Wednesday, August 17, 2011

13 Things Regarding the Sinai Peninsula

The Search For The Real Mt. Sinai
1. The Sinai Peninsula is an important region to readers of the Bible and also serves as a land bridge between Africa and Asia.  Notice on the map the region appears to be an upside down triangle. 


2. Three significant events occurred there regarding the Israelites.   First the Peninsula is the location where Mount Sinai is located…the place where God appeared to Moses more than once.  Moses interacted with God for the first time while he was on the mountain herding sheep for Jethro.   The second time Moses was there God established his covenant with the Israelites at the foot of the mountain after their exodus from Egypt. Sinai is also the place where Moses ascended the mountain and God gave him the Ten Commandments.
3. Mount Sinai is referred to as “the mountain”…. Exodus 19:2; “the mountain of God”… Exodus 3:1; “the mountain of the Lord”…Numbers Numbers 10:33; and “Horeb”…Exodus 3:1.


There are five areas mentioned in the Bible in relationship to the mountain.
4. The Wilderness of Shur is the location on the northern border of Egypt where the Israelites found themselves after crossing the Red Sea.   This place was between the Red Sea and Marah where the people complained because there was no water…. Exodus 15: 22-24.


5. The wilderness of Sin is a region between Elim and Sinai where God provided food for the Israelites…Exodus 16:1.
6. The Wilderness of Paran is where the Israelites camped after they left Mount Sinai, and is the location where they were sent out to explore the land.


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Where Can I Find a Urim and Thummim?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just go to God and ask Him to lay it all out for us regarding the directions we need go when we reach a crossroad?


What subjects to study in school?   Which jobs to take?   How to discipline and advise our children?    When we should take action or just sit back and observe our surroundings?
Sometimes we know the right thing to do, but the actions of others….justified or not….keep us from acting.   Sometimes our own wants….our selfishness… takes over preventing us from hearing God.  Sometimes as the background noise in our lives becomes louder and louder it becomes more difficult to hear God.


Why can’t the path be clear instead of clear as mud?
Reading through the Bible it seems the ancients had several opportunities to hear God when they needed guidance, and the Pentateuch was very clear on what NOT to do when seeking answers.


Deuteronomy 18: 10-13 provides a list of things that were detestable including interpreting omens, witchcraft, casting spells, and consulting the dead.    These practices were so detestable they were punishable by death per Leviticus 20:6.
The people of Babylon practiced divination so well they are the go-to culture when researching various ways the ancients used to contact the gods.   They used astrology, analyzed cloud formations, the peculiar actions of animals and pouring liquid into basins to read the bubbles that were formed.   There were even specially trained priests who read the livers of sacrificed animals.   To the ancients it appeared the liver was the source of blood in the body and therefore must be the seat of life.


Monday, November 1, 2010

A Diet of Worms? Hardly....Just Remember the "V" Sound

Worms Cathedral….Just the name alone doesn’t sound very religious or very soul soothing, does it?

The place IS very historic and as far as cathedrals go, and it is beautiful.

The name comes from the Latin Borbetomagus which means “settlement in a watery area” which eventually morphed to Vormatia……

Vormatia. Now when you realize that you don’t pronounce the “W” when saying the word “Worms” and you substitute a “V” sound as in Vorms it all makes sense……

Actually….it should be pronounced “Varms”

There are no worms and there never were any. :)

In fact, Worms Cathedral is also known at St. Peter’s Cathedral.

Worms Cathedral…consecrated in 1110…. is known as an Imperial Cathedral which means it was built under the reign of an emperor. The building is unique in that it has two quires or choirs…..one at each end of the nave. The second choir was set aside for the emperor to attend church.

The oldest section of the cathedral….the east choir…..is an example of an architectural trick. The walls are straight on the outside of the building but are rounded on the inside.

Speaking of emperors there are a few royal members buried at Worms Cathedral……

*Conrad I and II, the Dukes of Carinthia

*Conrad, Duke of Lorraine

*Queen Matilda, consort of Henry I of France (she was also the daughter of Conrad II the Holy Roman Emperor

Sadly the original windows were destroyed in 1943 by the bombs of World War II, but over time during the 1960s they were all replaced.

