The ESV Study Bible

The other day I bought myself an ESV Study Bible - The one I got was $87.00, but if there is something I will pay good money for it is a Bible. This is a translation which I first was exposed to in 2003 (the year it was first published). My friend Brad and I were working at the annual gathering of the ETS (Evangelical Theological Society) in Toronto - we were working for InterVarsity Press (Free books and 10 bucks an hour you can't go wrong!) - It had just come out in a bland hard copy version - 

Interested in what it had to offer, we bought it and neither of us has regretted it. It has been helpful over the years - and has been becoming more and more a part of my study as the years have gone on. It is a great translation with many theologians and linguist at the helm which I respect including J.I Packer, Wayne Grudem, William Mounce, Greg Beale, and Craig Blomberg. The study notes are written by great biblical scholars such as Frank S. Thielman, Clinton Arnold, and Thomas R. Schreiner. Also three teachers from my school (Regent College) are responsible for the notes: V. Phillips Long (Joshua), Iain Provan (1 and 2 Kings) and J.I Packer who was the theological editor for the entire Study Bible.

On that note, J.I. Packer has said about his involvement with the Study Bible: "I find myself suspecting very strongly that this was the most important thing that I have ever done for the Kingdom" - This is a big statement from the person who wrote "Knowing God" one of the all time best selling, most read, most beloved Christian books of all time - and a classic in every right. (A must read for anyone reading this who has not bee blessed by its pages)

Also, Pastors such as James Macdonald, Mark Driscoll and John Piper have officially changed their preaching Bible to the ESV which says alot.  It is a good translation that balances linguistic faithfulness and contemporary readability. It is a good balance of being a "word for word" translation (think NASB) with meaning for meaning flow (think NIV, NLT) - with much needed corrections and updates to the NIV ("righteousness from God" in Romans? Where did the NIV derive such a concept? Its the "righteousness of God"!)
About a month ago they released the ESV Study Bible. I am excited, and in the words of Merry and Pippin from The Lord of the Rings "I'm getting one!" Well, as mentioned above I already got one. I found a list someone had written; 10 reasons why the ESV Study Bible is great. I thought I would share it with you as I agree with each point he makes:

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1. It’s based on the English Standard Version, which is one of the finest and most faithful translations available today. While it’s always good to consult various translations for study, the ESV does a great job recognizing variants in translation in the footnotes.

2. The introductory notes to each book are informative and helpful, and don’t overwhelm you with interesting but non-essential background information.

3. The notes are extensive and answer questions I actually have about the text, without avoiding difficult passages.

4. The notes cover material that is not only helpful, but pastoral, aimed at helping me understand God’s Word better and as a result in growing in Christian faith.

5. The notes are well laid out. I’ve found them easy to follow along with the text.

6. The treatment of the first few chapters of Genesis is very even-handed and well-researched. The notes aim to give us an appreciation for the interplay of science and the Bible without giving ground on the ultimate authority of Scripture.

7. The focus is always Gospel-centered. The notes seek to answer the question, “Where does this section of the Bible fit into the larger story of God sending Jesus to redeem a people for his glory?”

8. The articles in the back of the Bible are almost a book in themselves (I’d love to see Crossway publish these separately), and address many significant issues clearly, briefly, and effectively. They include Biblical Doctrine, Biblical Ethics, Reading the Bible, The Reliability of Bible Manuscripts, The Bible and World Religions, and the History of Salvation in the Old Testament. In addition there are several additional articles between the Old and New Testaments that shed light on the inter-testamental period.

9. The maps and illustrations actually contain the cities, areas, and details I want to know about, and are placed close to the passages they refer to.

10. The notes don’t go beyond what the text says. They affirm what is clear, and plainly present different views when a word, phrase, or passage is unclear.

The only negative comment I’d make at this point is that the Bible is so big it’s hard to imagine carrying it around a lot. Unless I also want to use it as part of my exercise program.

