Galatians Essay Example for Free

Galatians Essay Because I haven’t read the whole book reading Gorman â€Å"Galatians Ch9† is at first a bit confusing. However, I must say that the reading is very easy to read and easy to understand. Gorman used very simple terms and easy English for his reader to read and understand. Basically in this short chapter Gorman try to exegesis the whole book of Galatians in his own understanding and research. I’ve founded that there are lacks of evidence of resources, as in not much of references quote in this chapter, Gorman strong sources for his argument in this chapter would be the book Galatians itself, he kept referring back to Galatians and because of that the arguments seemed to be persuasive but at the same time lacks of backing up from others. Many of Gorman explanations in this epistle were unjustified, for example the dating of the letter and I quote on page187 â€Å"although no firm conclusion is possible within the range of years 49-55, the most likely date, in this writer’s estimations is 50-55, properly from Ephesus† It would be more convincing if Gorman could give us more evidence about the date and place of written. Over all the exegesis of the entire Galatians in this chapter was not that of rigorous at all. Gorman definitely give us a clear view on Paul’s message to the Galatians. Anyone who read this chapter will surely get a clear understanding of the gospel, not only to the Galatians but also for the churches today as well. Gorman ended the chapter well with the 10 questions for reflection, these 10 reflections questions are the issue that we are facing right now as a contemporary Christians, especially question 10, and I would like to end this review with the same question â€Å"In sum, what does this letter urge the church to believe, to hope for, and to do?† Second critical review is on an article by Martinus C. de Boer, titled: â€Å"Galatians A Commentary† from week 4 reading. To be honest I find this reading is a bit lengthy, especially the entire article is focus on the exegesis of only 6 verses. Having say that Martinus taking the time out to clearly explained the conflict between Paul and Cephas in Antioch over the issue of â€Å"The Truth of the Gospel†. I agreed with Martinus that this is not only important for Paul and the Christians in the 1st century but also to all of us today, we odd to understand the message of â€Å"the truth of the gospel† (2:5, 14). Because this is a commentary, it is clear evidence that the Martinus gave a wide range of evidence to his arguments. I also have to say that the exegesis in this article is precised, however, if it is to focus on the truth gospel of Christ, I feel that Martinus could have mention more of Paul other letters to back up the topic of the true gospel, instead of a very long exegesis around the confrontation of Paul and Cephas, I would have looked at Paul conversion passage to prove more of Paul conviction for his true gospel. Martinus translated Jews who is circumcised as â€Å"the circumcision party† page 133. I’m not sure if I would agree with Martinus here, because lacks of evidence in this statement made by Martinus, I’m not sure if this is a political view or is it direct translation from its original text? Over all from reading this article, apart from the fact that it is a long article, I’ve founded that it is very helpful for churches today to see the historical of Paul’s letter through Martinus book. Definitely an issue arises for the use of the Bible today in our own context, for example: Paul and Peter relationship. Can two Christians have disagreements that eventually lead them to different road? The final reading is from Charles H. Cosgrove â€Å"The Cross and The Spirit† chapter 3 The Logic of the Opposing Theology. Over all I find that this is a really hard piece to read, the precise and information was great, however, I feel that there are some stuffs that he could have leave out, and that he doesn’t have to go into details as such, for example Cosgrove goes on and talk about the Torah is for Life on page 90 and from there on, I’ve noticed that he kept going back to the Torah for his arguments throughout the rest of the chapter. Cosgrove make it clear to his readers about Paul wanting to hammer us about life in crucified Jesus. Nothing important to Paul than that we have life in Jesus. Cosgrove shared some light about the Christian Jews that are actually after Paul and not the Romans, and this is consistent with what I’ve learned in the unit and also other theologians. Later in the chapter Cosgrove also pin point the agitators and one again it’s consistent with the unit teaching and also others theologians, example Barclay who concluded in his book that Agitators were Christian Jews probably from Jerusalem. Mark D Nanos also suggested the same thing, so over all Cosgrove argument was very persuasive and clear evidence of a large selective of different sources. Finally, Cosgrove really trying hard to explain to his reader the opposing theology between Paul and everyone who are at the Galatians, this would certainly help us today as we read Galatians with a more clear picture of its context and understanding of where Paul and the others are coming from.

Examining Greed in The Rocking Horse Winner Essay -- Book Reviews Gree

Examining Greed in The Rocking Horse Winner In "The Rocking Horse Winner" D. H. Lawrence tells us about the traumatic downfall of an upper middle class family struggling to maintain appearances through habitual overspending. Both the parents with common jobs and "expensive tastes" (pg.646) exploit all their resources to give their family the best; however, it was only to retain their high status in the society. "The Rocking Horse Winner" depicts a common demon we all face; greed, society's need for more possessions and money often drives people to do drastic things.The magnificently decorated house had always been haunted by the unspoken phrase, "there must be more money" (pg.646). "Nobody said it aloud. Just as no one says: We are breathing! In spite of the fact that breath is coming and going all the time." (pg.647) "They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shinning modern rocking-horse, behind the smart dolls house, a voice would start whispering: There must be more mon ey!"(pg.646).The house cried with pain as it pitie...

