File This

Learner and the family are back in town after a week-long trip to see Mrs. Learner's family. Learner says it most definitely was a "trip" and not a "vacation," as a vacation is a trip that does not involve relatives, and this one did. The family arrived back in town yesterday, and have plans to make the most of the next week before summer Hebrew begins in June (more on that to come, I'm sure).

Last night and most of today, Learner merged all his class notes, handouts, syllabi, and papers with his existing (and extensive) paper filing system, revamping it along the way. His goal in all this is to begin creating an easy-to-use, accessible new system that incorporates all his past studies, messages, research, etc., with the plenteous material harvested over the course of this past year.

After spending a good eight hours on the project, Learner says he's liking the results - as of this afternoon, he had culled through all documents (past and present), identified what might be useful and actually used in the future, and pitched a good amount of pages that were, well, lacking in the depth department (some of his stuff goes back as much as 15 years ago when he was still learning how to study the Bible, and a few of his ideas then were, he said, a bit humorous). Thankfully, he's a good systematizer and has the spiritual gift of throwing things away, so that helps.

Having heard about his efforts, I thought I'd drop by to see his files and detail some of his categories for my purposes here. What follows (in no particular order) is a condensed version of said list:

Syllabi

Basic Study Helps

Leadership

Calling

General Theology

Systematic Theology

Covenant Theology

Confessions

OT/NT Relationship

Apologetics

Evangelicalism

Postmodernism

Dispensationalism

Humanism

New Age

Idolatry

Deism

Law

Gospels

Paul

Union with Christ

Sacraments

Parables

Miracles

Sufficiency of Scripture

Hermeneutics

Epistemology

Homiletics

Sermons

Open Theism

Women

Prayer

Fasting

Individual files for various Bible study topics

Individual files for various books of the Bible

All in all, a good amount of studied material that, with additions each semester and a little general maintenance each year, will hopefully serve Learner (as well as those he serves) in better learning, understanding, and helping others with the things of God.