Orals

You hear about it from day one freshman year.  It is the rite of passage for graduation at Faith.  It is the climax of four years of college.

And I had mine last Tuesday.

I am speaking, of course, about orals.  For those who don't know, orals is the term used to describe the most talked about exam given at Faith.  A student is given a doctrine, which one remaining unknown until he stands up there, and must defend it to members of the faculty.  The faculty can ask about any term, topic, passage, etc. that has to do with that doctrine, and the student must answer with supporting Scripture.

It's kind of a big deal.

I won't get into all the differences between Systematic Theology orals vs. Senior Seminar orals; however, I am in Senior Sem.  This means I only had to do one and was allowed a marked Bible.

My topic was Soteriology, the doctrine of salvation.  The faculty members were Dr. Cole, who is present for all of the Senior Sem. orals, and Mr. Lounsbrough.

It went okay.  There were definitely a couple moments where my mind went completely blank, but all things considered, it went okay.

The biggest challenge was the fact that soteriology was not yet marked in my Bible.  Therefore, I was going almost entirely by memory.  I say almost because I was able to use some of the notes made for other doctrines on a couple questions; however, by and large, it was me, my memory, and whatever random verses I found along the way.

The biggest frustration was that my Bible was supposed to be marked so long ago that it's not even funny.  I even had intentions to start over Christmas break, which didn't happen for various reasons (see here for details).  I had plans at the beginning of the semester for a couple hours each week that would be reserved for orals studying, marking, papers, etc.  That didn't work out in practicality as well as it did in theory.  I was going to work on it over Spring Break, then over Missions Conference.  With one thing or another, that didn't happen either.

All that to say, I really didn't get much marked until the start of last week, and then I was fighting a fever.  I simply did not have the time to finish marking everything.  The fever/cough I came down with did not help matters either.  Needless to say, there were times I was a bit stressed.  And by a bit I mean, I was wound so tightly that I nearly unraveled completely at a couple different points.  I am not a person who gets stressed very easily, but when I do, things tend to fall apart very quickly.

During orals themselves, however, the nerves sorted themselves out after the first couple minutes.  Overall, I felt fairly calm.  Dr. Cole was even gracious enough to allow me to step out into the hall for a drink partway through, since I am still dealing with the cough.  This also allowed me a couple extra seconds to determine how to define "atonement."

Otherwise, save for attempting to place the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 6 instead of Galatians 5, I don't think it went too badly.  I don't think I did overly wonderful either, but the important thing is that I don't think I failed.  As long as that impression is correct, I still get to graduate in three weeks.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for me along the way.  I definitely felt their results as I stood behind that podium facing the class and professors.  I can only say that God's grace got me through that day and the days leading up to it.

It has been slowly sinking in that I'm done.  In some ways it almost feels anticlimactic.  I'm done.  That's it.  It's over.  On the other hand, there's the feeling of, if I can handle orals, I can handle anything.

I guess we'll find out for certain when I get my grade back.

P.S.  For anyone who will still be doing orals in the future, I am willing to send you my study guides if you think they would be helpful.  Just ask.