Teaching

In my teaching I hope to demonstrate to students how they might discover and continue in their journey of discovery. I want students to feel valued and respected and for them to be able to freely and openly discuss the topics for a course. I do this through modeling to them how to balance the responsibilities of life and learning. My teaching and my scholarship are interdependent. I aim to stay informed on the state of my field and pass this knowledge down to the people I teach. I ask questions not just during my research, but in the classroom as well so that students can see me going through the journey of learning. This, I hope and believe, encourages students to remain life-long learners that carry genuine curiosity, openness, and humility into the places and people they too affect.

Learning: For me, learning is the journey of discovery. This journey is life-long and happens beyond a classroom setting, though the classroom is one place where learning comes into sharp focus. Learning happens when someone is able to build upon the knowledge they already possess. This building up of knowledge is done when that person begins to analyze an issue, evaluate its claims, and ultimately create a new structure for their understanding. I believe students are able to learn best when they can create their own original works and apply them directly to their own vocations.

In the Greek Tools course I teach, for example, I have students complete a weekly discussion activity that centers around how they can apply the knowledge the gained that week to their own vocations. I challenge students to incorporate the material we learn into things like sermons they are preparing to help them see how the concepts we covered are more than abstract entities to memorize and forget. By drawing students into the richness of biblical texts through their original languages, I aim to inspire these future scholars, church leaders, and laypersons to explore how they can reread a familiar text in a new light.

Teaching: As an instructor, I strive to create an engaging, inclusive classroom that encourages critical thinking and dialogue about how we understand and engage with any topic, and particularly the Bible and its literature. Teaching for me is the act of guiding students along their journey of discovery so that they can create ideas and products that will enhance, challenge, and edify their whole lives. Students balance many responsibilities in addition to their learning—family, friends, careers, life’s joys and life’s tribulations—so my approach to teaching seeks to celebrate those commitments. I believe the role of the teacher is not just to impart knowledge, but to be an exemplar for how to balance the acquisition of knowledge with the demands of everyday life.

This balance is particularly crucial in the environment of online education. Because such settings are often remote and impersonal, I always offer my time as openly as possible for students. In particular, I give students a survey at the beginning of the course asking what times would work best for them to have available office hours. I then try to align their responses in a way that balances my other obligations, like administration and research, with availability times that would benefit the largest number of students. Additionally, for the Greek courses I teach online, I always emphasize the opportunity for live interaction in order to learn the language. I tell students that language is a community endeavor and so offer as much time as possible to ensure they can have that opportunity, even if over Zoom.

Goals: The goals I set my students are a reflection of how I view the journey of discovery. While each course I teach has specific learning outcomes, I frame those outcomes in my welcome to students by speaking about how they are intended to impact student vocation. I always emphasize humility to students when it comes to learning: humility that no one knows all the answers (even me as an instructor), humility that students will and should have lingering questions at the end of the course that push them towards further inquiry, and humility that everyone possesses knowledge and the capacity for learning. From this, the main criterium I provide to students to evaluate their learning, and which I put on all my course syllabi, is their “observable willingness to achieve the course learning outcomes.” A willingness to learn is an indication of humility along the learning journey.

One of the ways I promote the goal of humility is by emphasizing willingness for weekly work, but responsibility on quizzes and test. For instance, in my New Testament Greek course, students need to complete a set of weekly workbook exercises that deal with parsing and translation. For these activities I always emphasize and reiterate to students, whether through an online forum or during live sessions, that it is fine for them to get a wrong answer because that allows them to learn. I encourage students to be willing to learn. Yet on quizzes and tests I do require responsibility, meaning that I expect students to have learned from their mistakes and to make correct, reliable judgments on tests. In all this, I still try to make my joy in the learning journey evident by celebrating student success no matter how marginal. 

By demonstrating the journey of learning to students, I hope that as an instructor I am able to help students in their success, even if in just a small part of their lives. I tell students at the end of each course: ten years from now you may not remember every detail we covered in class, but I hope you will remember the joy you had in learning something new and let that joy guide you to even greater discoveries.

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Summer 2023, Winter 2024

This course provides an introduction to and practice in the use of exegetical Greek for ministry. It emphasizes an inductive approach to working with the Greek New Testament and important linguistic matters that influence understanding New Testament texts. The course stresses the use of standard tools for Greek study (including software) instead of extensive memorization of forms and vocabulary in order to focus on the practical use of the Greek New Testament.

Past Syllabi:

LG510 Christensen Summer 2023.pdf
LG510 Christensen Winter 2024.pdf 

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Fall 2024

Beginning Greek A introduces students to basic building blocks of New Testament Greek, including nouns and cases, prepositions, adjectives, pronouns, indicative verbs, and an introductory vocabulary.  

Syllabus:

LG512A-Christensen-2024Fall.pdf 

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Winter 2025

Greek B builds on the foundation laid in Greek A, introducing students to more advanced aspects of the language, including participles, nonindicative moods, and conditional sentences, as well as exegetical techniques.    

Syllabus:

LG512B-Christensen-2025Winter.pdf 

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Winter 2022

This course introduces students to a diverse range of interpretive perspectives and approaches to the Bible. Students will consider the contextual factors at work in the interpretive process and how those factors operate to provide new insights for biblical and theological reflection. They will interpret a variety of biblical texts in both testaments, with an awareness of how contextual variables shape and inform their own reading, and reflect on the interrelationship of the biblical text’s three worlds in the service of responsible interpretation of the text.

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Spring 2022

This course is a detailed and sequential study of the Gospel according to Matthew, which seeks to acquaint students with the larger movement of the narrative as well as the intricacies of select passages, develop their skill in reading the Gospel, and deepen their understanding of Jesus and Christian discipleship.

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Winter 2022

This course is a study of the Gospel of Mark and its distinctive witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. Each week, we will give our attention to the theological vision and literary shape of selected texts from the Gospel. We will consider the Gospel’s theological and literary aspects and its rootedness in a particular historical and cultural context; we will also consider how the Gospel has been read and interpreted throughout its long history in the church, and its implications for Christian faith today. As we go, we will draw in relevant scholarship to guide our reading and conversation. Together we will give attention to the implications of Mark’s Gospel for Christian life and ministry as the text presses us to consider, among other issues, the kingdom of God, the nature of the Christian gospel, the theological significance of the crucifixion, discipleship, and how Mark envisions the Christian community. 

Fuller Theological Seminary | Face-to-Face + Online Live

Quarters Taught: Spring 2022

This course is a study of the letter of 1 Peter with special attention given to literary, socio-historical, theological understandings of the epistle and exegetical approaches that attempt more inclusive interpretations of the epistle. Together we will reflect on the implications of 1 Peter for Christian life and ministry and gain skills for how to teach and preach this text.

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Spring 2024

This course is a study of the Letters of 1–3 John with special attention given to literary, socio-historical, and theological understandings of the epistles and exegetical approaches that attempt more inclusive interpretations of the epistle. Together we will reflect on the implications of the Letters of John for Christian life and ministry and gain skills for how to teach and preach these texts.

Fuller Theological Seminary | Online

Quarters Taught: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Winter 2023

New Testament Introduction orients students to the literature of the New Testament in its various literary, historical, and theological contexts and to New Testament interpretation in service of Christian practice.