After I retired in 2012, I decided I would do something I had wanted to do all my adult life: get a college degree. I had been attending one or two courses a semester for several years, changed majors three times over the years and had accumulated about sixty credit hours already. I had always taken courses that interested me, not toward any particular major.

After I decided to finish my degree in Multimedia and Web Design, in planning my last semester, I had to take an elective that fit into one or two categories (it was sociology or english or something like that.)  Having dealt with societal issues for all of my adult career, I knew that something in Sociology was definitely not in the cards for me.

Paging through the course catalog for something that would fit into my needed course load, I came across a class entitled “The Bible as Literature.” I was definitely intrigued by that. I’ve been a lifelong Lutheran and attended all eight primary years at a Lutheran school so we studied the stories of the Bible, memorized Bible passages, all the commandments and creeds that were associated with the Lutheran religion and I’d listened to countless hours of sermons.

But I’d never studied the Bible as literature or history so I decided to take this class. It was taught from the Jewish Study Bible. Intriguing indeed. And, of course, it was only the Old Testament.

I took this course and we were assigned to read a chapter or two of the Old Testament each week and then write a paper on anything from that chapter that interested us. I loved that course.  I tell many people this class was probably one of the best classes I’d ever taken. The instructor made the class very interesting. She incorporated into her lectures videos from the videos series “Walking the Bible” which took students through the places that the Bible spoke of. To be able actually see the places that had been written about so many years ago, to me was fascinating.

I know the Bible contains God’s word and gives us the path by which we should live. But it is so much more. I came across an online college, Hillsdale College, which offers free classes including history, politics and religion. So far, I’ve taken (and enjoyed) ‘The David Story, Shepard, Father, King” (on 1st and 2nd Samuel) and “The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives”  and I’m currently working on “The Exodus Story.” I’ve also been reading “Women of the Bible, a Year-long Study of 52 Remarkable Women” from Guideposts Publishing.

I can’t say that all these avenues of studying the Bible have enhanced my faith, but it definitely hasn’t hurt it.

And, by the way, the 44th annual Melodrama at Our Savior wrapped on Sunday. This year my character was Mrs. Betty Busy, the nasty church Finance Director. The Finance Director keeps threatening the minister that he will be fired if he doesn’t get rid of his incompetent secretary who keeps making bumbling mistakes in the church bulletin.