Personal Testimony

I was raised in a Christian home. Therefore, I do not consider myself to have had a dramatic “conversion experience.” However, there have been certain moments in my life that I look back upon to see the grace of God being bestowed upon me. First, I was born into an Evangelical, Bible believing home and was baptized and dedicated into my church as an infant. I see this as having profound significance in my life. Just as in the old covenant, a Jewish boy would have been circumcised on the eighth day and brought into the covenant community, so was I baptized and dedicated into the new covenant by faith. The second time when I saw God’s grace in my life is when he laid it upon my heart to live for him. When I attended Camp Fireside (Barrington, NH), I decided to live for Christ with my whole life. This was not a “conversion experience” but rather a realization that I need to decide every day to remain in God’s new covenant; within Christ. Third, I was baptized by the same church in which I was dedicated in the sense of “believer’s baptism.” I see this as a sacrament and another sign of God’s grace in my life. Like Martin Luther said, my baptism is a point upon which I can look back and see God’s grace in times of trial. These experiences in my formative years structured a foundation of commitment to Christ and his Kingdom that is unwavering. 

Since these experiences of deciding to live for Christ, I have had many opportunities for spiritual growth throughout the years. In addition to the ways that I have grown spiritually described above, I have grown the most in the past through my relationships and shared experiences with other believers. I have always had people in my life that have challenged me in my faith toward spiritual growth. The most important of these are my parents. They encourage me to stay strong, and remind me to pursue God. I have learned a great deal about the importance of keeping Christ the center of a family life through them. Second, my youth pastors in middle school and high school were instrumental to my spiritual growth, and were always challenging me to go deeper with Christ through teachings, relationships of discipleship, and meaningful ministry experiences. Third, my professors at Gordon College, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Boston College School of Theology have challenged my mind and my will to be a Christian who is smart and knowledgeable about many areas of the Christian life. They have encouraged me to challenge my foundations of faith and life, but were there to help me rebuild them and strengthen them. My wife is the final person that should be included in this category. She has also challenged me in my beliefs so that I truly own them. She is constantly encouraging me to use my gifts and calling to serve God’s purposes. She is always in support of decisions I make to that end. 

My current relationship with God is this: I realize that I am nothing, and am in total and utter dependence on Jesus Christ in this life and after. He is everything. I have decided to serve him with my entire life because it is his anyway. It is my prayer that every aspect of my life will glorify him. I am trying to live my life in the tension of this world in which the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated but not yet consummated. I am thankful to God that he has given his Spirit to be our guide as we stumble through life still in this present evil age. I am trying to figure out what it means truly to “live life in the Spirit” (Gal. 5-6).

Career Objective & Personal Statement

My Vocation is Christian Education!

More specifically, it is teaching Biblical and Theological Studies at the secondary and collegiate level and fostering authentic spiritual growth in students as the next generation of Christian leaders. This calling was developed during my undergraduate degree at Gordon College where I majored in Biblical & Theological Studies and Youth Ministries. This calling has been confirmed in my life as I have now served in Christian schools in the role of Bible Teacher and Chapel Coordinator. Additionally, I have since obtained a Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Master of Theology degree from Boston College School of Theology & Ministry  I am also certified as a Bible Specialist through ACSI. My education and ministry experiences have instilled in me a passion for teaching the Bible and Theology to secondary and collegiate students.

I would like to share two of my foundational convictions which I bring to the classroom and influence my teaching. These are two slogans used frequently at my alma mater, Gordon College: “freedom within a framework of faith” and “faith seeking understanding.”  As an educative community, we sought out the meaning of these two phrases both as Christians and as learners. As a Christian educator, one of my goals is to have my classroom be a safe place for students to ask engaging questions. Having both a “framework of faith” and a “faith seeking understanding,” allows students the freedom to be challenged by hard truths and deep questions, yet have the foundation and core beliefs, as well as the support of an authentically Christian teacher, to assimilate answers and new knowledge into an already established framework of faith. I am excited to continue teaching in educational settings that are distinctively Christian, while remaining faithful to the pursuit of knowledge and academic excellence!

Sola Deo Gloria

Peter T. Fitzroy (M.Div., Th.M.)

June 1, 2017

Miracles and the Kingdom of God

This was a one page paper for the class Jesus and Hermeneutics at Boston College with Dr. Daniel Harrington S.J.   After reading selections from various scholars, the purpose was to answer the question: "Using hermeneutical theory, what would you say about Jesus' miracles today?"

Thesis: Regardless of one’s hermeneutical theory, the miracles in the New Testament convey the message of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.

The point of the New Testament miracles (and also those today) were not merely a display of ability to suspend the laws of nature, they were to show the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. This was certainly the case at the level of the historical Jesus (Mt 12:28; Lk 11:20) and the goal of the evangelists communicating this inbreaking to their various communities. As Wright states, “He never performed mighty works simply to impress. He saw them as part of the inauguration of the sovereign and healing rule of…God.”[1] The burning question remains, however, regarding the historicity of such events. The approach taken by both Meier and Vermes, in line with a Hirschian hermeneutic, both want to put off the philosophical/theological question of divine influence, and merely examine these events as historians, trying to assemble some “core” which does go back to the ministry of Jesus.[2] Meier certainly presents a compelling case using the criteria to support the miracle corpus at large, especially multiple attestation (619-623). Both Meier and Vermes rightly recognize that a person’s worldview will ultimately determine his answer to the philosophical/theological question.[3] Vermes presents interesting parallels to Hanina ben Dosa(115-116), however his theological presuppositions preclude him from seeing the purpose of Jesus miracles as demonstrating the inbreaking of the Kingdom. These presuppositions also lead him to conclude that Jesus was “Galilean hasid” who was inept in halakhic matters (118). While Jesus may have been cognizant of this paradigm and while the idea may have been on the minds of the evangelists, to conclude that Jesus was only this, is to misunderstand his self-proclaimed purposes, namely the Kingdom demonstrated.

Schillebeeckx’s approach is one based more on Gadamer. He is not as concerned with the historical level of Jesus so much as what the evangelists want to communicate by the miracle accounts.[4] This also reaches into our day, “…Jesus…healed…what does that mean for humankind” (181). Schillebeeckx may overstress the dualistic nature of the miracles accounts, but his overarching point is clear, they represent the time of salvation, realized eschatology (185), God’s rule visible on earth (189). The in breaking Kingdom is our take-away point just as it was for the first century audience.

[1] N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 165.
[2] John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew (New York; Doubleday, 1991), 617. (In-text citations from this point on).
[3] Geza Vermes, “Jesus the Jew” in Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the place of Jesus in Early Judaism (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 108-109. (In-text citations from this point on). See also Meier, A Marginal Jew, 509, 514.
[4] Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (New York: Crossroad, 1979), 181. (In-text citations from this point on).