Hello, Crossroads Family!
Congratulations to the Vestal family on the arrival of Lola Jean Vestal to Kaleb and Lilly early today. We thank God that Lola is healthy and weighs a little over five pounds! Congratulations on the arrival of this first little one in a new generation of the Vestal family! Thanks to everyone for praying!
Below are some reminders of what’s coming up at Crossroads! We have an exciting second half of the month of June! Thanks for the response of all you are and have to all that God is, says, and does! He is changing us into the people He intended us to be!
This Thursday, June 19, 6:30-8:00 pm
Men’s Recharge
We’ll meet at the church. All men are welcome! We’re studying “The Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life,” a look at the Ten Commandments and what they reveal about us. This week we’ll be on the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother,” our struggle with authority. Why is our struggle with authority sometimes such a difficult one? Also, what do we need to do as Christian men to honorably hold positions of authority ourselves?
This Friday, June 20, 7:00 pm
Women’s Drive-In Movie
The movie will take place at Erin Reedy’s home in Metz. If you’d like to carpool with some other women, please meet in the church parking lot at 6:30. (Watch out for those potholes!) This will be a fun time for all women and any friends you would like to invite. Part of our Summer of Sisterhood!
This Saturday, June 21, 8:00 am
Women’s Breakfast
All women are invited to have breakfast together Saturday at 54 Cafe. If you have questions or need information, contact Erin Townsend or Jessica Baker.
This Sunday, June 22
- Worship at 10:00 am.
- Sunday Night Home Group, 6:00 pm. We’ll meet again this week at the church. There is a summary of last Sunday’s discussion at the end of this email.
We have two big happenings at the end of June :
Sunday, June 29
Church Picnic
We’ll hopefully enjoy some sunshine and great fellowship on the 29th immediately following the worship service. We have the pavilion reserved at the upper part of Radio Springs Park. Fried chicken will be provided. Please sign up at the church to bring a side, a dessert, and/or drinks or ice. Bring a lawn chair if you’d like.
Monday, June 30 – Tuesday, July 1
24-Hour Prayer Vigil
I’m excited about what God will do in us as we commit to 24 hours of prayer. I hope you’ll sign up to be a part if you haven’t already! If someone has already signed up for a time slot that’s one you need, feel free to sign up anyway — there’s no problem with two people occupying one or more of the hourly time slots. If an hour is too much for you, let Catherine Moss know you’d like a half-hour or some other segment of time. We’ll be talking the next two Sundays about some helps available for you for your praying ! If you have other questions or need help, let Catherine know! Thank you!
I’ll be out of town next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to attend EFCA One, the national conference of the Evangelical Free Church of America, in Des Moines. Thanks for your prayers for me and for the conference! I look forward to coming back renewed and inspired!
Something spoken by the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts has encouraged me this week. As Paul was finishing his third missionary trip, on his way to Jerusalem where he would be arrested, he said, “I must finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
I hope that’s a call you and I feel today as well : Let’s pursue the course set out before us and finish the ministry we’ve been given as a church!
— Tom
Home Group Summary from June 15 — Israel : Past, Present, & Future
Last Sunday, we discussed what we know of the period of time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, what is sometimes called 400 “silent years.”
400 years is actually not all that long a period of time, especially in the Bible. These years may seem long to us because when we turn the page to the New Testament it seems much different to us from the Old Testament. What happened in between?
A very broad outline is below with rounded-off dates. So much of what happened was prophesied in advance by Daniel when he interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 9:31-49.
- Kingdom of Babylon — the first of four Gentile kingdoms to dominate the Middle Eastern world and control Jerusalem (605-550 BCE).
- Kingdom of Persia (550 – 330 BCE). Esther was among the Jews who stayed in Persia even though King Cyrus had decreed that all Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple there.
- Kingdom of Greece, first under Alexander the Great, then a divided kingdom ruled by his generals (330 – 150 BCE). Antiochus IV (aka Epiphanes) was one of the Greek rulers who sought to eliminate the Jewish way of life and impose, instead, Greek culture on Israel and its people.
- Jewish Revolt led by Judas Maccabeus and his father Mattathias (167-142 BCE).
- Reign of the Jewish dynasty known as the Hasmoneans (142-63 BCE), a relatively peaceful co-existence with the Greeks.
- Roman Empire (General Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 BC, and Rome later installed King Herod the Great, a descendant of Esau rather than a true Jew, as “King of the Jews.”)
In response to the growing influence of Greek and Roman culture, some political and religious groups developed in Israel during this intertestamental period of time. These groups of men sought to preserve Jewish identity and to uphold the Law of Moses as commanded by God.
Among these groups which we don’t see in the Old Testament but do see in the New Testament are …
… the Pharisees who were separatists committed to the Law, the Sabbath, and to oral traditions which had been added to the written Law. The Pharisees were not necessarily unpopular during Jesus’ day — they were considered the “people’s party,” in contrast to the Sadducees who wealthy aristocrats.
… the Sadducees who had connections to the Jewish priestly families and had care of the Temple and all the revenue from the Temple. The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, life after death, angels, or demons.
… the Essenes, a group that completely abandoned the religious and political environment of Jerusalem and created a new community around the northern end of the Dead Sea and in Engedi. Purity was of even greater importance to the Essenes than it was to the Pharisees. Thanks to the Essenes, we have today ancient copies of the Old Testament known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
… the Zealots who were Jews fully committed to the toppling of the Roman occupation. Violence was not off the table for the Zealots. When the Temple and the city of Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans in response to the First Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE), one Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, blamed the Zealots.
After the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (117-138 CE), the Roman Emperor Hadrian denied Jews any further access to Jerusalem ; he renamed the city in honor of a trio of Roman gods, including Jupiter ; and he renamed the land of Israel “Palaestina.”
Where did the Jews go?
The Jews of Israel fled to Eastern Europe (Germany, initially ; later Poland, Lithuania, and Russia), North Africa, Spain, Persia, and even to the Far East. We discussed these various groups of dispersed Jews and how they continued to maintain their identity even while adopting parts of the cultures of the new countries in which they lived.
Many of these dispersed Jews were persecuted by the early Church (as they had been in earlier generations by the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Edomites, and Amalekites). The reasons for this persecution by the early Church, and later by the Church of Rome, were mainly three:
- Jews were blamed for the death of Jesus.
- Jews were blamed for the revolt against Rome and subsequent destruction of the Temple.
- Early Christian leaders believed the Church was the true Israel and that God’s covenant with the Jews was no longer valid (i.e., Judaism was a “fallen,” “false” Israel).
Lessons learned:
- What we see happening in that land today resembles what has been happening there for hundreds of years. God had placed Abraham’s descendants in this important place to be a light to the world which used the land of Israel as a bridge for trade between three different continents.
- Antisemitism is ancient problem and is spiritual in nature. Satan would like to wipe out the Jews, a people God chose for a special role in the world.
- The people of Israel and their history tell us about God’s faithfulness and help us to have a sense of God’s timing for events associated with the return of Christ and the judgment of all people. The survival of the Jews, as promised by God’s everlasting covenant with them, is one of the greatest evidences we have for the existence of God and for the veracity of the Bible.
This coming Sunday we’ll take a look at the Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel beginning in the late 1800s, culminating with the independence of Modern Israel in 1948.
Leave a Reply