Everything Stops

By | April 23, 2007
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Today is Memorial Day in Israel, in which the nation’s fallen soldiers are remembered.  At 8 pm last night and at 11 am this morning, a siren sounded and everything in the nation stopped.  Cars stopped on the freeway and people got out and stood and remembered.  For one minute last night and two this morning, classes stopped, work stopped, talking stopped.  It’s not much to remember those who have died to give a nation life, but it is something.  I don’t know if there is ever a time in the States when everyone all at the same time does the same thing.

I was talking with a neighbor who is about my age when the siren sounded this morning and after we sat back down he told me about his classmate that he grew up with.  They had the same name and went to the same school.  But his friend died serving in the military.  Everyone here has a friend who died.  Many have a son, father, or brother.

Questions (and answers)

By | April 19, 2007
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I am going away for the weekend (not to a country north of us as I had planned at one point).  With time being short, I’ve been responding to a few emails and thought that a few questions I’ve been asked might be of more general interest. 

Are you still planning on moving to Dallas in August?  If you are down here in southern California for a while before you leave for Texas I would love to be able to get together even if it is just for coffee. 

We move to Dallas in July. We ‘ll be flying straight there. Hopefully I ‘ll make it out to California some time in the next year.

It’s a bit strange to hear that you’re just now interviewing with the DTS faculty, but I suppose I don’t know the half of it. 

The DTS interview is a normal part of the process.  I’m actually applying to start the PhD program in January, which gives me time to finish the ThM and do a number of other things (like pick a dissertation topic, start the Bible arguments, get moved into a new country).  I ‘ll have an oral exam in person after passing the written exam.   In the email notifying acceptance a few days ago, they made it clear that the oral exam had to be in person.  I told Kelli that that must be b/c they want to see you in person at least one time before they accept you.  And then I said, I’ve had 3-week examinations for many years now, so they should know what they ‘re getting! (if I’m not qualified to be their student, I’d have to wonder if I’m qualified to be their teacher!)

How is Luke doing? 

Well, it depends upon the day. Yesterday he smashed his (new) watch into pieces at school. It’s hard to understand him; that’s our problem. He just doesn’t make sense. He does things that he doesn’t like and that are bad for him and others. Not all the time, but too many times.

Have you been able to get all the traveling in you wanted to?  I mean of course there is always more places you want to go, but you mentioned a checklist of places you wanted to go before you leave, how many places do you have left? 

Yes, I still have the checklist and it’s actually growing longer, not shorter! For example, it’s Travel/Study Break now and I’m going with some students for 3 days to the Negev. I had about 5 places on my list. But in researching it some more, I found about 20 places I want to go. I ‘ll hit about 2-3 places that were originally on the list and 10 or so others. But the list will end up longer than before! Israel is just so full of stuff, it is amazing.

A friend (also a student; is it ok if a student is a friend?)  just emailed and told me to read point #4 on Gunner’s blog because it is fantastic. 

I agree.

What specifically makes you say that you’re doing what you were made to do?  Why a professor instead of a pastor or something else?

I wrote a long answer to this one, but I’d need to refine it a bit more before posting it.


Here’s a cute picture of Mark and Toby.

Not in America

By | April 18, 2007
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Israel is sometimes called the 51st state.  In many ways there are similarities and sometimes you forget that you’re on the other side of the world.  But yesterday I had three reminders that I’m not in America.

1. The cheapest child’s hamburger at Burger King is $3.20 (12.90 NIS).

2. No mail arrived.  We haven’t received mail in about two weeks.  First there was the Passover holidays (one week), and now there is a mail workers’ strike.  You would think that somebody important would get mad.

3. I can’t find a single person with a GPS unit.  No kidding.  I asked friends and those who live at the moshav.  No one has one.  Not in their car and not for hiking.  (The cheapest one at the mall was $800.  I decided that even locating Gezer boundary inscriptions was not worth that price.)

Gun Control Kills

By | April 18, 2007
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There are many sad aspects to the Virginia Tech massacre that are worthy of comment and prayer.  I want to mention but one here.  I believe that gun control laws are in part to blame for the tragedy.  Yes, you read that right.  I know that every “expert” on the TV that I am not watching is saying precisely the opposite. 

Gun control laws keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding people.  Consequently, only the police and one vigilante had a gun at school the other day.  But the police were nowhere around and so there was no one to stop the murders.  One armed student or teacher could have stopped the killings and saved many lives.

Ah, but if there were more gun control laws, then that would have prevented the murderer from having a gun.  Sure…just like drug laws make cocaine impossible to buy.  Just like immigration laws keep illegals out of the country.  The reality is that guns exist, and no law will ever get rid of all of them.  Therefore, criminals will always have access.  And to stop them when they decide to go on a rampage, law-abiding citizens must have guns.  Monday’s tragedy is yet another illustration of the truth that you cannot expect the police to protect you.  They simply cannot be everywhere at the same time.

Virginia Tech does not allow guns on campus.  What would have happened if faculty and students were given the choice to carry a gun?  It’s not difficult to figure out, as a similar situation occurred 5 years ago at another Virginia school, the Appalachian School of Law, where guns are not outlawed.  Best of the Web (Wall Street Journal) describes how the gunman killed three before he was stopped.

Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, officials said.

“We saw the shooter, stopped at my vehicle and got out my handgun and started to approach Peter,” Tracy Bridges, who helped subdue the shooter with other students, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. “At that time, Peter threw up his hands and threw his weapon down. Ted was the first person to have contact with Peter, and Peter hit him one time in the face, so there was a little bit of a struggle there.”

