My Experience with the Tension in Jerusalem (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, I explained that Jerusalem has an ancient district - a very small walled area called the "Old City" - which is surrounded by a modern city that has emerged within the last 100 years or so. The present day nation of Israel was formed in 1948, but only the modern part of Jerusalem belonged to Israel at that time - the Old City (and other territories) were captured in 1967. This territorial expansion has been extremely controversial for decades and has proven to be an obstacle to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians (the people who lived there previously).

While all of the 1967 territory is disputed by the Palestinians and surrounding nations, the Old City is perhaps the most hotly contested from a cultural standpoint because of its religious significance. The eastern side of the Old City is home to the Temple Mount, a large elevated platform which rises about 20 meters above the street level. Atop this platform stand two Muslim worship places where God's Temple once was, and you can see both of them in my video of the Temple Mount area below.

My Experience with the Tension in Jerusalem (Part 1)

I shot this video on May 13, 2012, while I was in Israel. What you're seeing is a group of Palestinian protesters marching around the "Old City" of Jerusalem. You may notice the young man at the very beginning who looks very unhappy with me, to which I was utterly oblivious as I marveled at this peculiar and foreign spectacle with touristic enthusiasm, completely enthralled by the intimidating roll of the "r" in the Arabic tongue. Before this trip, I was only vaguely aware of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis over Jerusalem, and I'd like to share what I've learned (and some of the pictures I took!)

In Need of a Spark

Newton's 1st law states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, while an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Interestingly, there are a number of physical examples that teach us that gaining that initial momentum to transition from rest to motion is more difficult than maintaining momentum. For example, the water strider, pictured below, is able to stand and skid across the surface of water due to a phenomenon known as "surface tension."

4 Things Christ did on Earth

When Christ was on earth, He did a lot of things for a lot of different reasons – most importantly offering Himself as a perfect sacrifice and becoming the mediator of the New Covenant – but I want to examine this question in more practical terms. Where did He go, who did He talk to, and what actions did He take during His life on earth? All of these questions are great starting points for in-depth study, which I encourage everyone to do. For the present time, though, here is a summary of some of the highlights, given by Christ Himself:

Matthew 11:4
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

Clean and Unclean: Why?

What was the original, practical purpose of the biblical cleanliness laws? Is the original purpose still relevant today? Will it be relevant in the future? The answer to these questions is complex, yet it is simply stated in the following scripture:

Leviticus 15:31
You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.

People didn't just keel over and die for becoming unclean - people became unclean all the time! Women became unclean when they gave birth, and anyone who contracted a skin disease or touched a dead body was unclean. Furthermore, if a person's close relative had died, then the law specifically permitted people to become physically unclean by touching their loved one's dead body during their mourning. There was an established cleansing process for each type of uncleanness mentioned in the law. Becoming unclean didn't necessarily imply that someone had sinned!

Therefore, in light of these observations, how does Leviticus 15:31 fit into understanding the purpose of cleanliness laws? According to this verse, the Israelites had to avoid becoming unclean because they would die for defiling God's dwelling place, which was among them. Notice that they did not die merely for becoming unclean, but rather for being unclean in the dwelling place of God. Therefore, I conclude that the cleanliness laws were a set of physical standards and requirements for being in the PHYSICAL presence of God. The way that God dwelt among the Israelites was not some touchy-feely "God is everywhere" kind of presence - God physically manifested Himself among them as their King, and anyone who did not meet His requirements in His presence would die.

St. Patrick's Day - What are you Celebrating?

What do you know about St. Patrick's day? How did it start? What did the Catholic "Saint" Patrick do? How did people originally celebrate it?


St. Patrick was largely responsible for establishing the presence of Catholicism in Ireland. He lived from 387-493 A.D., and is renowned for building schools and converting the Irish to Catholicism. It is said that he drove the pagans out of Ireland and used the shamrock(three-leaf clover) to help people understand the trinity, which is why it is a symbol of the holiday today. Before his time, the shamrock already had a certain religious significance to the Celtic people. The druids thought that the plant had mystical powers to ward off evil spirits: to them, the three leaves were symbolic of their own deities - the "Triple Goddess." This just one example of how the Catholic church has corrupted modern Christianity: they took pagan customs, symbols, and holidays and relabeled them to represent Christian concepts. This has happened all over the world - pagan statues of a mother with a child were renamed as Mary and Jesus, and various pagan crosses were re-purposed as the cross that Jesus was nailed to. There is no precedent for this kind of religious integration in the bible: 

Deuteronomy 12:30-31
Be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about [other nation's] gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates.

God specifically tells the Israelites not to worship in the same way as other religions do because God has clearly defined for them (and for us) exactly how he wants to be worshiped.

Distinguish Between the Clean and the Unclean

There is a refrain throughout the books of the Law and the Prophets that I have been pondering:

Leviticus 10:10
distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean

In a recent Spiritual Snack (Be Holy, for I am Holy), I pointed out several of the scriptures in the Old Testament in which God commanded the Israelites to "be holy," along with an analysis of the New Testament appearances of the command to "be holy." This refrain in Lev. 10:10 about discerning holiness and cleanliness comes up quite a bit in the context of the scriptures that I referenced in that article. If God wants us to "be holy," we obviously must understand what holiness is first! The point of that article is that the answer is found in God's law. God's Law gives qualifications for holiness - if you do not follow the law, then you become unholy. An important distinction to make is that keeping the law does not make you Holy - God makes you holy out of His grace and mercy because of the fact that you demonstrate faith by attempting to do His will by keeping His law. 

Jews, Israelites, and King David... the Convert??

In the time of Christ, there was a high degree of prejudice against non-Jews who wanted to worship God. Gentiles were not allowed to participate in worship at the temple in the same way as the Jews and were not seen by the Jews as spiritual equals. Modern Judaism does not carry this prejudice. They maintain that "converts" have the same status as those who are born Jewish, commonly citing King David as an example of a “convert” who was righteous and did many great things in the scriptures.

But wait! David was the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah!!! (I knew all of those genealogies would come in handy someday!)  Since these men were all Israelites from the tribe of Judah, why do they say that David was a “convert?”

Bricks Without Straw

In the previous article, I explored one parallel between Pharaoh during the Israelites' coming out of Egypt and the "old man" referred to by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17, who represents the part of each one of us that is being put to death as we strive to live our lives in submission to God. In particular, that article discussed the role of the magicians in Pharaoh's court as it applies to our conversion. Today, as promised, I'm going to spend some more time addressing the lessons that we can learn about the "old man" who is still trying to hold us captive in spiritual Egypt.

Bricks Without Straw
One of Pharaoh's tactics, from the time that Moses and Aaron first arrived to free their people, was to oppress the Israelites by forcing them to make bricks without straw. Straw helped the bricks to solidify faster, so taking it away would mean that it would take substantially longer to make them; however, Pharaoh additionally required that they had to continue to meet their quota of bricks in spite of this restriction. Furthermore, he had his overseers beat the Israelites and treat them harshly if they didn't keep up. The Israelites quickly turned their attention away from the salvation that God had promised through Moses and Aaron:

Do You Not Yet Know That Egypt is Destroyed?

When Moses was pleading with Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, Pharaoh resisted, causing his people to endure 10 terrible plagues. He allowed everyone in his kingdom to suffer because of his selfishness and pride. Even his magicians, who were able to mimic the first few plagues,  acknowledged by the 8th plague that Pharaoh had no chance of stopping God from extraditing His people:

Exodus 10:7

Then Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed?”

In our personal lives, we each have a stubborn person inside of us who is unwilling to see his faults and change his behavior.