastoral issue that your gospel author is facing, and describe what his message or response is to that issue. The response should be a key theological or Christological theme that the author stresses in at least a couple of places in the text. Be sure to anchor your description of the message or theme with a couple of those examples from the text (don’t quote the text at any length, but do include chapter:verse references in parentheses after the description as proof of what you’re saying, like this — Matt 25:31-46). Write in complete sentences, and spend about a page on this.
- Identify and describe a contemporary pastoral issue that is similar to one of the issues you discussed in your gospel. When you describe the current issue, try to narrate it as neutrally (without judgment) as possible. Spend about ¾ of a page on this issue.
- Finally, apply the evangelist’s message then to your situation now. What is similar between the situations? What is different? How do you apply the evangelist’s response to our situation—that is, what would he say if he were here today? Write about a page on this
Format
This is a 3-page paper, typed and double-spaced. Use one-inch margins, add page numbers, and write in complete sentences (no lists, outlines or subtitles). Your references to gospel passages can take this simple form in parentheses at the end of a phrase or sentence (Matt 5:32-35). On the first page (only), in the top left corner, please type the following identifying information:
Your Name
Your Parish, your email address
ILM New Testament Course, W25
Dr. Murphy
Date you finish the paper |
Your paper should look like this:
We will meet on Wednesday, February 5, one week after our last class on John’s gospel, to discuss your paper. Please prepare a sketch of your questions, an outline, or even a draft of your paper for that night, so you can ask specific questions that will help you. The paper is due the following Tuesday.
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Discussion of paper: |
Wednesday, February 5 (one week after our last class night) |
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Paper due: |
Tuesday, February 11 (send to ILMstudents@dsj.org, not to the professor) |
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Email Subject Line: |
Taro, Robert_New Testament, Final Paper |
The ILM staff will give your papers back electronically, with the professor’s comments, in March or April.
Here are some additional resources you can use when writing the paper:
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- a markup of a paper showing some of the formatting requirements
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- a template you can use for your paper (Microsoft Word)
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- videos to show you how to use Word, Apple's Pages, or Google Docs
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