But it’s a Study Bible, especially useful for personal devotions. I’m so eager to read through the ESV Study Bible that I’m setting a goal to read through the entire Bible with text notes by the end of 2009. It’s an ambitious goal, at least for me. The Bible and text notes come in at almost 2500 pages. Over 14 months, that’s about six pages a day, without missing a day. Like I said…it’s ambitious. But I’d rather aim high and fall short of my goal than aim low and miss it. I’ve found that I do better when I attempt a Bible reading plan that necessitates God’s grace than one that I can accomplish on my own.

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Here is a list of endorsements from Christian leaders, Pastors and Theologians:

“I was privileged to act as General Editor of the English Standard Version, and now that I look back on what we did in producing that version, I find myself suspecting very strongly that this was the most important thing that I have ever done for the Kingdom, and that the product of our labors is perhaps the biggest milestone in Bible translation in certainly the last half century at least, and perhaps more. And now, as Theological Editor of the ESV Study Bible, I believe that the work we have done together on this project has set an altogether new standard in study Bibles.”
J. I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada

“The ESV is a dream come true for me. The rightful heir to a great line of historic translations, it provides the continuity and modern accuracy I longed for. Now the scope and theological faithfulness of the ESV Study Bible study notes is breathtaking. Oh how precious is the written Word of God.”
John Piper, Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN

“The ESV Study Bible is the most important resource that has been given to the emerging generation of Bible students and teachers. The ESV Study Bible is the best. Period.”
Mark Driscoll, Preaching Pastor, Mars Hill Church, Seattle, WA; President, Acts 29 Church Planting Network

“The definitive clarity and beauty of the ESV Study Bible is extraordinary. In a world where words are distorted to mean anything, it is wonderful to have complete confidence in the reliability and truth of the Bible—so clearly and persuasively demonstrated by this world-class team of Bible scholars and teachers. For everyone who wants to understand God’s Word in a deeper way, the ESV Study Bible is an outstanding resource. I will be an avid user!”
Joni Eareckson Tada, Founder, JAF International Disability Center, Agoura Hills, CA

“Outstanding! The ESV Study Bible is a treasure—a beautiful volume, filled with a wealth of resources. It will be just as useful for the seminarian and long-time pastor as it will be accessible to the brand-new Christian.”
R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

“Wow! Concise, lucid, enlightening—the ESV Study Bible is an amazing resource. With its textual fidelity, doctrinal substance, and artistic beauty, the ESV Study Bible will be an immense help to all who hunger for God-breathed Scripture. I wholeheartedly recommend this exceptional resource.”
Randy Alcorn, bestselling author of Heaven and Money, Possessions, and Eternity

Christmas Theology: The Virgin Conception

One of the seminal miracles in all of the Bible, is the virgin birth, and it bears some close scrutiny especially at this time of year. In fact, the miracle of Christmas has several components, but none more crucial than the miracle of the virginal conception which presents us with an explanation as to how the Incarnation happened. Several preliminary points need to be stressed.

Firstly, there are no real parallels to this story, despite the ‘Zeitgeist-ites’ contentions to the contrary. Mary of Nazareth was a historical person, unlike stories about Isis which are pure myths about mythological deities, not mere mortals. Furthermore, the mythological stories about the divine rape of a mortal woman by some male deity (cf. the story in Gen. 6.1-4 about wicked angels) are very different than the story of the virginal conception which stresses there was no intercourse with any kind of male, whether terrestrial or celestial. Then too, the stories about Caesar or other Emperors having divine origins besides being imperial propaganda (which even Romans recognized as pure P.R.) do not involve virginal conceptions. Finally, there are no comparable earlier Jewish stories. For example the stories about Moses’ origins (either canonical or extra canonical) do not include the notion of a virginal conception.

