Last Autumn, I had the opportunity once again to visit the Center for Religious Studies of Guangdong Province Zhongshan University's Department of Philosophy, to teach a course on "A Study of the Christian Text: The Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament" to research students from different disciplines.

During the first class, I first tried to understand the students' background and their knowledge of the bible. They came from different provinces in China (one from Vietnam), and majored in different areas including Western philosophy, Buddhism, Christianity, Marxist studies, etc. Most of their knowledge of the bible were limited to a few bible stories, and each had different motivations for wanting to know the bible more. As I turned to the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark and read a passage to them, I also pointed out that, in order to understand this family genealogy, they had to first read the Old Testament. Hence, my first assignment to them was to read the Old Testament and write a report on their thoughts thereafter.

A student who majored in Buddhist studies started with the following in his written assignment: "I was filled with curiosity as I started to read the first book, Genesis. This was the very first time in my life that I read the bible with such a sense of anticipation and wanting to know what the bible had to say. I took down notes very diligently...". Following this, he listed eight after-thoughts, the first being that he noticed mankind in the Garden of Eden were vegetarians.... In his conclusion, he said: "I spent two days to finish reading Genesis in detail, and felt very elated, as if I had unlocked the mysteries of very many problems."

At the end of each class, I would give them reading assignments from the bible. After a few classes, I asked all of them what their most important learning was. Two students replied "returning to the bible". Many of them knew the bible only indirectly and sporadically, like viewing flowers in the mist. This time, with a direct, first-hand experience of the bible, they had a completely different feeling, and it was very effective. Another student added that recent Marxist studies also had a slogan that said "returning to Marx", and so they could identify with such a learning methodology, and were willing to first read carefully what the bible actually had to say.

Leading such a group of students with such different backgrounds to study the bible in this way was not only challenging for me, but also a precious opportunity for me to practice such a teaching methodology.