Thirdmill Online Courses

BUILDING BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

Course Description

Faithful Christians have always recognized the importance of progress in biblical history, especially as it relates to humanity's fall into sin and to God's redemptive work. Biblical theology is a specialized discipline that studies this progress by tracing the development of theological ideas between historical epochs. Used rightly, it is a helpful tool for interpreting and applying the Bible. This course explains the meaning of biblical theology, examines the way it is developed, defends its legitimacy, and gives examples from both the Old and New Testaments of its use. It is based on the lecture series, Building Biblical Theology, produced by Third Millennium Ministries and presented by Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr.

Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr.

Dr. Pratt is the president and founder of Third Millennium Ministries. He received his M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary and his Th.D. in Old Testament Studies from Harvard University. He formerly chaired the Old Testament department at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. Then he transitioned in 2006 from his teaching role at RTS to work full time with Third Millennium Ministries. Among his published books are: Every Thought Captive, Pray With Your Eyes Open, He Gave Us Stories, and Designed For Dignity.

Goals and Objectives

GOALS

In this course, we would like to accomplish the following:

1. We hope you will make use of all the instructional elements of the course to understand the meaning of Biblical Theology and how it is studied, to consider examples of how it can be beneficial, and to grasp the overall patterns and themes of Scripture, especially the theme of the kingdom of God.

2. We hope you will develop a greater appreciation for Biblical Theology, and that you will become aware of its benefits.

3. We hope you make changes in your life as a response to the teachings of this course. It should change the way you study the Scriptures by making use of Biblical Theology.

OBJECTIVES

When you have done the following, it will show that the goals are met:

1. Obtain satisfactory grades on the tests, demonstrating that you can do the following: a) identify the meaning and importance of Biblical Theology, distinguishing it from Systematic Theology, b) explain the process of studying Biblical Theology, c) analyze some examples of how Biblical Theology can help us understand passages from the Old Testament and New Testament, d) identify key themes that lie behind the historical development of theology throughout the Scriptures.

2. Complete the study guides and other assignments of the course, expressing your attitude regarding Biblical Theology, and showing how you use Biblical Theology to interpret the Scriptures.

Thematic Outline of the Course

1. What is Biblical Theology?
2. Synchronic Synthesis of the Old Testament
3. Diachronic Developments in the Old Testament
4. Contours of New Testament Biblical Theology

Explanation of Assignments

The Multimedia Lessons

1. Study the lessons, watching the video, listening to the audio, or reading the text.
2. Complete the study guides for each lesson. These study guides will prepare you for the online quizzes and help you apply the teachings of the lesson to your own life. (For those students associated with a particular institution wishing to track the completion of the completion of the Study Guides, a drop box has been provided at the end of the course.)
3. Take the online quizzes on each section of the lessons. The quizzes may be taken as many times as you want, but you must wait five days between each attempt, and the official grade will be from the first attempt.
4. Optional: We recommend that you look through the glossaries and use the learning games to become familiar with special names and technical terms used in the lessons. 
5. Take the cumulative test for each complete lesson. You may take the test again as many times as you want for review, but you must wait five days between each attempt, and the official grade is from the first attempt.
6. When you have finished all the lessons on the multimedia lectures, take the final exam on the lectures.

Other Activities

1. Complete the supplementary lessons for each lesson. These lessons give you additional background information and provide other learning aids related to the lessons. You may repeat these lessons as many times as you want, and the official grade will be the highest score out of all the attempts.
2. Complete the questionnaires for the lessons to help assimilate the teachings and apply them to your own life. These are not quizzes. The answers are more subjective. The grade is for completing the assignment.
3.  There is a final lesson based on additional readings. These are optional readings designed to supplement the main lesson materials. The student should do the reading, complete the study guides, and take the corresponding quizzes and cumulative test based on the reading. These are graded as extra credit. (For those students associated with a particular institution wishing to track the completion of the Reading Study Guides, a drop box has been provided at the end of the course.)

We recommend that you work on these reading assignments and quizzes during the entire course, instead of waiting until you finish all the lessons based on the video lectures. For each lesson, do the percentage of the work on them that corresponds to the number of lessons in the course. 

Optional Activities

Some institutions may require you to do one or more of the following optional assignments. If so, read the instructions in lesson 1 and follow the specific guidelines given in the instructions for each lesson.

1. The Written project
2. Essay Questions
3. Journal Questions 
4. Optional Additional Reading

Grades

The final grade will be calculated as follows:

1) The quizzes on the lectures are each worth 10 points.
2) Each cumulative test is worth 30 points.
3) Each supplementary lesson is worth 10 points.
4) Each questionnaire is worth 10 points.
5) The final exam on the lectures is worth 100 points.
6) Each quiz on the reading assignments is worth 10 points (extra credit).
7) The cumulative test on the additional reading is worth 30 points (extra credit).

The final grade of the course will be calculated by adding the corresponding percentages of all assignments and tests, making a total of 100% possible.

A total course score above 70% is considered passing.

Greek and Hebrew

Some lessons in our courses make reference to words in Greek or Hebrew. If you have not studied these languages, you might want to at least become familiar with the alphabets.

For the Greek alphabet, see:
https://www.billmounce.com/greekalphabet/greek-alphabet

For the Hebrew alphabet, see: 
http://hebrew.billmounce.com/BasicsBiblicalHebrew-01.pdf