Facebook and Ministry

Here is an excerpt of a really good post on facebook and ministry by Tim Challies (love the last line).

Be Present but not Always Present

Though Facebook can be a valuable tool for the pastor, it is a tool that is far more often used to waste time than to redeem time. Your congregation will be glad to see that you have a presence on Facebook, but they will be dismayed if they see that you have a constant presence. if they see that you are continually commenting, chatting, posting notes, interacting and racking up high scores on Bejeweled Blitz, they will come to believe that you are spending your entire day there. Even if that is not the case, you will want to be very cautious to give them no reason to think that you are wasting your study time or sermon preparation time stalking them on Facebook. So use it, but use it carefully and sparingly.

Don’t Play Farmville

Just don’t. It’s stupid and it will make you stupid.

Going Back to Narnia

Exact cover of the one I read as a kid

Recently I have been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis - some old, some new (Till We Have Faces.)  In my reading of the Last Battle (the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia) I was surprised to see something that I had never noticed before - a direct reference to Platonic thought.  In one of the best classes I have ever taken, Exegesis of the book of Hebrews, one of the best teachers I have ever had made the connection between Lewis and Plato (specifically - the Allegory of the Cave) in the context of Hebrews 8 (really Hebrews 7-10).  The indirect references were obvious to me after his explanation, but it was quite entertaining to see a direct reference that I had missed or not understood in one of my favorite books from my childhood.  See if you can see the connection in the following video, scripture, and book excerpt.

“Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises (it's better because it was enacted on the "real" things - not the shadows). For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
(Hebrews 8:1–13 ESV - emphasis and comments mine)

"Kings and Queens," he cried, "we have all been blind. We are only beginning to see where we are. From up there I have seen it all - Ettinsmuir, Beaversdam, the Great River, and Cair Paravel still shining on the edge of the Eastern Sea. Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia."
"But how can it be?" said Peter. "For Aslan told us older ones that we should never return to Narnia, and here we are."
"Yes," said Eustace. "And we saw it all destroyed and the sun put out."
"And it's all so different," said Lucy.
"The Eagle is right," said the Lord Digory. "Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan's real world. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream." His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these words: but when he added under his breath "It's all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!" the older ones laughed. It was so exactly like the sort of thing they had heard him say long ago in that other world where his beard was grey instead of golden. He knew why they were laughing and joined in the laugh himself. But very quickly they all became grave again: for, as you know, there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.
It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that
looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a lookingglass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.
It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!" (emphasis mine)

Tel Burna 2010-11 Excavation Season(s)

The dates for Tel Burna's excavation seasons have just been announced. Can't wait to go back for a couple days with IBEX this November to continue work at this fascinating site.  You can see some of Burna's fortifications here. Our short season will include a continuation of the surface survey, as well as a clearing of brush around some of the fortification lines.

Taken from 1980 Calloway, J. "Sir Flinders Petrie: Father of Palestinian Archaeology," BAR 6/6: 44-45.

Here is what Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (of headless fame) had to say about the site in 1891 in his journal on Tell el Hesy:

“Tell Bornat – Late Jewish pottery, no Greek (?) or Roman. Top is in crops, the sides half barren.  About 200 feet square with long slopes."

Petrie's description was spot on as this is the exact archaeological picture (there were no such designations as EBIV/MBI/IB, LB I, Iron IIa in Petrie's day) we have of Tel Burna with the same dimensions he describes nearly 120 years ago.  As confirmed by Google Earth.

If you look closely you can make out the shape of the tell on its  north, west and east sides (oriented due north) - these sides are basically symmetrical and according to Google Earth about 200 ft long.  (Google earth is amazing).

The Road

All animals are gone, all plant life is dead, the sky is progressively getting grayer, the world....colder. There is no more food. Gangs and loners are all that's left. The Man and his Boy are walking to the coast. 

I love the post-apocalyptic genre - ever since reading The Stand by Stephen King I have developed a deep appreciation for depictions of human life after a great disaster.  This is not due to some great attraction to epic, gray landscapes or amazing special effects as displayed in such movies as Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and the Book of Eli.  Those things are nice, but often distract from the fascinating sociological, psychological shifts that (would) occur with the total abdication of modern society and near obliteration of the human race.



"The Road" nails these shifts in society by telling the unbelievably, brutal story of a father and son and their fight to survive in a world that is all-but-dead. Personally, I was both entertained and profoundly shaken by both the gut-wrenching moral dilemmas and exceptional acting. 

Post-apocalyptic scenarios such as those portrayed in "The Road" can effectively display the baseness of humanity.  Horror movies and books are usually only scary, because they make you jump or squirm, what's way more frightening (and I believe in many ways edifying) than jumping in your chair as some knife-wielding masked man makes quick work of his stupid victims - is being shown THIS IS WHAT HUMANITY REALLY LOOKS LIKE WITHOUT RESTRAINT.  The horrifying part in all this is that effective fiction, like "The Road" and "The Stand," puts you directly in the character's scenario and make you ask the question - "what would I do?"

Tel Burna Slideshow

My lovely wife has put together a phenomenal slideshow of this year's excavations at Tel Burna.

Tel Burna 2010 from Mindy McKinny on Vimeo.