Dissertation Completed—Sort Of!

I have reached the end of the dissertation, but I’m 3,395 words over my absolute top word limit and I have some editing to do anyway. I hope to accomplish that today.

I praise the Lord for in-laws who let me work in their basement for two weeks (they got time with their one grandchild out of it!) and for a wife who supported me.

I also praise the Lord for the opportunity to study His special and general revelation.

On the special revelation side, I was really deeply struck with how much Paul loved other Christians, perhaps especially his own converts. I was also struck by how consistently he looked for faith and love (and a little less often hope) as evidences of grace in Christian congregations. That’s the rubric I’ll use from now on.

On the general revelation side, I can say I do love language. Relevance theory, lexical pragmatics—so fun! And I do think I have something original to say about ἀγάπη because of my forays into those fields. But we’ll see what the committee thinks! If you’re a friend, pray that the Lord would give me good success throughout the rest of the dissertation process. Here’s how it will go:

• Jan 15—I turn in a rough draft.
• Feb 15—I turn in a final (defense) draft.
• Mar 15—I defend the dissertation before my four committee members (date approximate).