Grace Sharon

Grace Sharon

Grace Sharon is a Deacon in the Church of God for the Anglican Diocese of Wangaratta. Grace commenced her theological studies at the United Faculty of Theology within the Melbourne College of Divinity in 2002 and realised how biblical languages can broaden a person’s knowledge of the scriptures within their own context and what they mean for the world today. She deferred her Bachelor of Theology whilst she undertook a BA at the University of Melbourne, majoring in Hebrew and Jewish Studies and Classics. To enhance her learning, she has also completed a Certificate of Linguistics with the Summer Institute of Linguistics at Wycliffe Bible Translators and was in the inaugural Beginner’s Class for Learning How to speak Koine Greek with the Biblical Language Center in Israel. Now that Grace has completed her BA, she is tutoring in linguistics with Trinity Residential College, Melbourne and having now learnt Classical and Koine Greek, Biblical and Modern Hebrew, Syriac and Latin, Grace is completing her theological studies on the path of ordination. In 2004, when studying for her major in Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Grace learned about the life of the Jewish people throughout the ages and was particularly concerned about Christianity’s role in the abuse of Jewish people from the time of Christ to the present time. In 2005, she undertook a History class called “God through History” which covered the evolution of the three religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. She wrote an essay on what the Holy Scriptures for the three traditions say about God and she discovered that God had kept His two promises to Abraham. The first regarding Isaac and that all the nations would be blessed through him, and the second regarding Ishmael, that He would make him a great nation, and therefore, came to the opinion that God was faithful. In 2006, Grace attended a course called “Conflict Resolution between the Three Religious Traditions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam” at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. At this course, Grace realised that resolving the conflict in the Middle East and more importantly, resolving issues of conflict within and between the three Abrahamic religions, no matter where one lives in the world, requires a knowledge and understanding of what all three traditions teach. Since that time, Grace has given Conflict Resolution Seminars between the three faiths to the Victorian Chapter of the Council of Christians and Jews in 2006, various church organisations, Conference papers in 2007 at the 7th Annual Conference of the Globalisation on the Common Good for the topic ‘From the Middle East to Asia Pacific: Arc of Conflict or Dialogue of Cultures and Religions?’ and for the Association of Practical Theology in Oceania at the International Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature in Auckland, New Zealand. At this conference, Grace relied on Genesis 4:10, the Hebrew tradition of the story of Cain and Abel to show how conflict in the 20th Century caused over 121,765,000 bloods to cry out from the ground as a result of mass killings, genocides, democides, politicides and sanctioned war. In that context, Grace released a new model for Christian Mission in Refugee Camps, especially those on the Thai-Burma border for the Karen people. Grace hopes that by imparting biblical knowledge together with conflict resolution skills, people’s ability to live in the image and likeness of God, side by side with one’s neighbour in peace and harmony, will be enhanced.

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