• Chapter 1 What experiences in your freshman year brought you closer to Jesus? Explain.
• Chapter 2 Do one of the "Living the Gospel" question at the end of the chapter, page 40. Write out the question and then answer it well.
• Chapter 3 Pick one organization working for social justice today. Describe the organization and what it does. Make sure to provide a link to its web site.
• Chapter 4 Do a three level interpretation on the "Parable of the Sower," Mark 4:3-9.
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6 Do the "Living the Gospel" question at the end of the chapter, pae 118. Write out the question and then answer it well.
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8 What is your favorite parable or miracle story? Cite the passage (book, chapter and verse) and explain why you chose this.
• Chapter 9 What is your most favorite passage from an epistle? Copy the passage and tell why it is important to you.

The key theme of this chapter is that we are all called to make a difference. The chapter encompasses the idea that no matter our conditions, such as social status, popularity, and other such social fixes, God still calls us to change, or metanoia, towards God and away from selfeshness and the negative values of society.

An example of how God has called me to make a difference is something that can be seen on a daily basis, when I see the vagrant on the side of the road, do I give him some money? do I lend a friendly word? God calls me all of the time to make a differene in the world, but they come iin different forms. However, a more prominent event in my life when God called me to make a difference was when I went to do soemthing that I really did not want to do, but I was kinf-of forced into. When my Great Aunt, AC, had surgery on her knees, she needed someone to take care of her because she was homebound, and she started to show signs of depression. Now I had a week of between Driver;s Ed and Summer Theolgy, so my parents had thought that I should spend the week at AC's house and help her. As soon as I walked up to the door, I knew that I had brightened her day just by being in her presence. The next day, I came back, and she seemed even brighter. This form of happiness and joy carried over from day to day, and eventually, she was back to her old self. Now she justs needs to get over using her cane, and her leg will be as good as new.

One thing that I want to remeber is 3 levels of interpreting the Bible. This is a skill that can come in very handy when the time comes to go to mass, and itnerpret the Scripture readings. The idea is that on the first level, you ask yourself, "What is the passage?". If you are able to respond with an accurate summary, then you have passed the first level. The second level is when you ask yourself, "What is God saying to us?". The second level allows you to get the general message trying to be conveyed in the reading. The third and final level, is when you ask yourself, "What is God saying to me?". This level should be the most personal level, that no one can teach you how to "properly" do. The third level is so crucial that it can be broken up int o3 sublevels. The 3 subleveels are: (1)"What may God be saying to me?", (2) "What may God be asking me to do?", and (3) "What is my response?".

This is important for me to know because I believe that it is surcial to understanding the true meaning of the Scripture readings. Before mass was so boring, but after I was thinking about it, the main reason was because I was not understaing the Scripture readings, so I jsut let my mind wander. I tried this method at mass, and I primarily used it on the Gospel reading with Mary Magdelene. I was able to uncover that God was trying to tell me that to honor eve nthe most lolly people no matter what my first impression ofthem is. Just like with Mary and the Pharisees. The Pharisees judged her because that they thoguth that she was a severely immoral person. I now know that I need to stop judging people because I may not know something about them, that could change my thought of them is.

The second thing that I learned is from the text: How greatly the Hellenistic world affected the world of the Jews and their neighbors. I had always known that the Greeks had a tremendous effect on the world, but I really did not realize how great. The Greeks conquered the area in which the Jews lived, and the Greeks affected the lives tfo the Jewish people dramatically. It was because of the Greeks that the Jewish people had adopted a main language, kione, in which it is the common language spoken by just about everybody. Everything started to be written in Greek, poltical systems started to be modeled after the Greeks, schools of Greek thoguths opened, Greek polytheistic relgions entered, and the list jsut goes on and on.

I beleive that this is important to know because, when reflected upon, most of our origins came out of some form of Greek tradition. It really is almost like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when Mr. Portocolus says, "Give me a word, any word, and I show that th root of that word is Greek."

I can also see how the Hellenization fothe world affected other Christian denominations, too. Like the Prebyterian and Lutheran relgions. Because some of the later books of the Old Testament are written in Greek some other Christian denominations do not accept them, and put them in an appendix-like thing called an apochrypha. Knowing how other relgions viewed these changes can give us an idea of what they thought of the Hellenization and if they accepted it or not.

The image below is a link, so you can click it and go to the place where I got it.

I believe that the answer to this question is that will jsut know that it is right. It is like one of those times, when you just can't kid yourself, and you know that iot is right, and that no one can tell you its wrong. This seems like how it would go because God would only make it for you to decide, what it is saying to you, not for anyone else to decide.

Question: Write a one-page essay expressing the values in our society that Christians are challenged to reject.

In today�s modern world, we live in a pretty nice era. We have machines do whatever we do not want to do, we hire someone to do something that we do not want to do, and the list goes on and on. However, these new ways of getting things done can often come into our first priority, and thus making God second in our lives. These pose a great threat and temptation to sin based on our beliefs as Christians. Some of the primary concerns with our priorities are: How do we rank God next to our desire for popularity, how we handle and view sexual permissiveness, and how much we rely on technological fixes.

One of the biggest things in our modern society is the desire to be popular among our peers. Yes, it is probably more of a reality amongst females than males, but there is a competition that can be seen among males as wanting to declare dominance over others, and have more kleos, or having your name known, that is often associated the male point of view. This however, could be seen as a huge �no-no� by the Church from several aspects.

Some points attributed to popularity are: care in your appearance, degrading those below you, and always wanting more than you already have. Most if not all of these points can be seen as making up of the 7 Cardinal sins. Care in your appearance is something that by itself is okay; however, when caring for your appearance is all that you do, it can be seen as vanity, one of the 7 cardinal sins. A side effect that is usually attributed to popularity is the desire to always want more. This could fall under 2 categories, lust and/or greed. It could be lust because you have strong desires and long for it, and you lose sight of where God is in your life, and it could be greed because one you have just a little bit of popularity, you always want more, and you never have enough to go on.

Sexual Permissiveness is a very prominent topic today. If you look at all of the magazines like People, Us, and The Enquirer they all have something to do �Hollywood Hotties� or �Ben and Jen again?� They all emphasize how sex is the ultimate goal. Even in movies, the only real way to get a good movie is a have sexual permissiveness in it. Even, the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, sexual permissiveness is touched, but it is never reprimanded like it should be. In fact it is almost like it is encouraged. Even on regular �family� shows, like Everybody Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, and How I met your Mother, the ultimate goal seems to be sex. Now all of this would be somewhat okay if the viewers did not live like the people in the magazines or on the big and little screens. Yet people just want to be like their idol, so they think that if they do everything just like Ray Romano, or Jessica Alba, then they will have achieved happiness. But they would not have even come close to pure happiness, because pure happiness lies only with God, and that is exactly opposite of what God is calling us to do.

Finally, Technological Fixes are probably some of the newest values in society that Christians need to be wary of. Yes, technology is very helpful in life, probably life as we know it would be a lot different without the technology even invented in the last 10 years. However, it is when we start to think that technology can solve anything that is when prey to that delusion becomes. It is not that technology is no help to us at all, but it is how we view and use the technology available to us that is the important question.