Gottschalk Gazette October 2017

News from Phil & Linda Gottschalk

Teaching at Tyndale Theological Seminary

equipping leaders to reach Europe and the world with the Gospel

We train the trainers!  2 Tim. 2:2

Linda Teaching a New Course

Linda is teaching a new course this Fall semester at Tyndale, “Reading Luther.” In a homage to the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, Linda has devised a course in which she and her students read through sections of selected works by Martin Luther. 

Linda has also given an introductory lecture to the course and introduces each section of the reading for the day.  She has made a compendium of selected readings from works of Martin Luther to emphasize some of his central teachings. 

She has designed the course so that students can get one or more credits for the course, which means that they can do more reading and write papers to get up to three credits for the course.  This is helpful to students who would rather just read along or who would rather get more credits, that is to take the course as a full-fledged elective course.

Library Reorganization Continues!

Linda’s work with the library reorganization goes on.  The International Baptist Theological Studies Centre will give Tyndale a lot of shelving which Tyndale can use to build the collection.  IBTSC has already brought some shelving. More shelving needs to be brought from the old IBTSC building in Amsterdam to Tyndale.  Once the shelving is all at Tyndale, Linda and volunteers must assemble the shelving and reorganize the entire collection to make room for further acquisitions.

Helping Students Grow Spiritually

Linda now has two women students whom she guides in spiritual formation.  One student had returned home due to issues in her church, which meant that now Linda has only two students to guide.

This spiritual formation is more than simply guiding students through a textbook for the course.  It involves also meeting with students at least once a month besides their monthly group meeting.

Linda is an extremely caring mentor.  (You all know that!)  She goes well beyond what is required to help the women she mentors.  It is a privilege and a serious task to try to help someone grow spiritually. 

No one is a disembodied soul. So, all other areas of one’s being are impacted by the soul.  Linda has been working with her mentees to help them in all areas.  She helps with academic issues.  She listens empathically to issues related to health and relationships.  The goal is to help each person to grow as much as possible spiritually as well as academically in any given year.

Phil’s Sabbatical

As you read last time, Phil’s sabbatical began with his trip to work in the Moria Detention Centre on Lesvos, Greece.  His trip was part of researching the book he has been writing over the past two years about why we as Christians should care for and help refugees.

immigrants to assimilate into our countries.  With the help of a good friend from our church here in the Netherlands, Sue Kirby, who was an editor, Phil has thoroughly revised his book and turned it in to a publisher.

It has been a long labor of love to bring the book to this point.  The book is now in the hands of an editor who represents the publisher.  There is hope it will eventually see the light of day as a printed book.

At the same time, there may be further revisions.  For this reason, Phil has no big plans for his sabbatical.

However, at the same time he is working on one writing project, an article for a festschrift (an anthology of articles to celebrate the retirement of his doctoral mentor). 

William Desmond

He also continues to work on revising translations of articles with the help of his friend Igor Kobyakovskiy. These articles are a part of his book on Nicholas O. Lossky, a Russian religious philosopher.

Nicholas O. Lossk

Besides these projects, Phil must grade the assignments and papers of students who took “Introduction to Islamic Philosophy” at Zaporozhye Biblical Seminary in Ukraine last May.

As well, Phil needs to revise a course, “Communicating Christ to Postmoderns”, that will run in the Spring semester.  He will drop one thinker and add another.  He also needs to change the course so that students feel that they have had more input in how to answer Postmoderns.

Thanks for your prayers, support and gifts! 

Phil & Linda Gottschalk