I’m going to take today off from blogging our vacation as Kelli and I are celebrating 20 years of a happy and blessed marriage. When I return, we ‘ll continue on our journey to see 4 presidents carved in stone.
July 28, 2012
The Badlands
A morning drive across South Dakota set us up for a leisurely afternoon hiking and driving through Badlands National Park. The scenery reminded me some of the Qumran/Masada area and some of Bryce Canyon in Utah.
View from Big Badlands Overlook
We had time to do a number of hikes. Here the whole family hikes on the easy Cliff Shelf Trail.
Hiking on the Cliff Shelf Trail
I don’t know if I should be pleased or not that Jonathan climbed up this rock by himself.
Mark and Jonathan on Cliff Shelf Trail
One more view.
View from Pinnacles Overlook
I learned something else as a result of our afternoon drive through the Badlands. Don’t drive on roads with fresh tar unless you like spending hours scrubbing it off the paint of your car.
On to South Dakota
Our travels through Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota today included some nice variety. Our stop at Kenefick Park with its massive locomotives gave us the excuse of studying the transcontinental railroad earlier this summer. Some day I’d like to read Ambrose’s Nothing Like It in the World.
Locomotives at Kenefick Park, Omaha, Nebraska
Youth pastor Jake recommended a Lewis and Clark site on the “bluffs” from which came the name “Council Bluffs.” This provided a great view of the Missouri River and the city of Omaha.
Lewis and Clark Monument Park near Council Bluffs, Iowa
Our littlest trooper
Our second Lewis and Clark site of the day was a hike to “Spirit Mound,” an elevated hill in the middle of plains. This is one of the few places where scholars know for sure that Lewis and Clark stood exactly. (Yes, I felt here a bit like some Holy Land pilgrims, searching for the very place.)
The kids on the trail to Spirit Mound
In preparing for our trip, we checked out a video at the library on South Dakota. When they mentioned the Ingalls Homestead, we knew we ‘d have a disappointed daughter if we didn’t visit the childhood home of the author of Little House on the Prairie.
Climbing the viewing tower at the Ingalls Homestead. Hey, wait for me!
Bethany has been wanting to ride a horse for a long time.
This scene probably looked pretty similar a hundred years ago when Laura Ingalls lived here.
Kansas and Nebraska
When I envisioned this trip, I had thoughts that we might spend a day or so in each state as we headed north to North Dakota. As it turned out, I couldn’t find much to do in the states “on the way,” but plenty of good sites in South and North Dakota. Thus today was largely about getting closer to South Dakota, but we did have a couple of interesting stops.
Most of our study of American history in the past years has focused on the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly looking at settlers, wars, and presidents. Our first stop today concerned an important judicial case in the 20th century. When Linda Brown was forbidden from attending a neighborhood school in Topeka, Kansas, her father filed suit in what eventually came before the U.S. Supreme Court as Brown v. the Board of Education. The court unanimously ruled that separate is not equal and that segregation was illegal. Linda Brown’s school is now a national historic site.
Kids in front of Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site
The historical event that is most prominent in our preparation and visits this year is the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Without anticipating this year’s trip, I read Undaunted Courage last year and was better prepared to enjoy the sites and teach the family. Our first Lewis and Clark stop was along the Missouri River at Nebraska City where a beautiful visitor’s center holds 122 (stuffed) animals, 178 plants, and replicas of a keelboat and pirogue. We enjoyed hiking out to a vista point near the river.
Prairie dog village reconstruction
Keelboat replica constructed for National Geographic special
We ended the day with dinner with a youth leader from our church who is spending the summer at home in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The boys really enjoyed the time with Jake!
Friends in Oklahoma
My series last year on our family vacation seemed to be appreciated, so I am going to try it again this year. Because of time limitations while traveling, the series is delayed by three weeks, but I will write as if I am describing events that occurred today.
Our plans this year are for a three-week trip to about a dozen states in the Midwest. The “centerpiece” of our trip is a week with Kelli’s parents in Illinois, including a celebration of their 50th anniversary. We are going to take the long way to Illinois and we ‘ll take our time returning home. We plan to see family, friends, historic sites, and scenic landscapes.
Unlike last year when we started out with a 14-hour drive, we began this trip with a four-hour hop to two sets of friends in Oklahoma. Of all the places in Oklahoma where they could live, these (unrelated) friends turned out to be only 2 miles apart.
The first was a special treat for Kelli and Bethany who lost close friends to a job transfer earlier this summer. We were able to enjoy many hours plus an overnight stay with Gina’s family.
Bethany enjoys a special tea with her friend Ashleigh (and sister Katie)
A post on this blog last year was partly to blame for a fun reunion with IBEXers from the famous Fall 99. Andrea Heck responded to my need for a proofreader and that re-connection may have helped convince her to host us and the Nate Madden family for dinner. We had a delightful time with Andrea, her husband Charles (IBEX Spring 97 but permitted at the reunion nonetheless :-)), Nate and his wife Rachel, and a host of children. We love being with those who are serving the Lord faithfully, especially those who have studied at IBEX.
