Learning from Carmen Imes

Seminar session with Dr. Imes

I spent the first week of August back in Grand Rapids, MI, at Calvin Theological Seminary, where I did my master's degree (hard to believe it's been 6 years!). I attended a seminar put on by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship called "Living the Scriptural Story." About 30 of us spent the week learning from Dr. Carmen Imes about the Bible's big story and how it impacts our lives. There were denominational leaders, pastors, professors, and ordinary lay Christians volunteering to run Bible studies and kids' ministries, plus me, a Christian school Bible teacher. The seminar was incredible, and it was a lot of fun to be back on campus.

Prince Conference Center Hotel Room

We all stayed at the Prince Conference Center on Calvin University's campus. I have stayed there a handful of times before during seminary intensive weeks. If you're ever in the area looking for a place to stay, I highly recommend it. It is comfortable, well-kept, and very affordable. A simple breakfast is included each day, and the staff is friendlier than any hotel I've stayed at.

Calvin Theological Seminary building

We met in the Calvin Theological Seminary seminar room. It has been 6 years since I have been back to campus, and it felt so good to be back. On-campus intensive weeks during seminary are among the happiest moments of my life, deeply engaging the Bible and theology with friends. The only thing that would have made going back better would have been if some of my classmates had been there. Each day had two morning sessions with a break in between, followed by lunch, a long afternoon break for reflection, an evening session, followed by dinner, and then we would break for the day. I have to give the team at Calvin Institute of Christian Worship credit for consistently providing delicious meals, day after day.

On Monday, our first day, there was an additional public lecture where Dr. Imes gave a fascinating lecture on Egyptian influence in the book of Exodus, insights that can be found in her upcoming commentary on Exodus. As it was a public lecture, it was recorded and posted online to share. I highly recommend everyone listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1d_Lw-Mx8Y

If you aren't familiar with Carmen Imes, she is an Old Testament scholar and biblical theologian, currently teaching at Baylor University. Her specialty is the book of Exodus. She is best known for a trilogy of books she wrote covering major themes in the biblical story that impact Christian life. These three books were the focus of our seminar. Calvin Institute of Christian Worship provided copies of them to all of us, and I had a chance to digest them before attending.

1. Bearing God's Name: Why Sinai Still Matters is the first book in the series. It focuses on the command of Exodus 20:7: "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God" (NRSV). Born out of her PhD dissertation, she argues that this command is best translated as "You shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain." She argues that the Law and covenant God made with Israel is designed to teach them, as those rescued by God, to live as His people and represent Him to the rest of the world.

2. Being God's Image: Why Creation Still Matters zooms out and focuses on what it means that all humans are God's image. She argues that the image is our human identity in that we reflect God and is stamped on the whole person.It isn't one of our capabilities like reason or relationality. All humans are God's image and, as such, deserve full dignity and respect. As God's image, we are given the task of ruling creation well on God's behalf, a task we fail at because of the presence of sin.

3. Becoming God's Family: Why the Church Still Matters concludes the trilogy and corrects a possible individualist misreading of the first two books. We are not God's image and called to bear God's name alone, but together as God's new family, the Church that He has formed. The Church is meant to be a community of people that gather together to pray, wait on God, help one another, and love their neighborhoods as reflections of God's mission to the world He made and loves.

Over the course of the 5 days, we discussed the topics in these three books in more detail, wrestled through challenging biblical texts, and talked a lot about how these themes impact local Church ministry. I think my biggest takeaway was seeing a model of how reading the Bible's big story can lead to fruitful discussion about faithful Christian living. A key insight in my faith journey many years ago is that the Bible and the Gospel aren't so much about how to go to heaven when you die, but God's plan and commitment to restoring the creation He created and loves. Seeing the Bible as this big story has opened up a fresh love for the Scriptures that goes far beyond treating it as a collection of moral lessons.

Yet I find so many of my students and the adults in my church Bible study have this moralistic lens, focused on being a good person now and looking forward to going to heaven when you die. In my teaching, I find that I focus on the idea that the Bible is one unified story about what God is doing to restore His creation. These end up staying abstract, and I struggle to get the conversation down to the practical ways this impacts our lives because I am trying to help my students relearn how to read the Bible in the first place. In this intensive, I felt like I saw a model on how to do both: open up a new, more faithful way to read Scripture that unlocks how it calls us to faithful living to live in line with God's plan.

I am so grateful for Dr. Imes and the care she took in teaching us. I'm also grateful for the many interesting people I met. And I am so grateful I got to go back to this place I learned so much at and enjoyed.