The major historical significance of the Worms Cathedral is that it was the location for the Diet of Worms in April 1521.

Ugh. Again, it doesn’t sound too appealing, right?

The Diet of Worms was called by the Holy Roman Emperor who was actually the German king, Charles V. It is helpful to understand a Diet was a general assembly of the Imperial states of the Holy Roman Empire. So, a diet is a formally called meeting. There were many different diets that took place at Worms Cathedral, so like many treaties that share the same name it is important to know which year you are talking about.

The Diet of Worms in 1521 is significant in church history became it the meeting where Martin Luther was required to answer the papal bull of Pope Leo X.

A bull is simply a form of communication sent out by the Pope, and this particular bull……also referred to as Exsurge Domine (Arise O’ Lord) denounced Martin Luther’s 95 Theses on the Power and Effacy of Indulgences Luther had nailed to the door at Wittenberg (again, the “W” is pronounced with a “V” sound).

The whole “nail” thing is still argued by historians…..we aren’t sure if Luther really nailed his theses to the door, but church doors were commonly used as bulletin boards at that time and the story does make sense.

….and what happened to Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms? A formal statement was issued condemning Martin Luther, but he was allowed to leave Worms without being arrested. It was commonly known, however, that at some point he would be arrested and punished.

His supporters hid him away at Wartburg Castle (again…..remember the “V” sound) and while there Luther began his German translation of the Bible.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Jeremiah's Confessions

I receive an email everyday from Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day and along with an entymology.

Today’s word was jeremiad which means a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also : a cautionary or angry harangue.

The email goes on to explain:

Jeremiah was a naysayer. That Jewish prophet, who lived from about 650 to 570 BC, spent his days lambasting the Hebrews for their false worship and social injustice and denouncing the king for his selfishness, materialism, and inequities. When not calling on his people to quit their wicked ways, he was lamenting his own lot; a portion of the Old Testament's Book of Jeremiah is devoted to his "confessions," a series of lamentations on the hardships endured by a prophet with an unpopular message. Nowadays, English speakers use "Jeremiah" for a pessimistic person and "jeremiad" for the way these Jeremiahs carry on. The word "jeremiad" was actually borrowed from the French, who coined it as "jérémiade."

Now…..regarding those confessions of Jeremiah. He’s not confessing all….telling us his sins. He is sharing the struggle of his soul……similar to those dialogues we all have with God and with ourselves regarding how we relate to God and if we are on the right path for God’s will or not.

These verses are usually noted as Jeremiah’s Confessions and can be found at the following links:

Jeremiah 11: 18

Jeremiah 12: 6

Jeremiah 15: 10-21

Jeremiah 17: 14-18

Jeremiah 18: 18-23

Jeremiah 20: 7-18

The picture with this post is Jeremiah as he appears on the Sistene Chapel by Michelangelo….

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Cha cha cha Changes

Though I was in the fourth grade in 1972 I remember vividly the song Changes performed by David Bowie being played on Atlanta radio stations over and over…..I believe my sister and I had the single, and even today it’s still played on various classic rock stations.
Believe it or not Changes is one of David Bowie’s best known songs, but it failed to make the Top 40. In the book Strange Fascination-David Bowie: The Definitive Story, David Buckley reports the lyrics are often seen as a manifesto for his chameleonic personality throughout the 1970s. I can understand this as it seemed Bowie remade himself everytime you saw him during the 70s and 80s, but John Mendelsohn wrote in a Rolling Stone article from 1972 that the song could be construed as a young man’s attempt to reckon how he’ll react when it’s his time to be on the maligned side of the generation.

Well, Bowie’s certainly there by now, isn’t he? Born in 1947 he’s not exactly the younger generation anymore. He’s still producing music though and still changing with the times. He’s the same David Bowie….he’s just merely presenting himself using modern methods
Bowie has branched out as an actor over the years most recently playing the role of Nikola Tesla in The Prestige released in 2006. If you are a SpongeBob Squarepants fan you heard Bowie’s voice used for the role of “Lord Royal Highness” in the episode titled SpongeBob’s Atlantis SquarePantis. Many of my students came to school talking about the soundtrack to Shrek2 in 2004. They told me all about a great song titled Changes, a duet by Butterfly Boucher and SOME OLD GUY. They’d sing it over and over on the playground. They were amazed when I told them about “the old guy” and that I listened to the same song in 1972 or as one child remarked, “Oh, in the olden days.”

