Perhaps a little history will help here.
When I first began to teach about the Life of Messiah, there was no printed material available with Arnold’s teaching. The only resource was the recorded DVD series.
So, for my own use, I set out to create a text document that I could use when I was teaching. I began by transcribing the DVD series, and continued by editing it to suit my teaching style which is quite different from Arnold’s.
I use more of a questioning style to encourage my students to actively engage in the learning and to help them to see it for themselves. My goal is to help students to understand the Scriptures for themselves, so they can take the skills learnt in studying the Life of Messiah and apply them to other parts of the Bible. Consequently, when I teach the course, we take approximately 120 periods of just under an hour spread over about 60 weeks.
In places Arnold did not comment on text that people were asking about, so I applied his principles and sought to understand and explain those things correctly in their context, including the Jewish context.
In other places Arnold departed from his habit of relating the text to the Messiah’s life story, so I redeveloped those parts in my notes, as far as possible to include his comments while drawing them out of the unfolding story of Messiah’s life. Perhaps the most notable example of this is in my treatment of the so called Upper Room Discourse where Arnold simply lists “the promises and admonitions of the King”. Another similar example is the treatment of the Sermon on the Mount, which I have shown to Arnold at Camp to make sure I was on the right track.
Other people who knew that I was teaching the Life of Messiah began to ask me what materials I was using. And I began to send them copies of my work for their own use. Eventually I put the files on a web server where they can be downloaded and also made them available for printing on demand.
These notes are still very much a work in progress. There are many typographical errors and a few places where I would now draw different conclusions.
In my current teaching, I am reworking the notes in a mind map format where I can better see the flow of thought. As I do this I am simplifying some parts and improving the flow of thought in others. I also find it useful to use the mind map program on my computer in my presentation of the lessons instead of using printed notes as before. One day I hope to be able to make these revisions available as an update to my notes.
My prayer is that God, Who inspired the gospel writers, will give you understanding of what they wrote, and that you will find these notes useful, both in your own understanding of the Life of the Messiah, and in your teaching of it to others..
Shalom shalom,
Eric