Effects of a College Education

A college education has numerous impacts on an individual other than just a better education. Individuals who have attended college and graduated tend to be more successful in life than those who didn't. There have been studies through the years that provide evidence showing that a college education can be very beneficial to a person and have major impacts on their lives. The most comprehensive review to date on the question of the impact of college is found in Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini's book, How College Affects Students.They used over twenty-six thousand practical studies completed over a period of 50 years in order to what aspects of a person's life is affected during college. They concluded that an individual's cognitive skills and intellectual growth; changes of identity, self-concept, and self-esteem; changes in relating to others and the people around them, attitudes and values, moral development, career choice and development, economic benefits, and quality of life after college are all affected while the student attends college.The details concerning cognitive skills and intellectual growth suggest that â€Å"students make statistically significant gains during the college years on a number of dimensions of general cognitive capabilities and skills† (p. 155), including the ability to deal with conceptual complexity, formal abstract reasoning, critical thinking, the use of evidence and reason to address ill-structured problems, and both written and oral communication. Most of these benefits seem to occur during the first two years of college.Research on the net effects, or changes that can be accredited to the college experience itself, rather than other potential influences, of these outcomes suggests that college has a â€Å"net positive influence on diverse measures of critical thinking† (p. 156), reflective judgment, and intellectual flexibility, above the maturity level of individuals who didn't attend college. Perhaps â€Å"college is the one [experience] that most typically provides an overall environment where the potential for intellectual growth is maximized† (p. 156).Although the may not be dramatic, changes concerning identity, self-concept, and self-esteem during the college years consistently support a significant positive effect, are evident. The evidence tends to support generally linear gains in academic and social self-concepts, as well as â€Å"students' beliefs about themselves in such areas as their popularity in general and with the opposite sex, their leadership abilities, their social self-confidence, and their understanding of others† (p. 203). In addition, they gain in self-esteem.With the caveat that much of the research on the net effects of college on these particular outcomes is too often confounded by age and normal maturation, and absent controls for family background or other relevant characteristics, Pascarella and Terenzini concluded that â€Å"post-sec ondary educational attainment appears to be related positively to changes in students' ratings of themselves relative to their peers† (p. 204), in terms of both academic self-concept and social self-concept. Such effects, however, appear to be small, mostly indirect, and interrelated with other characteristics.As far as changes in relating to others and the world around them, Pascarella and Terenzini concluded that, â€Å"students' relational systems change during the college years,† including increases in â€Å"students' freedom from the influences of others, †¦ in non-authoritarian thinking and tolerance for other people and their views, in intellectual orientation to problem solving and their own world view in general, in the maturity of their interpersonal relations, in their personal adjustment skills and general sense of psychological well-being, and in their more globally measured levels of maturity and personal development† (p. 57). It is believed th at â€Å"the early college years may be somewhat more influential than the later ones† in their effect on these outcomes. The authors also state that â€Å"the weight of evidence therefore fairly clearly supports popular beliefs about the effects of college in helping to reduce students' authoritarianism, dogmatism, and (perhaps) ethnocentrism and in increasing their intellectual orientation, personal psychological adjustment, and sense of psychological well-being† (p. 259).One of the more ample topics concerning research on the impact of college over the decades has focused on charting changes in the values and attitudes of students in five general areas: (1) cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual; (2) educational and occupational; (3) social and political; (4) religious; and (5) sex and gender roles. Pascarella and Terenzini found that the evidence for change during the college years is both plentiful and consistent, in that â€Å"colleges, as their founders and supp orters might hope, appear to have a generally liberating influence on students' attitudes and values.Without exception, the nature and direction of the observed changes involve greater breadth, expansion, inclusiveness, complexity, and appreciation for the new and different. In all cases, the movement is toward greater individual freedom: artistic and cultural, intellectual, political, social, racial, educational, occupational, personal, and behavioral† (p. 326).The research on the net effects of college support a consistent but modest influence â€Å"above and beyond the characteristics students bring with them to college,† as well as independent of â€Å"changes that have occurred in the larger society† (p. 326) Long considered an important goal of American higher education, the character education and moral development of students has only recently gained the systematic attention of researchers.Evidence to date suggests that â€Å"college is linked with stati stically significant increases in the use of principled reasoning to judge moral issues,† and that the college experience itself has a unique positive net influence on such development and may be accentuated differentially, from one institution to another, through the student peer context. Furthermore, the key to within-college effects in fostering moral reasoning may â€Å"lie in providing a range of intellectual, cultural, and social experiences from which a range of different students might potentially benefit† (p. 66), such as certain curricular or course interventions.Conditional effects in that regard are, in particular, more positive for those of high levels of cognitive development. Nevertheless, any influence in that direction seems to be long-term and consistent, and may even be linked ultimately to â€Å"a range of principled behaviors, including resisting cheating, social activism, keeping contractual promises, and helping those in need† (p. 367). Ind ividuals may change their career paths or interests while attending college. It is clear that students frequently change their career plans during college,† and that they â€Å"become significantly more mature, knowledgeable, and focused during college in thinking about planning for a career† (pp. 487–488).In terms of net influence, one of the â€Å"most pronounced and unequivocal effects of college on career is its impact on the type of job one obtains† (p. 488), offering an advantage through occupational status and influence. Whether by socialization or certification a college education offers access to better positioned, and potentially more satisfactory, mployment. Study of the economic benefits has also attracted the attention of post-secondary education researchers, especially since this factor â€Å"probably underlies the motivation of many students who choose to attend college rather than enter the work force immediately after high school graduati on† (p. 500). In terms of net effects, it appears that a bachelor's degree â€Å"provides somewhere between a twenty and forty percent advantage in earnings over a high school diploma† and an estimate of financial return on such an investment is â€Å"somewhere between 9. and 10. 9 percent† (p. 529).As I've said before, a college education has numerous impacts on an individual other than just a better education. Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini, while not the first to do so, are two people who have studied research to find the impact of a college education. Their research actually has evidence to support the argument that a college education is a valuable thing.