Secondly, it needs to be stressed that Isaiah 7.14 while patient of the interpretation that it refers to a virginal conception, was never interpreted that way before the time of Mary of Nazareth. Why not, because a literal rendering of the Hebrew there is as follows “an almah will conceive and give birth to a child…..”. The normal translation of almah is ‘a young nubile woman of marriageable age. Now, in an honor and shame culture, this would normally include the conception of the virginity of the woman, and thus we should not conclude that the translation of almah is incorrect, when it renders the word as parthenos ("virgin"). The latter is a term with a more limited semantic field, focusing more clearly on the virginity of the woman. 

Even so, what Is. 7.14 and in particular “a virgin will conceive and give birth to a child” seems to have been understood to mean in early Judaism was that a woman who was a virgin would conceive by the normal means and give birth to a king. In short, no one seems to have been looking for a virginally conceived messiah in early Judaism. And this leads to an important conclusion—it was the unexpected event in the life of Mary that led latter Christian interpreters to search the OT and interpret Is. 7.14 as they did (see Mt. 1-2). 

ASIDE: A guy once called me and challenged me on this interpretation, "Mark,  the Hebrew Bible only pictures a young maiden and thus Mary was not a Virgin!" I pointed out that he should not base the whole argument about her virginity on the Isa. text but on Matthew, who twice tells us that Joseph never had sex with Mary until after Jesus was born (1.18, 25) - I asked if he was willing to believe the alternative, that Mary was sleeping around with other men then Joseph. He was not.

The claims that the story of the virginal conception is an example of prophecy historicized, rather than being a reflection on an actual historical event, won’t work because Jews did not read that prophecy that way. On the contrary, it was the actual historical event that led to the re-evaluation of OT prophecies, including in particular Is. 7.14.

There are further problems with the contention that this story is not historical, namely in an honor and shame culture like early Judaism, and when we are talking about a religion that was evangelistic in character, no one in their right mind would make up a story about a virginally conceived messiah, because the skeptical would immediately conclude that what the real story was that Jesus was illegitimate, and in fact we know that that was the rebuttal in second century Judaism, with the suggestion being made that Mary was impregnated by a Roman soldier named Pantera or Panthera.

We can see the difficulties of explanation that were presented to a Gospel writer like the Jewish Christian who wrote Matthew almost immediately. How in the world does one squeeze Jesus into Joseph’s genealogy, as is done in Mt. 1, whilst maintaining that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus? The genealogy in Mt. 1 is a patrilineal genealogy, a genealogy of begats, basically, which means you are tracing the line through the male descendents of King David and even before that of Abraham. The answer is--- you put Mary into Joseph’s genealogy!

 

And you prepare for that little surprise by mentioning in passing other women who had surprising or irregular unions with Jewish males from Israel’s past--- women like Tamar, or Rahab, or Bathsheba. Notice how the genealogy concludes---- ‘Joseph, whose wife was Mary, who bore Jesus….’ And then the author goes on to explain that if Joseph had not been alerted in a visionary dream to marry Mary even though she was already pregnant, Jesus might never have been part of a patrilineal genealogy going back to David at all. In other words, the actually historical occurrence of the virginal conception is what causes all remarkable these genealogical gymnastics. The story of the virginal conception is a story too improbable not to be true, as an ambitious evangelical religion in an honor and shame world would not make up a story prone to all sorts of negative alternative appraisals. The possible punishment for pregnancy out of wedlock by a betrothed virgin was stoning. The virginal conception imperiled Mary’s very life, and it is no wonder that she took a little trip to see her cousin for various months immediately after the shock of becoming pregnant in a highly irregular manner.

The Tipping Point & The Gospel

I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. Its a great book. Its a book about a lot of things. Its helps us realize a basic biblical principle as well: little things matter because they lead to big things. Its why God took away the kingship from Saul (because he didn't wait for Samuel). Its why God didn't let Moses go into the Promised Land (because he hit a rock with a staff instead of speaking to it). Its the little things. The little things are everything.

The Tipping Point revolves around the little things as they relate to social epidemics. Gladwell defines the Tipping Point this way:

It's the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It's the boiling point. It's the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards. AIDS tipped in 1982, when it went from a rare disease affecting a few gay men to a worldwide epidemic. Crime in New York City tipped in the mid 1990's, when the murder rate suddenly plummeted. When I heard that phrase for the first time I remember thinking--wow. What if everything has a Tipping Point?

