Saw Minority Report last night. It was okay but was missing something I just can’t put my finger on. The premise was interesting but it could have been teased out more. I wasn’t surprized to find out who the bad guy was when he was revealed. Cruise did some fair acting. I don’t know why but the movie didn’t connect with me.

First day of Greek was yesterday. Everything covered in class was stuff I’d already studied when I was trying to do Greek on my own. I still have a lot of homework to do and reading. I’m going to run up to Starbucks to read before school. No, it isn’t cramming since I’ve already read this stuff, it’s more like refreshing my memory.

My phone got turned on! Finally. The only thing left to complete the move in is to get a key for my mail box which I should do today.

I read Revelation 12 this morning and it got me thinking. I love the book of Revelation and I highly recommend Scotty Smith’s book Unveiled Hope as a guide to read it. Anyway, one of the questions I’ve been asked by non-Amils (typically asked by Dispensational pre-mills) is “Well, if you don’t take the 1,000 years literally, what else don’t you take literally? Was Jesus in the tomb for three literal days? Why would you take the three days literally but not the 1,000 years?”

The way I answer is that I take things literally when the type of literature I’m reading intends it to be taken literally. What I would love to ask them is why they take some things literally and some not. For example, from Revelation 12, there is a woman who is taken figuratively (usually of Israel) and she is protected for “a time and times and half a time” which is literally three and a half years. You can see the inconsistency. The woman is figurative but the time is literally three and a half years even though the text does not literally call the “times” a year. The examples could be multiplied. Just one would be the bride in Revelation 21 who is figurative of the church but the 1,000 years from chapter 20 is literal.

This arbitrary hermeneutic drives me nuts. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature and it employs figurative language which should be interpreted figuratively therefore I take the 1,000 years of Revelation 20 to mean “golly, a real long time.” But something like Luke’s gospel is not figurative so I would take the three days Jesus spent in the tomb to mean “at least a portion of three days” which is how a Jew would have understood it. If you take the three days literally by our standards then Jesus didn’t die on Good Friday, He died on Good Wednesday or Thursday (depending on how you count.)

When evangelicals criticize theological positions they don’t agree with, too often they criticize them poorly. If you don’t hold to my interpretation, you’re in danger of becoming a liberal or Roman Catholic or whatever. For people so focused on being saved by grace, we sometimes show precious little of it to others saved by it.

On the 4th, my plan was to sit on the deck and watch the fireworks from Six Flags. There were trees in the way so we couldn’t see much. We were headed out to the car to drive around and see what we could see when we saw what we could see from the other side of our house was much more than we though. The whole family piled into the kids rooms with the windows opened and we watched about 5 or 6 different firework show at once. What a great night.

We made it! I didn’t have internet access in Iowa and our home phone won’t be connected till next week so I am Internet-less for a bit. The trip could, I suppose, be summed up in the words of Ezra:

For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him.” – Ezra 8:22

The hand of God was indeed favorably disposed towards my family. We didn’t have one single problem the whole time. No breakdowns, no missed turns, no running out of gas, no break-in of the U-Haul, nothing. The trip couldn’t have gone more smoothly. So smooth, it was boring. :o)

Our new condo is fantastic. Every window you look out of has a fantastic view. Central air, a fireplace, a deck and most of our stuff fits in it so far. Our new landlord helped us unpack when we arrived. We left more than half the stuff on the truck and got started the next day on that part. A friend came over and we had the truck empty by 1:00 pm. The garage is rather full, but we’ll get there.

Some praises:

• No major damage.
• The part of the shipment the pros moved was supposed to arrive Monday. I have school Monday, my kids will be at my mom’s and my wife will be out of town for a short-term mission trip. We tried to call the military to postpone the delivery but they were closed because of the 4th and not supposed to open till…you guessed it: Monday. They called me this AM and we’re scheduled for a day after my wife’s return.
• I already own most of the books I’ll need for Beginning Greek I.

The good hand of our great God is indeed with us!

We made it to Council Bluffs. It was a long, straight drive and it took about 10 hours. Gotta run since we’re heading out on the last leg of the journey. Can’t wait for it to be over. :)

Church this morning was…interesting. When we came in (yes, that means we were late) they were singing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ and a bunch of other Americana songs. The guest speaker was one of the missionaries the church supports, a guy with Youth for Christ in Minnesota. His message was from Amos 4&5 and actually wasn’t that bad (compared to the singing, someone reading the ingredients from a box of Bisquick wouldn’t have been bad.) I think I would have handled the text differently but he still did pretty good.

After the service we headed off to the Sonshine Cafe (gag) for coffee and donuts. Donuts were 50¢ each. After we stood around and talked to the people we came with (no one came over to introduce themselves) we went off to Sunday School. This was a class on the book of Revelation. As as soft Amill sort of guy I knew that what was going to be taught was not my cup of tea but I’d decided to keep my yap shut any how. Good thing. The woman who taught the class (forget 1Ti 2:12 I guess) was a big Kay Arthur “Precept” person here. I was plesently surprized to find that she was at least post-trib, but she was making some pretty bold statements with very little scriptural back up. My friend who is pre-trib tried to nail her on some stuff but she was very confident. I find it hard to tollerate teachers who are not teachable.

BTW, I’m on my friend’s DLS with my iBook. Cool and fast. He has a wireless LAN too but it is encrypted and when I enter the password via my AirPort card it doesn’t work. The AirPort finds the base station no problem but I can’t log into it. I must be doing something wrong.

Arrived in Broomfield, CO safe and sound. I thought the drive from Albuquerque would be murder since the van only does 25 MPH going uphill. It was actually pretty flat most of the way. Temperature is cooler than it was in Arizona too.

We’ll stay here tomorrow and go to church with our friends and then take off Monday AM. I don’t remember building that into the plan but it will still work out that we arrive in IL on July 2nd. That’s cool since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. The church they attend (and Evangelical Free Church) has been without a Senior Pastor for about a year and they just hired a guy who lives 5 minutes from the church! I don’t know if he’s going to be preaching tomorrow or not. Actually it doesn’t matter too much to me who is preaching as long as Christ is preached. Those “application” sermons drive me nuts. “Here’s five ways to be a better husband” they say and none of them involve being born again in Christ. I listened to an old tape in the van today by Tim Keller titled “Applying Christ.” Keller wanders quite a bit but he had some very good points. It all remindes me of 2Pt 1:3. God, though His great power, has given us everything we need for life and godliness through knowledge of Christ. That doesn’t mean that sermons don’t have application, but it does mean that the application has got to be more than “try real hard cause Jesus saved you.” Every time I hear that kind of preaching (and sadly I hear it a lot on Christian radio) I think of Paul’s rebuke of the Galatians:

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Keller quoted some Reformed guy (was it Burkhouer?) who said that the real difference between Arminians and Reformed is not justification by faith alone, though the Arminian is inconsistant, they still believe that. The real difference is sanctification by faith.

Anyway, I’ve gone off on a tangent. I’ll just be glad to be in church worshiping tomorrow.