Labelling Theory in Explaining Crime and Deviance - A2...

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the usefulness of labelling theory in explaining crime and deviance. (21 marks) Labelling theorists are concerned with how and why certain people and actions come to be labelled as criminal or deviant, and what effects this has on those who are labelled as such. As stated in Item A, labelling theory is focused with how individuals construct society based on their interactions with each other. Becker emphasises the significance of crime being a social construct; an action only becomes criminal or deviant once society has labelled it so, and thus crime can be argued to be a social construction. He introduced the concept of a master label, referring to the label which a person is given which†¦show more content†¦The labelling model in the context of mental illness is concerned with the power of some groups in society to label other less powerful groups in a negative way, and label them negatively accordingly. Szasz and Scheff argue that mental illness is a socially constructed concept which is used to explain strange behaviour. To test this, Rosenhan asked 8 perfectly normal researchers to get admitted into psychiatric hospitals, and once they were admitted, they behaved perfectly normally, but remained treated as if they were mentally ill. This demonstrates the difficulties which people face in attempting to get rid of a label once it has been given by others in so ciety. However, labelling theory also receives many criticisms. It tends to be deterministic, inferring that once someone has been labelled as criminal, a deviant career is inevitable, whilst also shifting blame from the individual who is committing crime. Additionally, whilst it offers a reasonable explanation as to why secondary deviance occurs, it fails to explain why primary deviance is committed in the first place, before they are labelled. An alternative explanation would be the Marxist approach, who argue that the causes of crime are not due to labelling, but due to the oppression which working class people face. They argue that capitalism is criminogenic, as the very nature of capitalism is criminal as it is based on the exploitation of the working classes. By encouraging theShow MoreRelatedSociology A2 Revision 2012 34479 Words   |  18 Pagesï » ¿ Unit 3 exam: Wednesday 13th June, am Unit 4 exam: Tuesday 19th June, pm Easter Revision: tbc A2 Syllabus: AQA Sociology GCE (new specification) Unit 3: Mass Media (SCLY3) Worth 20% of your final A Level Written paper, 1 hour 30 minutes 60 marks available Unit 4: Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods (SCLY4) Worth 30% of your final A Level Written paper, 2 hours 90 marks available Timetable Use your revision checklists to draw up a timetable for revision leading up to the exam. MakeRead MoreExplain the Strengths and Weaknesses of One or More Criminological Theories for Explaining Crime in Contemporary Britain2651 Words   |  11 Pagesweaknesses of one or more criminological theories for explaining crime in contemporary Britain Word count:1,200 Outline plan * Explain in brief the purpose of this essay. * Define the biological theory. * Evaluate Lombroso’s theory and link it to contemporary Britain. Include statistical data. * Discuss Charles Goring’s critisms of Lombroso’s theory. * Evaluate Sheldon’s somatypes theory. * Describe and evaluate the biological chromosomes theory. * State how Patria Jacobs’ studyRead MoreSociology Essay20437 Words   |  82 PagesAS Sociology Sociology Nik Jorgensen Text  © Nelson Thornes Distance Learning 2010 Illustrations  © Nelson Thornes Distance Learning 2010 All rights reserved. The copyright holders authorise ONLY users of NTDL AS Sociology to make photocopies for their own or their students’ immediate use within the teaching context. No other rights are granted without permission in writing from the publisher or under licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited, of Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street