Dale Bruner
(1975-1997)
Professor Emeritus of Theology

Dear Colleagues: Thank you to the theology and philosophy department for asking for a contribution to their annual newsletter! My life has had two focii, as usual, this year: (1) doing research for a commentary on John's Gospel during the workweek and teaching The Good News Class at First Presbyterian Church, Hollywood, on Sundays. I love both! The Sunday School class has been challenging, because having worked paragraph by paragraph through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the first eight years, we are just now completing the Acts of the Apostles this ninth year, AND ACTS IS HARD!, especially the last half. Because I'm personally neither very nautical nor juridical, all the voyages and court cases in the last half leave me cold! Isn't that an awful thing to say about Holy Scripture! Since our class is called The Good News Class, and I feel it my responsibility as a teacher of the gospel to give people the good news about Jesus Christ each week, it has been hard to find much good news in all these ports of call and legal battles (and healing handkerchiefs, etc.!). HELP! I'm looking forward to getting into the Epistles where, I am told, there is a lot of gospel again.

I started writing the first draft of my John commentary on Jan. 1 this year and finished it May 1. I am calling this first draft my "Soul Edition" because, with my brand-new calligraphy fountain pen, I pour out my soul about every verse onto a piece of clear white paper here on my desk. Paradise! Now I've begun my second draft, which I am calling my "School Edition," in which I am inserting my research ¬– which is mainly the great commentary tradition of the church's history from Origen, Chrysostom, and Augustine, through Thomas, Luther, Calvin, Henry, Bengel, and Meyer, down to the last century's classics: Schlatter, Hoskyns, Bultmann, Schnackenburg, Barrett, and Brown. Paradisiacal friends! For this second edition I'm also having to learn how to use my new computer – kyrie eleison!

Our son Michael Mears Bruner gave the baccalaureate address last Friday at Azusa Pacific University, and we were so proud of him. Our other son, Fred (a Whitworth grad!), works with the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., having just returned as first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We are very grateful for him, too. My dear Kathy helps me every day to make my Sunday school teaching and my commentary writing more earthy: "Earth, earth!" is her constant cry to me! Good Moses Pulei, Whitworth's 1996-97 ASWC president and a dear friend, is anticipating receiving his Ph.D. this year from Fuller Seminary and coming into your wonderful department. Praise the Lord! Blessings, dear and esteemed colleagues! We are so proud of your fidelity to the gospel and for Bill Robinson's, too. You are the best!