Changes….sometimes we do have to turn and face the strange.

Ecclesiastes 3, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. Perhaps it ranks right up at the top of meaningful text because it involves the concept of time…a concept which is always near and dear to the heart of any history teacher such as myself.

The passage reminds us everything has its own time during the span of our lives. Sadness, happiness, death, new life, planting and harvesting, love and hate, war and peace----they all have a place at one time or another in our lives since Scripture tells us God created those things to be appropriate in their time and for His purpose.

In order to experience these things we have to also experience change. You can’t get from death to healing without change. You can’t get from throwing stones to gathering stones without change. You can’t get from tearing down something to building something up without change. None of it will happen without change. Life can’t exist without change.

Even so, many of us spend a large amount of our time here on earth resisting change, including myself.

I actually hate change. Change is the unknown. Change is scary. Change is uncomfortable, but the Bible shows us that change is necessary, and my own life experiences have shown me this is true. You can probably think back on great and not so great changes in your own life and see that while there were negatives with the change there were also postive things as well even though it might take some time for those results to be seen.

Last Sunday’s Bible Study lesson involved Abram and changes he made in his life. It was titled “Moving Out of Your Comfort Zone”. Using Scripture from Genesis 12 and 13the lesson reminds us about God’s call to Abram to leave his homeland and his people in order to follow a promise God has made to him.

Genesis 12:4 explains Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.

Between verses one and four of Genesis 12 we see the Lord commands and Abram goes. He doesn’t question, he doesn’t do any research, he doesn’t argue, he doesn’t discuss God’s command with a focus group, and most importantly he doesn’t ignore God’s command. God said go, and Abram went.

We see that Lot goes with Abram with no reservations as well. This amazes me. How many of us would pack our things and move simply based on the fact a relative told us God had spoken to him and promised he would become the father of many nations?

The most interesting thing is the last part of verse four……Abram was 75 years old. This isn’t exactly a time in someone’s life when change is easy. Now I’ve never been 75. I hope I get to 75 and beyond, but one thing I know from being around many who are 75, 85, 95, and even one important lady in my life who made it to 102, change isn’t easy for these folks even though they have the most wisdom to provide regarding life.

Yet we see Abram at at 75 setting out on a journey that our lesson compared to what we know about Columbus and his journey to the New World. I’m not sure I really know what I would do if the Lord spoke to me today, and told me to tell my family to pack up because we have to go on journey.

How many of us truly like getting outside of our comfort zone?

As an educator I have survived a firestorm of change in the last ten years. American History is still American History, but due to needed reforms I go about teaching it differently than the teachers who taught me. Instead of just reading a textbook or “sit and get” type lessons where students listen to me, I provide guided situations where students uncover content on their own. I provide opportunities for students to be motivated and involved in the learning process through various strategies that hit on multiple intelligences and learning styles. I don’t demand that students meet me at my level…I hunker down and meet them where they are even if that means providing content five different ways.

Now, don’t for one minute think that I and my colleages accepted these types of changes willingly. Believe me when I tell you there was much gnashing of teeth, snarling, and to and froing. I’ve stamped my foot and kicked my fair share of door jams over the last few years because I hung onto the notion that patience was the watchword. At some point and time I would receive that group of students that would be successful simply because they did it my way. I didn’t want to change, but I’m awfully glad I did because the benefits were amazing.

Reasons for the changes weren’t merely because legislators and educrats up on high told me to. It wasn’t really due to the latest research or fad. The changes were necessary because our clientele---our students---had changed. You cannot use early twentieth century methods with early twenty-first century students. Folks today aren’t just merely the television generation. They are the instant and constant information generation via their cell phone, their Ipod, their video games, their Internet, and any other type of technology I could list.

