Sudanese student Yassin Mohamed Al Mubark a suffi student from Fitaihab, near Khartoum, brandishes his sword during the protest in Khartoum, Sudan, after Friday prayers Nov.30, 2007, calling for the execution of a British teacher after she was convicted of insulting Islam for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad. (Ap Photos/Abd Raouf)

Look how ancient sculptors portrayed Moses' head. 

Why did they do this? 

It's how Jerome translated the Bible verse (i.e. Vulgate).  Look to the post below...

Do you remember how Moses' face shone from being in God's Presence?  SO much so that he had to wear a veil covering himself? 

The Hebrew word translated "shone" is unusual and is related to the word translated "horn," meaning "rayed."  In the Latin Vulgate, Jerome translated the Hebrew clause in light of the basic meaning of the root word which is "horned." 

This led some ancient painters to represent Moses in art with horns coming out of his head.

Here's Michaelangelo's Moses, as it stands at the Vatican.

"Bush said he is committed to seeing an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank," the negotiator said.

Bush met separately today with Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of tomorrow's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit at which the Israeli and Palestinian teams are slated to present a joint declaration widely expected to outline a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

"But the issue here that I want you to focus on is the people who were willing to glorify God even if it meant a severing in their family, a severing in their friendships, a severing among their neighbors. That's...that's how it is. I believe that if you say I am going to live my life to the glory of God there may be a price to pay in your family, there may be a price to pay among your friends and there may be a price to pay among your neighbors. You may generate a great hostility. And I'm not just talking about non-Christians here, let me tell you something, there's enough carnality and enough compromise in the Christian church that if people decide they're going to live solely and only to the glory of God, they might find themselves losing Christian friends who are willing to live at a compromising level. They might find themselves being severed from acquaintances that have been long-time acquaintances who aren't willing to live at that level of spiritual devotion. They might even find that they become the oddity in their own Christian family because they are so totally devoted to the glory of God. I mean, if you in your family of sort of lethargic compromising or apathetic Christians and you decide to live to the highest level of spiritual devotion, you're going to become a rebuke to that whole environment...even though it's nominally Christian or even though it's really Christian.

"But if you aim your life at the glory of God and you're going to live that way, then you will prefer Him above everything and everyone no matter what. Even if it costs you a family. Jesus said it, didn't He, "I came to bring a sword to divide families." Even if it costs you a friendship, even if it costs you alienation from your neighbors, it can do that, it will do that. It's sort of like taking a Nazarite vow, you just stick out, you're just kind of odd.

Dr. John MacArthur

The message of this book does not grow out of these times but it is appropriate to them. It is called forth by a condition which has existed in the Church for some years and is steadily growing worse. I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.

The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.

With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshiper in this middle period of the twentieth century.

The loss of the concept of majesty has come just when the forces of religion are making dramatic gains and the churches are more prosperous than at any time within the past several hundred years. But the alarming thing is that our gains are mostly external and our losses wholly internal; and since it is the quality of our religion that is affected by internal conditions, it may be that our supposed gains are but losses spread over a wider field.

The only way to recoup our spiritual losses is to go back to the cause of them and make such corrections as the truth warrants. The decline of the knowledge of the holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the majesty of God will go a long way toward curing them. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we must begin to think of God more nearly as He is.

A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1961), pp. 6-7.

I can't find my Ken Boa Prayer Book.  I let someone borrow it.  Who has it?

In a previous post I highlighted what the seeker/emergent wanna-be “churches” will be speaking about next year.  It’s the same tired, yawn-inspiring list of topics they tackle every year – they just package them differently. 

The list for 2008 looks like this…

1.  How to be Wealthy.

2.  Celebrate Recovery - getting over your addictions to pornography, blogging, ice cream, etc.

3.  How to have Abundant Blessings Here on Earth.

4.  Getting out of debt, and Giving.

5.  How to have a Fulfilling Career.

6.  Living Your Best Life Now.

7.  Finding Your Purpose - How to Gain Vision for Your Life.

8.  Prayer of Jabez - Expanding Your Territory.  Yeah!

9.  Experiencing God’s Perfect Plan for Your Life.

10.  How to have a Peaceful Family Life.

11.  How to have a Fulfilling Sex Life.

12.  Reducing Stress.

We live in mindless times, do we not?  It’s more and more about us – and less and less about God.  God has become weightless, which is seen best in how Christians think of Him, how they speak of Him and what priority they put on living for Him.  This is seen as well in what the churches are communicating  about God. 

The bottom line is God rests lightly on believers...doesn’t He?

What's your church preaching...opps...talking about this Sunday?    

Which is a great analogy to sin.  If you live with a redneck - listen to redneck speak - do redneck things, it won't be too long before you're finding things to kill (two deer on one day).

"Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind.  And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." - Jesus Christ

I'm still thinking about what the article below stated...

"...this 'new wave' of ministry came a de-emphasis on taking personal responsibility for Bible study combined with an emphasis on felt-needs based 'programs' and slick marketing."

