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. :)