On January 23, 2001 Professor Walker gave our class his presentation titled "Humor in the Book of Acts". Some of the things he said have caused me to look at the way I read the New Testament in a different light. Even though I had read it a number of times before I never realized some of the humor or funny situations that he pointed out. He explained to us that he believed that the best way to read the New Testament is literally. Professor Walker explained that because of how familiar we are with the stories in the scriptures, even before we read them, often this knowledge is a stumbling block to our understanding and our seeing what is really happening. To help us overcome this he suggested that as we read we are supposed to ask ourselves two questions, "What's going on?" and "How does it relate to us?" By doing this it will cause us to place ourselves into the situation and bring the Scriptures more to life.
             I really enjoyed the way the book of Acts tells us about Peter and the change that he goes through, although I don't think that I would depict Peter in exactly the same way as Professor Walker did. I love the contrast of Peter before his conversion, which as Brother Walker stated referring to the walking on water incident, "Good for the first few steps, then falls." A perfect discription of any soul before they have received the conversion experience. Contrasted to Peter who preaches and leads with power in the face of adversity in Acts. Professor Walker portrayed Peter after his conversion as much of the same Peter as before, simply with a larger responsibility, almost as if he bumbled his way through miracles. As part of his support for this portrayal, he contrasted Jesus who told the invalid to "arise and take thy bed", and Peter who told another invalid to "arise and make thy bed." It seems like there is something there originally that was lost in our...