A model for small group bible study in Minjung perspective

Abstract

This thesis aims to illuminate how the am-ha-aretz in the Old Testament and the ochlos in the New Testament become the subject of the Bible and a partner of God in hearing, reading, and actualizing the word of God. I would like to focus on the fact that the Bible is not a book for a particular class of people but a book for the Minjung(people) who plays the role of creating history in partnership with God. This study also aims to encourage minjung so that they might be able to interpret the Bible with excitement while enjoying the blessing of God's liberation of our life in a practical setting of their life. In this study, I tried to account for the ways in which minjung could encounter the ancient minjung spiritually and vividly by means of their minjung perspective in reading the Bible. At the same time, I am concerned to demonstrate the authentic image of Jesus who shared his true life with minjung. I believe that scholarly criticism of the Bible should serve to facilitate their interpretation of the Bible on the basis of their daily life. The minjung perspective in reading the Bible seeks to get rid of the image of Jesus based on individualism and egotism. Rather, it seeks to express deep concern for those people who are oppressed, hungry, and poor in a community life in which each individual's concern and need are to be respected on an equal footing. This thesis further seeks to develop a model of minjung spirituality based on their community life by helping them to read the Bible from the minjung perspective and thus to identify themselves with the am-ha-aretz and the ochlos in the Bible. This project will lead them to discover their liberated self-image as partners of God that they may share their possessions, serve their neighbors, and dedicate their whole life for the ministry of God. Thus I intend this thesis to expand the kingdom of God like a small portion of yeast in dough, while helping minjung to realize God's will toward the kingdom. In terms of methodology, I relied on the perspectives of minjung theology. In addition, I incorporated my experiences from rural ministry and the experience of participation in the human right movement in Korea from 1980s to the present. The main group of people with whom I have ministered are neither civil servants, nor farmers, or laborers. They are rather ordinary people who live in peripheral areas of an urban city. Through this work I want to share my agony with them in the inquiry of how to make appropriate various messages in the Bible, while studying the scripture more joyfully and meaningfully in a community setting of life. This project is a result of theological reflection about my experience of minjung Bible study.