Charles and Andrea Heck with children
Nate and Rachel Madden with children
July 30
David Platt explains some of the dangers of the “sinner’s prayer.”
“Son of Hamas” has announced plans for a movie based on the book.
Fun with copyright traps. I’ve created a few of these in my projects.
Here is a smorgasbord of Bible memorization methods (and one way to learn whole books).
God Does Not Do Miracles Today
A few weeks ago a member of my Sunday School class asked me if I believed if God still does miracles today. I don’t think he was satisfied with my answer.
R.C. Sproul has recently written a very good (and brief) response to the same question and I would recommend it to you.
Now of course when people ask me, do I believe in miracles, they ‘re asking one question and I’m answering a different one. If they ‘re saying to me, “Do you believe that God is still working in the world supernaturally?” Of course I do. “Do you believe that God answers prayers?” Of course I do. “Do you believe that God heals people in response to prayer?” Of course I do. All miracles are supernatural, but not all supernatural acts are miracles.
He also gives one reason why this matters.
Psalm 34 in David’s Life
I think it’s easy to read the Bible as though written by the “Bible author” to you the “Bible reader.” We can flatten the text out and disregard the circumstances of life in which certain passages were written.
In many cases, we do not know when or where a passage was written. This is true as well for many of the psalms. But some psalms give us clues in the text or in the superscription. I think that Psalm 34 is not difficult to figure out and when considered in that light, new insights come forth.
The superscription of Psalm 34 is: “Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.” In one sense, this is pretty easy to understand, because you can flip over to 1 Samuel 21 and read the story of how David feigned insanity and thus was able to escape the clutches of the Philistine king.
If you read the superscription more carefully, however, I don’t think it suggests that this psalm was written while David was clawing the walls and drooling on his beard. The superscriptions says that David “left.” Thus it was written after David fled Gath. This makes a lot of sense when you read what occurred next in David’s life.
David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him. (1 Sam 22:1-2)
When you read this psalm as one written by David soon after he arrived in Adullam and was surrounded by a crowd of down-and-out renegades, verses just start ringing with fresh understanding.
The psalm begins with a call to join David in worship. He’s suggesting the men praise God with him. Verse 3 makes a nice inscription on the inside of one’s wedding band (“Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together”), and I wouldn’t have mine any other way, but David probably was addressing a crowd who was a bit more reticent.
I think we can see that in the next verse where David gives his own testimony: “I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.” David is telling the men that he’s been there, and he’s cried out to God, and the Lord has responded. These men can have the same experience. David was looking at a lot of downcast faces, with some probably facing mortgage foreclosure and possible slavery. He directs them to the Lord: “Those who look to him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame.”
There is a better way, David knows. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” David is evangelizing, telling those around him about the pleasure of knowing God. I think the second half of that verse succinctly captures much of the essence of OT (and NT!) salvation: “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”
There is a lot here and I’m not going to walk through all of it, but when you read the injunction to “keep your tongue from evil,” you might consider that David wrote this not for you but for some men who were living under a ruler worse than Obama. When he told them to “seek peace and pursue it,” he would show them what he meant when he had the opportunity to kill King Saul and did not.
If you need a psalm to study or memorize, I would recommend this one. It was written to be memorized (each verse begins with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet). Two items I want to think more about are in the final verses:
1. How does verse 20 relate to the Messiah? (“He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken”)
2. Does verse 21 help me to understand Daniel 11:40-45, where the Antichrist is attacked by the king of the north and the king of the south?
The psalm ends with the flip side of the heart of the gospel, a thought that is not new in Romans 8:1: No one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.
July 16
I recommend this article on Evangelizing Children by Grace Community Church.
This page provides perhaps the best rationale I’ve read for learning Greek.
Many in church history have believed in the national salvation of ethnic Israel.
This app eliminates time spent on hold by calling you when the representative is available. Now I’d like to see one that eliminates calls from all 800, 888, 877, 866, and 855 numbers.
Five Years in Texas
I’ve developed a pattern of posting on July 13 and though today is a busy day, I thought I’d squeeze in a brief note so as to not bring things to an end prematurely. I fully expect that this will be the fifth and final time I memorialize our exodus from Israel and wandering in the wilderness known as Texas. At this time next year we should be somewhere else.
We ‘ve come a long ways in five years, if you measure by kids ‘ heights alone. I added a degree (ThM), we added a son (Jonathan), and the kids added all kinds of other things (soccer, piano, AWANA, trumpet, etc.).
There’s nothing in Texas that we want to leave. Life is not perfect, but it is good and our dislikes are far outweighed by our blessings.
There’s only one thing in California that I want to go to. There are many things I could most happily live without. But that one thing trumps all the rest. Israel is more closed to us than ever, to judge from the welcome I received on my April visit.
As for the dissertation, I’ve spent the last two months researching and my Word document has more than 300 pages of notes. It is coming along, though I can’t say that I’ve found anything yet to really animate me about the whole endeavor. I am much more animated about teaching the Bible at church. I am getting close to wrapping up the series on Daniel and am looking forward to what’s next. I may be able to do something with it here when the time comes.