Extra courses in various books or genre's often indicates an attempt by the schools to acknowledge or address the impact of certain forms of BT, and the idea that there are a variety of "theologies" in the Bible, the theology of this guy, or that guy.
I don't think GPTS has anything against such courses, as such. However, I think they are a kind of "specialty" course. Greenville doesn't do many electives, so there isn't much room for those courses in the curriculum. There are survey courses on the Bible, besides the comprehensive BT courses. They have a small faculty, and those few men teach the necessary courses, and there isn't much time left over for narrower fields of interest on which a prof wants to teach a class.
The place to get focus on certain books or areas, would be in the chapels. Dr. Pipa used to be preaching through various books weekly--that's a 13 week, 1 hour seminary course on a book, at the same time it is modeling preaching. He would both preach his material, as well as be getting it ready for publication. What more do you need? Quizzes? Tests? Final? Just listen carefully and take notes.
That is not to say that such a study, with a brilliant seminary prof, isn't a "good" thing. Chances are, though, you will soon be able to read his lectures in a book or commentary. If you go to Greenville, just go to chapels, and read commentaries.
I think its a legitimate question: how will an in-depth look at one Bible book, or a collection of books, prepare a man to minister? Should it be the Pentateuch? Why? Should it be Acts? Why? If no book in the Bible should be neglected, then should he do them all? Isn't that "Bible College" and not Seminary? What are you missing, other than a chance to study Apocalyptic Lit with your favorite prof?
OTOH, if GPTS added faculty, you might see more specialty offerings there than you do today.
GPTS tries to inculcate a preaching style that is faithful to the text, preaches Christ, and makes application. Pretty standard stuff in the Reformed tradition. I'm not sure they have a "model" as such, unless it's "doctrinal", due to the school's profession to Confessional distinctives. WSC sells itself as the school that "preaches Christ from all the Scriptures" which can seem like a "model" to some people. But frankly, apart from specialists who analyze this stuff, there's hardly any discernible difference between Hywel Jones (@ WSC) teaching you to preach, and John Carrick (D.Min, WSC) and Joey Pipa (former WSC prof) teaching you.
Classes-wise, you can expect to prepare and deliver half-a-dozen to a dozen sermons during your stay at GPTS. And that's probably not far off from an average across the board at reformed seminaries. No matter where you go, professors only have so much time to teach you and critique you--and all the rest of your classmates--during you stay with them. You should look for outside avenues to build up preaching experience, no matter where you go to school.
Finally, what I always say is this: wherever you go to school, be prepared to make the experience work. Don't go to School someplace and expect to be cranked out the other end "minister material" because of the "inputs". There is no shortcut to making seminary be what it ought to be. No magic "seminary dust" that will make you what you need to be. Seminary gives you tools, if you are man enough to pick them up and use them.
May God bless you, Danny, in your search for the best school to fit you. I'd like to think that GPTS would be that place.