"The size of the crowd rather than the depth of the heart determined success. If the crowd was large then surely God was blessing the ministry. Churches were built by demographic studies, professional strategists, marketing research, meeting 'felt needs' and sermons consistent with these techniques. We were told that preaching was out, relevance was in. Doctrine didn't matter nearly as much as innovation. If it wasn't 'cutting edge' and consumer friendly it was doomed. The mention of sin, salvation and sanctification were taboo and replaced by Starbucks, strategy and sensitivity.

Exactly!  It continues...

"How can you argue with the numbers? If you dared to challenge the 'experts' you were immediately labeled as a 'traditionalist,' a throwback to the 50s, a stubborn dinosaur unwilling to change with the times."

So true... 

"The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples."

"...the error of the seeker-sensitive movement is monumental in its scope. The foundation of thousands of American churches is now discovered to be mere sand. The one individual who has had perhaps the greatest influence on the American church in our generation has now admitted his philosophy of ministry, in large part, was a "mistake." The extent of this error defies measurement.

Wow - but here's the problem.  In the eyes of the hip-pastors of the wanna-be emergent churches, they've got a whole new slew of leaders they emulate.  They don't follow Bill Hybels anymore.  He may be the grand-father of the seeker movement (actually Robert Schuller is).  However, these guys follow after Rob Bell, Erwin McManis, Doug Pagitt, and Leonard Sweet.  So, my point is, though WC may right their error - you're still going to hear the same watered-down, cotton-candy, low committment, take it or leave it gospel being presented.  Only persecution will wipe it out...

Even though the article below says that the seeker-sensitive movement was spawned by WC and B.Hybels - in all honesty, WC would NEVER endorse some of the mess that comes out of the younger generation of seeker sensitive, emergent wanna-be's.  Never.  Though I believe that the seeker-sensitive churches is off base (which they themselves are now admitting) nonetheless, they have a high degree of integrity.  It's the younger generation of churches (the new wave) that push the envelop further than WC ever would. 

I'm showing some of the highlights of my trip to the peeps at church tomorrow night.  And as I've been reading through the gospel narratives I've been piecing together things I saw while I was there.  

One thing I really miss is walking around with these guys...

If I ever need body guards at Church on the Cape - I know exactly who to call.

As I was skimming through my pictures from my Israel trip I was reminded of seeing a Muslim man in the city of Jerusalem.  This was while everyone else was shopping.

He carried a string of beads, not unlike a rosery, that he thumbed through as he "prayed."  (I assume that's what he was doing.)  Each bead, up to 100, represents one of the “most beautiful names of God,” as they say. 

My laundry is all done, my body is fully acclimated, and I'm ready to jump back into my routine.  The older kids love their robes from Israel and Owen looks great in his yamaka.  Pictures forthcoming.

Even though I'd love to keep reading more and more information on Israel - the history, the geography, etc., I can't.  I've got to finish our Attributes of God study before diving in to our Daniel/Revelation study.  This Wednesday night I'll be showing folks here some of the highlights from my trip.

I wonder if Dwight, Nub, Barry, Carolyn and Linda might join us...?  

When you squirt hair spray under your arm, thinking its deodorant, that's when you know it's time to come home. 

We had a full day today, but all of our internet cards have expired, so I can't blog it until I get home.  Most of the group has gone to bed already because our wake up call is at 1:30 a.m.

But just so I won't forget...  Today we started early with a visit to what's called the Rabbi's tunnel - a tunnel that extends the full length of the Western Wall.  Then we went to a place overlooking Bethlehem - the traditional site of the Upper Room - some more achelogical sites in the Jewish Quarter - then, after lunch and shopping...we finished the day with the contested site of Golgatha and the Garden Tomb.

The tourist traffic here just keeps on pouring in.  Our tour guide is going with us to the airport to pick up another group!  A group who will ask the exact same questions, go the exact same sites and take the exact same pictures.  More power to you E'rez! 

I can't wait to see my wife and children.

"Full" is not even the word I should use.  By now, I hear words like the Byzantines, who were conquered by the Muslims, who were conquered by the Crusaders...  and that rock is from the time of the Turks...  that archway is from the time of the Romans...  that's not original, it's a replica...  take pictures here, but not here...where Jesus walked is about 12 layers underneath where we are standing...  STAY WITH THE GROUP...and on and on it goes.  But when you've got a city that is built on eons of history, that's what happens.  I think it's wonderful.  It's just all starting to run together.  Our tour guide is starting to sound more like white noise, and I don't even care about my own questions anymore.  I'll ask them the next time I come to Israel. 

In order to process this trip, I need a big cup of coffee from Port City Java - and maybe chase it down later with some French Fries from McDonald's.  It will take months for me to come to some sort of bottom line.

I didn't blog anything last night because I got into a very long - and very delightful conversation with the resident genius, Daiqing Yuan.

I am so glad that there are bright minds in the kingdom of saints that we can all benefit from.  Daiqing and I talked Biblical chronology using the lunar calendar - dating the world all the way back to creation.  It's fascinating what Daiqing can do with an abacus. 

The majority of our day yesterday was spent at the Holocaust Memorial.  You could spend a couple of days in there.  There is so much material to view, listen to and read.  It's very raw and a moving experience...which is what it should be.  However, I really enjoyed what we did yesterday morning.

We began from the Mt. of Olives, where Jesus gave His Olivet Discourse overlooking Jerusalem.  Like this picture, taken from the same spot.