 He says there are three things that cause something to 'tip':

(1) The Law of the Few: "The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social skills." Gladwell describes these people in the following ways:

Connectors are the people who "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together." To illustrate, Gladwell cites the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Milgram's experiments in the small world problem, Dallas businessman Roger Horchow, the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" trivia game, and Chicagoan Lois Weisberg. 

Mavens are "information specialists", or "people we rely upon to connect us with new information." They accumulate knowledge, especially about the marketplace, and know how to share it with others. 

Salesmen are "persuaders", charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills. They tend to have an indefinable trait that goes beyond what they say, that makes others want to agree with them. Gladwell's examples include California businessman Tom Gau and news anchor Peter Jennings, and he cites several studies about how people are persuaded.

(2) The Stickiness Factor: the specific content of a message that makes it memorable and have impact. The children's television programs Sesame Street and Blue's Clues are specific instances of enhancing stickiness and systematically engineering stickiness into a message.

(3) The Power of Context: Human behavior is sensitive to and strongly influenced by its environment. As Gladwell says, "Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur." For example, "zero tolerance" efforts to combat minor crimes such as fare-beating and vandalism on the New York subway led to a decline in more violent crimes city-wide. Gladwell describes the bystander effect, and explains how Dunbar's number plays into the tipping point, using Rebecca Wells' novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, evangelist John Wesley, and the high-tech firm Gore Associates.

For a Christian and a Pastor I think this book works in a number of important ways. The most important social epidemic in history is the Gospel of Jesus. I read this book asking: How do we use these basic principles of a spreading epidemic (obviously under the Lordship and Sovereignty of God) to spread the Gospel? How do we use the Law of the Few--focused on connectors? How do we use the stickiness of the message and the methodology of Gospel-centered living? How do we use the power of context including church communities and their personalities, attitudes, and behavior for the spreading of the message of Jesus?

Such is the challenge to the Church. How do we make the Gospel the fastest growing epidemic to effect change for the glory of God?

saints and SINNERS

A few weeks ago we, as a church community, starting a study in 1 & 2 Samuel (at DSF, our churches evening service) - the story of the life of David. I knew I wanted to do this series for awhile, I just didn't know what angle to come at it from. I prayed and thought around the text for some time, thinking about a series title that would capture what 1 & 2 Samuel is about, but something directly applicable to our lives. The series title, and angle, dawned on me one day while driving. It is an idea so elemental to being human: the biblical fact that we are both fundamentally saints and sinners. I did not really realize at the time how deep this title was, and how it would go on to shape so much of what I and others would be living through as we have been studying the text together.

We live schizophrenic lives as human beings. We have great moments where we act like we were intended: helping, serving, loving, worshiping. But at the same time, in the same day, hour or minute we do the most evil, selfish things. The week we started the series someone dropped cookies off telling me how much I blessed them, and the next day I got a call from a friend who was, with good reason, angry at me because I had shared something with someone that I should not have. I was reminded that being human is hard work, and that I am a saint and a sinner.

How are we saints? We are made in the image of God (Gen 1.16-28). We have attributes that are like God: Goodness, Love, Justice, Creativity. Theologians call these the Communicable Attributes of God. Attributes communicated to humans. This is the only reason we are capable of any thing that remotely resembles goodness. This is due to the common grace of God. There are also Incommunicable Attributes of God: Perfection, Unchangeableness, Omnipresence. The Bible reminds is that while we are made in his image, we are not him.

