Dr. Amanda Mbuvi, a professor at High Point University, is my interviewee this week (to be posted on Thursday). She shares insights from the classroom as well as from her book, Belonging in Genesis: Biblical Israel and the Politics of Identity Formation (Baylor University Press). Here is one illustration about teaching that I loved:
“Think about how baby food is different from what adults eat. So you have ‘chicken and summer vegetables’ but it is just purée – an orange mush. So, a lot of people – that’s how they’ve experienced the Bible. It’s just one orange mush. But adult food has different tastes and textures and all these kinds of nuances that a baby cannot handle but that an adult can. Part of the work [students] do in the college class is to learn how to notice those differences in taste and texture – to be aware of those in a different way. [I] encourage them that they can handle it, that it’s okay, that God is big enough to handle their questions and their working through things on a different level, and that this is a good process to be going through. It doesn’t belittle in any way what came before, but at different stages of our life and our path, we are ready for different things.”
Watch the full interview with Amanda Mbuvi at greatbibleteachers.com/interviews.