So, if the folks outside the school walls are looking for something particular does it make sense for me to say leave technology out and forgo various teaching methods because I’m not comfortable with them. Instead of merely leaving a child behind it’s more like I would be tuning the student out and off.

With that in mind do we tune people out and off due to a resistence in the church regarding change?

I think we do.

Over the last two thousand years there have been great upheavals and change in the church, and yet it’s still here. It’s not going away. Those changes were necessary to allow God’s plan to come to fruition.

Where would the Christian church be today if we still ignored Paul’s encouragement for congregational singing (Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19) and only opted for liturgical hymns sung by the special few who could sing in Latin?

Where would the church be today without the struggle that was created with the Protestant Reformation? Back then the slogan was “the reformed church, always being reformed by the church of God.”……always being changed by the church of God…..

Where would we be if Martin Luther had not prepared a Mass in German, so that ALL of the congregation could recite and sing the texts?

Where would we be without Charles Wesley’s hymns that actually provided a new focus….one that expressed personal feelings in the relationship with God as well as simple worship seen in much older church music?

Where would we be without Wesley’s new style of hymn and a period of history in America known as the Great Awakening which led to another distinct style of church music we know as gospel?

Thomas Aquinas said, “If the primary aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.” Applying this idea to the church how sad it would be if in our zeal to not bend to the needs of congregants we run the ship aground.

In his book, A Church for the 21st Century, Leith Anderson questions the goal of a church. If the goal is to preserve everything in pristene condition then it will be “defensively protected.” However, if the goal is to go out and do something those involved will be willing to take the risk.

Change, of course, does not mean turning your back on the foundation of Christianity. There are certain things that cannot be denied or ignored. Much like my subject matter of American History…..I can’t change the events, but I can change the methods I use to convey the foundational doctrine (John 3:16). The New Testament provides for us two things Jesus told us the true purposes of the church. Those are the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 19-20) These two things are paramount were until Christ returns. Over the years God’s people have stayed true to these purposes through ever changing styles and methods, but their eyes were always on the same common mission.

It’s clear to me from reading Acts 2 and listening to Bible scholars teach the text the church membership must be of one mind as the disciples were …..all together in one place. This is reemphasized at the end of the passage…..all the believers were together and had everything in common.

As believers we are all given the Holy Spirit, our guide to help us lead a Christian life. The Holy Spirit strengthens us, and it can be used to do things we have never done before. I’m just thinking that in order for the Holy Spirit to move within us we have to be open and willing for change to take place.

Are we, no matter our generational experiences, willing for that to happe

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Grandmother's Hands

This post first appeared here in September, 2007…..HERE

Last night at church one of our associate pastors read the following poem. Even though it is about a grandmother’s hands I couldn’t help but think about my own mother and her hands. She passed away in July, 2006, and I think I miss her hands most of all…..They did so much for me.

The pastor had to stop a couple of times as he read the poem, and I simply lost it.

At first I thought, “Durn, why did you go and read that? I certainly didn’t need to cry.” However, after some reflection time I realized I should be grateful that the pastor did read the poem because anytime something can trigger a memory of Mother it is indeed time well spent....even if it is also a tearful time.

The only copy of the poem I could find has been altered a bit from the one the pastor read but the majority of it is intact.

Grandmother’s Hands


I saw my grandmother sitting alone staring at her hands. I thought something was wrong and asked her about it. Grandmother asked, “Have you ever really looked at your hands?”


Grandmother continued, “Stop and think for a moment about the hands you have, how they have served you well throughout the years. These hands, though wrinkled, shriveled, and weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life.”


“They embraced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor. They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child my mother taught me to fold them in prayer. They tied my shoes and pulled on my boots. They held my husband and wiped my tears when he went off to war.”


“They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent. They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold my newborn son. Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world I was married and loved someone special. They wrote my letters to him and trembled and shook when I buried my parents and spouse.”

“They have held my children and grandchildren, consoled neighbors, and shook in fists of anger when I didn’t understand. They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day when not much anything else of me works real well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer.

“These hands are the mark of where I’ve been and the ruggedness of my life. But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out and take when He leads me home. And with my hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the face of Christ.”

I don’t think any Christian after reading this could ever look at their hands the same way again.
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