How are we sinners? We fell (Gen 3). We are deeply effected in every part of ourselves by sin and death. We are totally depraved. Capable of no good and pure thing (Rom 3.10-18). We are corrupt in the deepest parts of ourselves. This is important to understand. Total depravity is often a misunderstood doctrine, as if it is saying that human beings are as bad as they possibly could be. But this is not true. The doctrine indicates the extent of evil in our lives; that evil has touched, and harmed, every part of us: "our moral natures, rationality, sexuality--our very view of the world and our most fundamental motives" (John G. Stackhouse Jr., Making the Best of It, 49)

Bring these two aspects of ourselves together and you get a person who is subject to the ways of the fallen world and somehow connected to something that transcends himself. In his book The Nature and Destiny of Man, celebrated theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, says:

“The obvious fact is that man is a child of nature, subject to its ways, compelled by it necessity, driven by impulses, and confined within the brevity of the years which nature permits its varied organic forms. The other less obvious fact is that man is a spirit who stands outside of nature, life, himself, his reason and the world. In its purest form the Christian view of man regards man as a unity of God-likeness and creature-liness in which he remains a creature even in the highest spiritual dimensions of his existence.”

Life is about living in the midst of the tension this reality creates. We live between these two poles. Two weeks ago I started the sermon with a clip of Gollum/Smeagol arguing with himself and said that of all the LOTR characters, the Bible tells us we should most immediately identify with him. We are Smeagol, God's creation, beautiful and full of potential. But all of that potential has been corrupted by our sinfulness. We are deeply messed up people. Deeply sinful. Liberals tend to focus on the saint part, and ignore the sinner part of ourselves. Fundamentalists tend to focus on the sinner part and marginalize the saint part of ourselves.

As I reflect on the Bible, think about my life, and the lives of those I pastor I have come to conclude two disturbing but liberating truths about being human. First, our default position is never Jesus. Because we are born into sin, our natural proclivity is toward sin, and the father of all lies, Satan. Our nature is to be turned in on ourselves. That is why the Reformer Martin Luther defined sin as Homo incurvatus - mankind turned in on himself. Our heart is curved away from God. "There are none who seeks for God" (Rom 3.11). We begin not where Adam started but where he finished. Disobedient, selfish, sinful, disconnected from God.

Second, we all have the potential to be the next murderer, thief or adulterer. I am not sure we believe this. I am not sure we have all come to terms with the fact that we all have the potential to be the next Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin. What makes them different than you? Were they born twisting their mustache's hatching plots to destroy the world? No. They were once helpless babies dependent on their mothers; playing with friends and siblings; asking the same questions we all ask, feeling the same pain we all feel. The reality is, they were sinners, just like all of us, and the same weakness that ran through their veins runs through each one of us. Two use a cowboy image, there are no white hats and black hats. There are only black hats. The only white hat to ever have entered the earth was that worn by Jesus.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn put it this:

"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

The potential for great sinfulness runs through the hearts of every human being. We are all guilty before a holy God. Still, I don't think you believe me. You don't really believe you could be the next murderer do you? If you don't believe that, than you have missed the message of the Bible. Last night I preached about Saul. He ended poorly. We all have that potential. Many connect Saul with Judas - betrayer, suicide etc., What makes you better than either of these men? 

We all have the potential to be Judas. In a sense we are already Judas... every day. Some of us every hour.

Listen to the story Jesus told about people who think they are not Judas or Saul or evil at all:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18.9-14)

Do you view yourself as utterly sinful before a holy God, no more righteous than anyone on the earth? 

This is the only way to come into the Kingdom. As a child. Humble. Not boasting of any good thing. Asking God to forgive you and apply to you the righteousness of Jesus, because you have no righteousness of your own to offer.

Believe it.

Not to be overly dramatic but the reality is living in light of this is the only way to move forward and makes sense of your life.

SELAH: Remembering...

One of the key roles Torah (the five books of Moses) played in Israel's history was to help them practice dense memory while living in pagan cultures--to remember. While living in Babylonian exile they would read Genesis and Exodus to remind themselves that those surrounding narratives were not true, and that  they served the one true God of all the world; YHWH, who had made them and liberated them from Egypt. One of its key roles was the role of helping Israel to remembering. 

