History...

Hey all! I wish I were posting more blogs, but it is hard to find the time. I think a part of me was expecting this whole Israel thing to be a vacation with some solid background info thrown in, but this trip really is a class. A class with tests and assignments. What I am saying is that this study in the land has been fairly mentally rigorous and has not left me much free time for reflection or musings. Still, one idea has been repeatedly popping up in my scattered mind, and that is that the Bible is history. Yes it is theological history, but history nonetheless. The people and places it describes were/are real people and places. The Bible is not full of Disney fantasies wherein you may hear about a genie and a magical carpet but you could never actually take that carpet ride. No, when the Bible speaks of Jericho it is saying that there was actually a city called Jericho which was an oasis in the desert that Joshua actually sacked. And you can go visit that oasis because it actually exists. Just as you can actually go visit the site where the temple described in the Bible once stood; you can see some of its old wall and walk on some of its steps. This is because the Bible is history. I'm no archaeologist so I'll state this in simple terms, but what has happened a lot is that people have read about sites in the Bible and thought 'Well this text describes this site as being here, so we should dig here to find the site'; and then people have found stuff. That's because the Bible is history. What this means is that it records the history of God actually visiting earth at various times- in a tent or in a vision or in a temple; even in a man. When the Bible talks about Jesus walking around and teaching and doing miracles and telling people about their sin and telling people that He is God and getting killed for it and rising from the dead, it is not telling a fairy tale. It is recording history. Jesus actually did those things. God actually in history in a real place that we can all go to became a man and died and rose again. He did things in a very particular way and this calls for a very particular response. We do not have the freedom to make up what we want about Jesus and twist and contort him to fit our own sense of religion or spirituality in the same way that I don't get to go around and tell you that Joe DiMaggio played for the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bible is a not a fairy tale but a theological history, and it records the story of God dwelling with people, and it records the story of God dying for His people. Surely this demands some kind of response beyond treating the Bible as some sort of nice story.

Devotion...

I cannot help but be in many ways amazed yet at the same time in some regard not surprised by the level of devotion shown by the orthodox Jewish people. A religion and culture with such heavy practice and ritual does not last this many years and through the trials they have faced without much devotion and even stubbornness. The dress that is so specific, praying at the same times daily, the manner in which they pray rocking back and forth, the strict adherence to Sabbath rituals, all of it paints a vivid picture of the Jewish religious culture. This was highlighted as this evening is Shavuot or Pentecost, the celebration of the giving of the Torah, in which men and women celebrate and study the Torah all night, rejoicing in the Law. The scene at the Western Wall displayed a mixture of jubilant dancing, singing, and shouting and also fervent prayer. In many ways these people are more devoted, more reverent, more religious, more ritualistic, more moral, more conservative, and more traditional than we as evangelicals in the West could ever dream of, but it is all for naught if they have not Jesus. No manner of ritual matters if Christ is rejected in it. If you don't have the Son then you don't have the Father, and you can't please the Creator while casting aside the One through Whom all things were created. Any level of admiration in my mind that is engendered by the people's religious practice is rapidly swallowed by an overwhelming pity; outside of Christ they will never know what true Spirituality is or to Whom the Law is to point us. I cannot help but wonder that they can read all of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament to us) and not understand that they have no true ability to keep Torah; they are embarking on a quest that is destined to fail. With all of our best religion we are still sinners in the end, and to think that we can somehow work ourselves to a worthiness acceptable to God is the height of arrogance and paramount of sin. It is not that I have figured something out that others could not, as I would not know God were it not for the Spirit first moving in me; I only love God because He first loved me. Under their religion I surely would have given up long ago. They are in a lot of ways better than I, but in the end depraved, unworthy, and thus doomed, just as we all are if Christ is not our bedrock.

Leaving For Israel...

Hey all, been a little while, been busy. So I got a unigue opportunity; I am leaving in the morning for Israel. I will spend three weeks there touring and studying the land of the Bible. While there I will do my best to post impressions and photos of the experience, should be one of those once-in-a-lifetime things! Peace!