Rev. Dr. Phil Ruge-Jones Returns—and he’s bringing the Gospel of Mark

The TLU community will be happy to see a familiar face on campus this spring-that of Rev. Dr. Phil Ruge-Jones, who served as a professor of theology here for 18 years before returning to his roots in the Midwest. "Dr. Ruge-Jones was integral in the vocational discernment of many of the pastors TLU helped produce," says Campus Pastor Wes Cain.

These days, Ruge-Jones serves as pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin-that is, when he's not out traveling the country, telling stories from the Bible and spreading the Good News. And that is exactly what he'll be doing here at TLU on March 21: telling the story of God's love through the Gospel of Mark, performed word-for-word, from memory.

"His work in biblical storytelling opens the world of Scripture up to the hearer, inviting all to encounter Christ in new and profound ways," says Cain. "Hearing the Gospel of Mark presented in its entirety is a paradigm-shifting experience that will forever change the way you interact with the Bible."

Keep in mind that the early stories-about God, about Jesus-were passed along in the very same way, through the spoken word. "The majority of Jewish and Christian Scriptures began and prospered for centuries as an oral tradition, passed on from generation to generation as a way, first, of remembering where and how God had interacted with the world, and second, of examining how God continues to interact with it," says Cain. "Rev. Dr. Phil Ruge-Jones has spent his career seeking to embody this tradition and inviting others to do the same by sharing stories of Scripture as they would have originally been experienced."

All are invited to TLU's Chapel of the Abiding Presence at 7 p.m. on March 21, when Ruge-Jones will share the Gospel of Mark-the earliest of the witnesses of Christ's life, ministry, death, and resurrection-the way it was shared almost two thousand years ago, which is, as Cain puts it, "an internalized story that is as much a part of the teller as it is now a part of the written compilation of works known to so many as the Holy Bible."