Remembering is integral to what it means to be human. To stop and remember and to dwell deeply on the past, to put the present into context and help us move forward into the future. The Hebrews have a great word that captures the idea of stopping and contemplating something deeply--SELAH. We read it in the Psalms many times. SELAH is a liturgico-musical mark--an instruction on the reading of the text, something like "stop and listen". This word occurs seventy-one times in thirty-nine of the Psalms, and three times in Habakkuk 3. Its a beautiful concept that we in the West have to be forced into sometimes. Days like today are good reminders. A forced and instructed SELAH--"stop and listen"--in the context of a Canadian Stat Holiday. Add to this the idea of Torah (remembering). 

What are we remembering? The selfless sacrifice of those generations that fought and died in two horrific wars to allow us to help others. They fought against oppression and fascism, and for Canadian freedom and democracy--ideals that continue to be fought for around the world today. This day is about remembering the fallen. It is not about using this day on either side of the present political debate about whether we agree, or disagree with present wars, or even whether we agree or disagree with WWI and WWII (there are those who think these wars were illegitimately fought by the West, though I disagree). But this day is not about that, it is about remembering the fallen, who fought and died for the freedoms and blessings we enjoy today, including many of our grandparents.

Why is Remembrance Day continuously important? Because, one day in the not so distant future all those who lived through, and fought these wars will be dead. All those who lived through the Holocaust will be gone. All those who lived through Nazi Germany will be gone. All those who landed in Normandy will be gone, and all we will have is stories, pictures, film and memories. All we will have is the will to remember. All we will have is a forced stop and listen, a SELAH of Remembrance. And that is what this day is about.  

Two Great Books!

I just got off the phone with a mother whose child is dating a real thinker, and a skeptic. She regretted that he did not attend my lasted sermon series Skeptics Forum (available online or Podcast) where I covered the following questions:

1. Does God Exist?

2. Can There Be Just One True Religion?

3. Has Science Disproved Christianity?

4. Why Would a Good God Allow Evil and Suffering?

5. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

This mothers said "I want to buy him a book or two for Christmas (he said he would be open to it), what should I buy him?" I did not even have to hesitate. The two books I would most highly recommend to anyone who is seeking answers to difficult questions of faith are the two best books I have read this year, and I commend them both to you as you think about what to read or buy next.

First, Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity? This is the most well argued, articulate, relevant book I have read in a long time. It explores philosophy, theology, science, and history in an engaging way that presents Christianity as a legitimate world view, even in an age of skepticism.

The book tackles arguments from science and philosophy about why belief in God, is legitimate and reasonable. A great read to strengthen your faith, and challenge your inner skeptic.

Secondly is the beautifully written The Reason for God by one of the great preachers and church planters alive today, Timothy Keller; the man that Newsweek called "a C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century."

This book is written in the spirit of Mere Christianity with updated and (post)modern ways of explanation. It is extremely accessible and pastoral in its approach to questions about Hell, the existence of God, science, suffering, and the Bible. This book comes out of Keller's experience of pastoring in Manhattan for twenty years and the questions, struggles of many in that city in regard to faith, life, Christianity and reason.

I would commend these books to anyone who is interested in Christianity, or interested in strengthening their faith in the way that Scripture exhorts us to: "always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3.15).

The Bible in a Minute

King Solomon's Mine Found?

WASHINGTON — Legend has it that King Solomon's mines held a treasure of gold and diamonds, but archeologists say the real mines may have supplied the ancient king with copper.

Researchers led by Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego, and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, discovered a copper-production center in southern Jordan that dates to the 10th century B.C., the time of Solomon's reign.

The discovery occurred at Khirbat en-Nahas, which means “ruins of copper” in Arabic. Located south of the Dead Sea, the region was known in the Old Testament as Edom.

Research at the site in the 1970s and 1980s indicated that metalworking began there in the 7th century B.C., long after Solomon.

Industrial copper slag mound excavated at Khirbat en-Nahas with a building and layers above it dating to the mid-9th century B.C. and its deposits dating to the 10th century B.C. (Thomas Levy, UC San Diego)

But Dr. Levy and Dr. Najjar dug deeper and were able to date materials such as seeds and sticks to the 10th century B.C.

