Research Papers

I just got a swift kick in the teeth today figuring out that in the next 4 weeks I have 4 research papers due. If I told people I wanted to finish off Moody Bible Institute with a bang, I apparently wasn't lying. It just so happened to work out that my final semester here would be packed with the 4 classes that have the major senior papers. One of my classes, on top of a research paper on the cessation of the sign gifts, is a doctrinal statement regarding where I stand on all of the church doctrines (oh that would be paper #5 ;-( ).
It's times like these where I reminisce on the days of old in high school where IF we had a research paper, it would be stretched out in a time period of a whole year where we would practically write the paper together as a class in specific sectional assignments of the paper. Oh yea, there would only be one "research" paper per year, not per class. There is a downside to the high school research papers though. I hated doing them because of all of the note cards that the teacher MADE you do. I'll be honest, coming to college and writing papers as if it's my business, I did the whole note card thing once for part of one paper before I realized that that was the WORST idea ever.
In college, I've written papers in the 20's of pages regarding topics that I actually got to pick and enjoy writing. For example: "Contemporary vs. Traditional Worship in Church..." Talk about a hidden war splitting the church today.
Or what about my paper on "Swearing and Profanity in the Dorms" which rebuked the fowl language in the dorms at Calvin College a CHRISTIAN school. That was a paper that stirred some personal conviction, focusing on Matt 12:36 which says, "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken..."
I also did a 20+ page paper this last year on Behavioral Genetics and It's infiltration into the church. This paper focused on the effect that scientific study regarding "sin genes" is having on the church and positions that the church is taking on certain subjects. I'm rather disturbed in the fact that the church is growing more lenient on certain sins because of so-called "scientific discovery." For example, "Don't judge him, alcoholism runs in his family..." or "He has the gene for homosexuality, we shouldn't try to have him fight something that he can't win because it's entrained in his DNA makeup!" I have news for you. Why should it surprise us that science is finding what the Bible has told us for over 2000 years that OUR FLESH IS SINFUL! Now we have proof, scientific proof, that we are fighting an earthly and spiritual battle with our own flesh that is SINFUL! Doesn't take a rocket scientologist to put 2 and 2 together on that one.
Anyways... I have 4 more research papers to go for this last semester of my 5th year of my BS in Biblical Studies. I start tonight on a paper with a subject yet to be determined.
I owe a lot to a man named Carl Arkema for my paper writing passion. I didn't have it until my senior year of high school where this man, my government teacher, took me aside and said, "son, you don't know how to write a paper..." and then proceeded the rest of that year to work with me to write a paper. God put this man in my life to help me out with that which, I'll tell ya, really has made being a Biblical Literature and Biblical studies major a lot easier! God bless you Carl Arkema and God bless all of you few people who actually read my blog.

Moellerd