i love the bible

it's 4:48 in the morning and i've been awake since some time around 2:30. i'm still jet-lagged since i came back from israel two days ago so, i suppose it's to be expected. when i woke up this morning i went on a walk throughout the neighborhood which was a good time to myself that i needed to be with God. i also read my bible for the first time in a few days, and oh was it refreshing.

i just want to say that i love the bible. the reason i love it is because it's the true word of God. and while archaeology supports the bible as an ancient text, and while linguistics identify the bible as authentic (both good things to note), my favorite reason that i believe the bible is true (and why i love it so much) is because it knows me and it works. what is taught in the bible is so unique i don't believe any human being would, or could have ever come up with it out of their own imagination. if you were to create a fake religion you would be like joseph smith, a man who wrote doctrine commanding that you be a polygamist in order to go to heaven, or you would be like muhammad and say that you have to kill all other people of all other religions not your own. taking the influence from christianity totally out of the picture, from what i seem to observe, false religions have doctrines that appeal to the desires of the men who make them up.

the bible is unique, it says that in order to save your life you must lose it, in order to live you must die, being a servant is better than being a master, love, forgive and be gracious. because when we were undeserving, God first showed us love, forgiveness and grace. obligated to nothing and to no one, God sacrificed himself for this undeserving, wretched and disgusting people because he loved them.

in romans chapter one paul talks about the state of humanity. i used to think that humans were progressively getting worse, but after reading about the condition of people in the 1st century, we've been at the bottom of depravity for a long long time. paul says at the end of chapter one, "they know well enough God's righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die; yet not only do they keep doing them, but they applaud others who do the same." (romans 1:32) so in the first century not only did people continue to do what they knew was wrong, but they applauded others who did the same. (and whether you deny it or not, the human heart knows there is a standard to right and wrong). so that being said, if we really are that perverse, than where in the world does the bible come from? how can such a text come from us? how can a naturally rebellious people, inclined to everything not forgiving, not loving and not gracious, come up with a text that says, that those are exactly the things to be valued. the bible screams a foreign message and yet has a certain familiar appeal to our hearts in that it knows us completely. the bible knows me as a human being better than i know myself. i read things and come to such understanding of who i am more than i would have ever found looking inside myself. and the bible works. the bible says that in your relationships with one another, humility works and pride doesn't, and it's true. the bible says to live with grace and forgiveness towards one another, and that too works, because if you don't, life is extremely difficult. the bible knows humanity better than humanity knows humanity.

because the bible knows humanity better than we know ourselves, it can only attest to the fact that it was written by the one who made humans. i've heard similar analogies to one where, if you want to know the purpose and proper usage of a coffee maker, then you ask the guy who invented it, or you read the manual written by the guy who made it. if God made us, than the bible can only be his instruction about our purpose and proper usage, and that makes sense to me.

well, there is a lot more to write about this, i am kind of just stopping writing, i'll write more later i think. anyway. i am going to get some food, i am really hungry.

//

i just read this in mere christianity, makes me feel assured to know that really smart people like c.s. lewis have some similar ideas as what i am talking about in this post.

"reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. this is one of the reasons i believe christianity. it is a religion you could not have guessed. if it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, i should feel we were making it up. but in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. it has just that queer twist about it that real things have." - c.s. lewis, mere christianity.

the messianic synagogue

yesterday [saturday/the sabbath] whitney and i went with our friend mark to a traditional messianic synagogue. the synagogue is held in a small converted apartment with only about fifty people in the congregation. it is completely traditional in every way, except for one big one, they believe that Jesus is the messiah! wooh! needless to say, it was amazing. a bunch of guys stand up in front surrounding a hand written hebrew torah scroll while one reads outloud to the congregation just like it mentions Jesus doing in luke chapter four.

[luke chapter 4:16-20]

16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

20Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

the service was so amazing because as jews these believers are the context for the scripture. and with that first hand understanding of the hebrew language and the jewish culture they teach so accurately. the entire service is spoken in hebrew though the teaching translated for those who need it. it's everything i imagine the early fellowship of jewish believers being. because of my life in america with western christianity with an english bible i sometimes think that the gentiles are the original believers and the jews will one day join in, but after yesterdays service i realized how backwards that thinking is. in acts chapter ten it is a shock to peter that salvation through Jesus is not only for the jews but the gentiles as well; and that the holy spirit would come to the gentiles! these are people they didn't even associate with, much less fellowship with.

now mind you, these messianic jewish believers are not the ones walking around with black coats and black hats [a later tradition of the very conservative orthodox jews, not from the torah], nor will you see them worshiping at the western wall, at least i don't think you would because they have the holy spirit and have no need for a physical temple with no need to make sacrifices [the jews worship at the western wall because it's the side of the temple mount that allows them to get the closest to where their temple once stood]. these messianic believers are jews who are not bound by the law, nor are they slaves to the sabbath, but free as Jesus says in mark.

[mark 2:27]
27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

the service consisted of torah reading, singing from the psalms, and a teaching from the old testament, the prophets, and the new testament. whitney and i both loved the singing; all acapella lead by a man with a powerful operatic voice, and everyone in the synagogue faced forward while they sang, including the leaders.

one of the most amazing things to me was to see jewish people, a stereotypically stubborn and independent people, totally humbled before their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

philosophy

gezer panoramic, originally uploaded by nathanwilliam.

the deeper you dig into one expertise or profession the more and more i feel like people tend to lose perspective. like the term joel always uses, "missing the forest in the trees." as if to say, missing the big picture because you are so focused on the details. like looking with a microscope at hairs on the side of an animal without even trying to figure out what kind of animal it is.

i think this is why i like philosophy. because philosophy gathers all the details from all the different professions and tries to explain it as a whole. i guess i say all of this because archaeology is what we have been filming so much of recently, and i've decided that archaeology is boring. as dave put it, "we film rocks all day and then come home and watch The Office." yup.

i especially realized how boring archaeology was when i saw a documentary about big wave surfing... and it was awesome! while it was pretty much meaningless, it was most definitely more exciting than archaeology. and then i realized that if we focus on archaeology than i will go crazy. archaeology is certainly important....but we should be presenting the big picture. so anyway, those are my thoughts on that.

also, if any of you were wondering or heard about the bulldozer that went careening down the main street here in jerusalem, from what i know it ran over several cars, tipped over a bus, killed 4 people and injured about 40. while the rampaging bulldozer was on the move someone shot the man through the window of the bulldozer and killed him. it happened right near where we used to live, but no one i know was harmed. people are saying it was an act of terrorism...who really knows. the man who did it was an arab man with israeli citizenship.

interview with israel finkelstein

originally uploaded by nathanwilliam.

yesterday we interviewed israel finkelstein. many consider him to be the most controversial archaeologist in the world because of his views on the bible and archaeology. but after we met and interviewed him we realized that he is like most of the scholars we interview, picking and choosing what aspects of the bible are history or myth based on their interpretations of the evidence. there is a real problem within scholarship. a real problem.