“We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us,” Dr. Levy said in a statement. “But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible.”

Their findings are reported in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Christian Martyrdom: Happening Now

"45 million Christians were martyred in the twentieth century."
-- Oxford's World Christian Encyclopedia.

This week I got an email from someone I know in the Muslim world who reported something that the NY Times, almost exclusively, reported, because the mainstream media is busy with other things. There is a kind of genocide that is happening in India right now (a beautiful country that I visited two summers ago). There is presently a kind of religious genocide happening to our Christian brothers and sisters there. Here is the link.

Christians are forced to renounce their faith in exchange for safety, or else face marytrdom. This has been going on for weeks in India. This ought to be stunning to us since India is the world's largest democracy and officially a tolerant secular state. Hindus make up the majority of citizens in India, whilst Christians are only about 2% of the population or so.

The eastern state of Orissa, "in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze."

The private email I got speaks of dozens of Christians tribes being slaughtered.

"In a nearby Catholic orphanage, the mob locked up a Priest and a computer teacher in a house and burned them to death. Many believers have been killed and hacked into pieces and left on the road.... even women and children."

"More than 5000 Christian families have had their homes burned or destroyed. They have fled into the jungles and are living in great fear waiting for the authorities to bring about peace. But so far, no peace is foreseen."

"This will continue for another 10 days.... supposedly the 14 day mourning period for the slain Hindu priest. Many more Christians will die and their houses destroyed."

We really do find it hard to connect with this as Western Christians whose biggest problems revolve around not being able to build 20 million dollar add ons to our massive church structures, and people not making us the center of attention and serving my needs. But we must try to reflect on these things. We must allow our hearts to break, to cry out on behalf of these amazingly beautiful people.

One potent and deep Scripture comes to mind when I think of these people facing persecution today, as I sit in my heated office complaining about my cough-due-to-cold.

Describing men and women in the past who suffered martyrdom for their faith, the writer of Hebrews says:

"They were stoned, sawn in two, put to death with the sword, being destitute, afflicted people of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11.37-38).

That last line is important. People who get killed who remain faithful to Jesus, Scripture is saying, are more valuable then the world could ever understand. The world in all of its confusion, upside down values, and systems of thought and practice. It is no longer worthy to host the kinds of people God decided to take through martyrdom. They are that loved by God and valuable in his sight.

Discipleship of the Mind

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.
(Mark 12.30)

I have always felt a calling to it, but I never had a name for it before. I do now. Discipleship of the Mind. I have always felt that this was my passion; my role within the church. Some people are called to disciple the heart, others the soul, still others the strength. My passion is to disciple the mind. Not as a separate reality from the rest, it is all connected of course.

Why does the discipleship of the mind matter? Well, because ultimately our behavioral patterns follow our thinking patterns -- we do what we think. So, we may mourn the destructive patterns that our family and friends are living in, and we may try to help them stop acting that way, but the reality is, Scripture says, they need a renewal. A renewal of what? A renewal of the mind. That is the only way they will be transformed. Paul says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12.2).

Often people look at this in the context of people who are already Christians. "Yes, teach Christians the basics of the Bible, and theology -- that's important" they may say.
They would agree with A.W. Tozer, as I would that

The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most important fact about any person is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…That our concept of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance… A right conception of God is basic not only to theology but to practical Christian living… I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to wrong thinking about God.

But I want to push things further than that. I want to propose that discipleship of the mind is something we need to focus on as a point of our mission, our evangelism -- its is central to how the gospel impacts and changes a people. This is why, when Jesus gave the Great Commission, he said that the disciples were to do two things as they went: baptize and teach (Matthew 28.16-20). According to Jesus, teaching people was part of the mission. You must teach people how to think, and what to think. Think about what? Everything: God, Humanity, Sin, Death, Life, Salvation, Origins, Meaning, Value, Destiny -- this is about constructing a worldview for people.