Last year there was an attempt to pass a law so that guns would not be outlawed on campuses, but the law was defeated.  Ironically…

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.

They weren’t feeling safe on Monday.

This is not a conservative/liberal issue.  It’s not an NRA issue.  It’s logic.  Simple logic.

Holocaust Day

By | April 16, 2007
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Today in Israel is Holocaust Martyrs ‘ and Heroes ‘ Remembrance Day.  At 10:00 this morning, loud sirens sounded throughout the country, calling people to stop for two minutes of silence and reflection.  Arutz-7 links today to Israel National Radio which features

a series of testimonies given by Holocaust survivors. Among 12 accounts of suffering and survival, you can hear the following:

  • Holocaust Survivor Kate Bernath describes life with the women in the barracks, the cruelty of slave labor, and the chaos of the final days.
  • Major Anatoly Shapiro, a Russian soldier and Jew, describes his experience as the first person to liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau. Learn what it took to keep his unit from taking revenge on German soldiers, and what we must do to stop the next genocide against the Jews.
  • Polish survivor Dr. Abraham Peter remembers starvation in the Lodz ghetto, what his family found when the Jews were liquidated, what the Poles called them when they were liberated, and what would do justice to the murdered.
  • Efraim Kay of Yad Vashem discusses the most destructive extermination camp of Nazi Germany, why Auschwitz has come to symbolize the barbarism of the Nazis, and who paid the costs of the killing machine.

Today

By | April 1, 2007
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I am feeling good today.   At home this morning the kids were just so well behaved, each sharing with one another and not an angry word or yell to be heard.   After eating my favorite breakfast (pancakes with sausage gravy), I headed up to the office.   Among the mail waiting for me was a long letter from an old friend describing his exceptional spiritual successes in recent times.   Someone stopped by and told me the moshav breakfast was stellar, notwithstanding the current Passover preparations and blessed rabbinic regulations.   Ever encouraged, I set my mind to my favorite task: grading research papers.   These were so carefully researched and written as to make me think that there really is no need to require the class to submit a second draft.   I finished these so quickly and without any interruptions and so I was excited to start writing the quizzes for the Galilee trip.   This task is so much easier now that I have converted to Mac.   The quizzes almost seem to write themselves!   Since hardly any of the morning or afternoon had passed by, I reached for book #10 of the month and finished that before lunch.   Now with the entire afternoon ahead of me, I have lots of time to come up with a good April Fool’s day joke.


Yesterday was my last day teaching with the SMM.

Odds and ends

By | March 23, 2007
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Sometimes you just marvel and say, that is a cool photo.

I’ve been using TinyURL for years, but urlTea seems better if you want to shrink (and customize) a link.

One chart that summarizes the major views about the millennium (or lack thereof) is online here.

For some months now, I’ve been using Windows Live Writer for my blog entries.  And I like it.  The two things I like best are 1) the easy of inserting photos; 2) the ability to save drafts offline.  I use it for both my WordPress blog (this one) and my Blogger blog (BiblePlaces Blog).  The only problem I have is that I can’t add tags to my Blogger posts.  Otherwise, I like it much better than using the normal interfaces.

My family just bought tickets to a whole other country.  One-way.

For the next week, we’ll be traveling up north.


Tiberias in the 1800s

Yep, Still Alive

By | March 20, 2007
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I know that I haven’t blogged in a while and it’s been pretty weak even when I have.  I fear that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.  Starting with this post…

So, 3,000 flights are cancelled in New England and the result is that I spend Sunday at places like Mount Gerizim and Shiloh. With 40 parent-types stuck in Israel, I try to do my part in keeping ’em happy.  And, yes, they’re still here…


Steps of Samaritan Temple

On the other side of the  ocean, Eric and Heather are the proud parents of a third child.  They missed the opportunity to name him William Todd Randy Zeller.

My friend Jonathan likes to ruffle feathers in the non-Lordship town of Dallas.

Another friend has joined the ranks of the apostate.  It’s astonishing how bad things can get when you’re away from godly companionship for 6 months. And he shares his latest airport security story.  To hurt Israel’s tourism industry, all the Arabs need to do is to publish more horror stories of everyday travelers who are treated like terrorists.

I missed posting anything about MacArthur’s sermon at Shepherds’ Conference in which he showed how the same type of thinking that naturally leads to Calvinism also leads to premillennialism.  I was very pleased to hear about this message, for more than one reason.  If you have been a student of mine and haven’t thought much about the issues of dispensationalism (and premillennialism and the other views), I’d encourage you to set aside one hour this week to learn a little bit about it.  And an easy way to do that is by reading some of the interaction about MacArthur’s sermon.

You could start with Challies’ live-blog of the sermon.  Pulpit Magazine follows up the sermon with a short series of End Times Q&A (1, 2, 3).  Then the question “Why Premillennialism?” is answered with two brief points.  This, my friends, is what it comes down to.

(1) God cannot lie and He can communicate clearly

(2) God’s unconditional covenants with the nation of Israel are irrevocable

If you want to hear some from the other side, you can see “With All Due Respect to Dr. MacArthur.”  Or see “Problems with Premillennialism” with Sam Storms.  If anything strengthens my conviction about eschatalogy it is reading what the other side says our problems are.  Those difficulties strike me as quite easily resolved, especially in comparison to the problems created by denying a future hope for the salvation of Israel and an earthly kingdom.