1980, Charles Malik came to speak at Wheaton College about evangelism, at the opening of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He said this:

At the heart of all the problems facing Western civilization—the manifold perversions of personal character; problems of the family; problems of economics and politics; problems of the media; problems affecting the school itself and the church itself—at the heart of the crisis in Western civilization lies the state of the mind… The true the task of the evangelical world is not only to win souls, for if you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed it may turn out that you have actually lost the world.

Our message to those outside the church is that the gospel is not about one aspect of your lives (some private corner of your heart, in some sentimental way), no, the gospel offers you a new Mind -- a different way to view everything!

As Ravi Zacharias often says: “God not only changes what we do, he changes what we want to do.”

There is so much more to say... but this is enough for now.

Television & Elections: Has the One Destroyed the Other?

It's election time in both Canada and the U.S. and that means attacks ads, political commercials and televised debates. I have heard so much discussion lately around Harper's knit-sweaters, Dion's glasses (not to mention Palin's), and how the TV hurts and helps both candidates in the U.S. Every night when my wife turns on Showbiz Tonight there is a segment, a long segment, called the Palin Factor--which talks about her latest clothes, hair-do and glass. When I hear the discourse of our culture revolving around such things it makes me laugh, and then it makes me kind of sad, and then scared pitless. During these times I always think back to a book I read years ago, which though published in 1984, before the invention of the Internet, still carries with it a great reminder to our culture about the ramifications of having our public discourse--whether it be about politics, religion or news--centered around such trivial things.

The book is Neil Postman's (1931-2003) celebrated and oft-quoted book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business wherein he argues that political philosophy cannot (and thus should not) be done on television. "Its form" he says "works against the content." Here are four points he makes. And I do not make these points in regard to one candidate over another (in either country)--because one could argue that television has helped and hurt all candidates.

First he says "Because we live in an image-centered culture it would appear that fat people are now effectively excluded from running for high profile office. Probably bald people as well. Indeed we may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control... Someone like our twenty-seventh President, the multi-chinned, three-hundred pound William Howard Taft, couldn't be put forward as a presidential candidate in today's world. In reality the shape of a mans body is largely irrelevant to the shape of his ideas. But it is quite relevant on television. Television gives us a conversation in images not words."

Secondly he says "Public figures were known largely by their written words, for example, not by their looks or even their oratory. It is quite likely that most of the first fifteen presidents of the United States would not have been recognizable had they passed by the average citizen in the street... To think about these men was to think about what they had written, to judge them by their public positions, their arguments, their knowledge. Think of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Billy Graham or Albert Einstein what will likely come to your mind is an image, a picture of a face. Of words, almost nothing will come to mind. This is the difference between thinking in a word-centered culture and thinking in an image-centered culture."

Thirdly, he says in our move away from a print-based epistemology to an image-based epistemology much has been lost: "Under the governance of the printing press, discourse in America was generally coherent, serious and rational; but under the governance of television, it has become shriveled and absurd.... This shift in epistemology has had grave consequences for public life; we are getting sillier by the minute."

Postman believed that this leads to a kind of cultural death: "When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when a people become an audience, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility."

Fourthly, he makes a suggestion about political commercials: "I am particularly fond of John Lindsay's suggestions that political commercials be banned from television as we now ban cigarette and liquor commercials. I would gladly testify before the Federal Communications Commission as to the manifold merits of this excellent idea. To those who would say such a ban is a clear violation of the First Amendment I would offer a compromise: Require all political commercials to be preceded by a short statement to the effect that common sense has determined that watching political commercials is hazardous to the intellectual health of the community...Television serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse--new, politics, science, education, religion--and turns them into entertainments packages. We would all be better off if television got worse not better. "The A-Team" and "Cheers" are no threat to our public health. "60 Minutes," "Eye-Witness News" and "Sesame Street" are."

The reality is that we are an image-driven culture at every level -- the question is: has this helped us or hurt us in regard to the most important parts of our civilization?