The Nebraska Passport 2019 App has added the Clayton Museum to the list of interesting places to visit in Nebraska.
A few years ago a historical artifacts collector by the name of Foster Stanback made arrangements to build a museum at York College in York, Nebraska. The purpose was so that the general public could enjoy seeing the items in the Stanback collection. John Clayton and Foster Stanback have a long history together, and to honor that relationship Foster named it the Clayton Museum of Ancient History.
The museum is not only informative and educational, but the design of the museum and the quality of the exhibits is exceptional. The museum is devoted to the history of the ancient middle east and the Roman Empire. Since the museum opened, it has added a children’s interactive section. Young people and adults from all over come to the museum to learn and to be strengthened in their faith and knowledge of Old and New Testament history.
More than 10,000 people have visited the museum.The number of visitors will increase in 2019 because the Nebraska State Tourism Commission has selected the Clayton Museum of Ancient History as a Nebraska Passport Site for the Nebraska Passport 2019 app.
You can read more about this state program at NebraskaPassport.com. You can visit the Clayton Museum website HERE.
On your app store for iPhone or Android search for Nebraska Passport 2019 app. (Minimum requirement Android 6 or iOS 10.)
We have learned about a very useful resource called Essentials in Education. That organization states as their mission, “We encourage high character through standards-based, instructionally sound, and high quality educational materials.” They have produced what they call the Bible Literacy Project.
Essentials in Education claims that they want to address issues beyond the academy and beyond the walls of the church. Because they are not church sponsored, they have had some success in areas others have not. One thing they have done is to publish a textbook titled The Bible and Its Influence. It was first published in 2005 and updated since then. The student textbook is a hardcover, full-color, 373-page volume that covers the content of Genesis to Revelation.
In 2006 a bill was signed into law in Georgia requiring elective Bible courses statewide. Other states have passed laws allowing academic Bible study. The textbook The Bible and its Influence has provided instruction to 125,000 students in 625 public high schools in 43 states. The Bible Literacy Project has not received a legal challenge.
The textbook was produced with input from 40 leading scholars and religious leaders. It presents biblical content including the narratives, characters, plots, poetry, letters, events, parables, prophecies, and proverbs in the Bible. Because the book is non-denominational and non-sectarian, not all preachers and teachers will like all of its content. However, it has been widely accepted by schools for use as a semester-long or year-long course. Special features include Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, Handel’s Messiah, The Bible and Emancipation, Shakespeare and the Bible. The Bible Literacy Project’s website states that “without an understanding of the Bible, today’s youth cannot fully understand literature, art, history, music, or culture.”
For the website of Essentials in Education click HERE. For the Bible Literacy Project website click HERE. To learn more about their academic materials click HERE.
One of the significant differences between Christianity and all other religious choices is that Christianity offers practical help for conquering worry.
Worry is very destructive. One study has shown that worry is a major cause of 50% of l patient hospitalization. Our wealth as a country has not produced less worry among us. Worry is one of the main ways we hurt those who love us. Worry can paralyze us, and it is contagious. Here are some principles in the teachings of Christ that help us with conquering worry:
2 Timothy 1:7- Worry and fear paralyze us. 1 Peter 5:7- Fear is a fault. God cares and wants us to rely on Him. (See Psalms 46:10.) John 14:27- Slow down and worry slips away – be still and know. Matthew 6:33- Make heaven your main goal, and worry becomes secondary.
Listen to the advice of Jesus for conquering worry:
“You cannot serve two masters, for you will hate the one and love the other… That is why I say to you to stop worrying about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink or wondering what you will wear. Isn’t life itself a greater gift than food or drink or clothes. Observe the wild birds, they don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, but your heavenly father keeps on feeding them. Aren’t you more valuable than they? Which of you with all your worry can add a foot to his height?”
“And why are you anxious about clothing. Consider the lilies of the field, and how they grow. They don’t toil or spin and yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his spender was arrayed like they are. If God so beautifully dresses the wild grass which is green today but tomorrow is dry and thrown into the flames is He not more likely to clothe you? O how little we trust Him. So don’t worry and say what shall we eat or drink or wear. Your Father knows you need these things. Seek the kingdom of God first, and all these things will be added to you. So don’t fret about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring its own set of trouble.”
Matthew 6:24-34 (See Also Matthew 7:7-8)
We have a God who cares about our worries. Other belief systems just encourage bearing with whatever misfortune comes our way. Christianity offers real help and hope for conquering worry. The Church is a vehicle God created to give us a support system to deal with life. Read James 5:13-20. Remember – Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.
Although space-travel movies are exciting and fun, they are not very realistic. Einstein’s theory of special relativity says that it’s impossible to travel at the speed of light. There is overwhelming proof that he was right. That fact has an impact on the reality of space travel.
Astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross wrote an excellent book entitled Why the Universe is the Way It Is. In this book, he states that due to the laws of physics the top speed of a spaceship would be limited to about one percent of the speed of light, or 6.7 million miles (10.8 million km) per hour. Based on that, he says that for aliens to travel from any other planetary system where intelligent beings could possibly exist would take at least 25,000 years! (Remember that it will take nine months just to travel to Mars, our neighboring planet.)
So when you watch a two-hour movie in which people travel from one planetary system to another at hyper-light-speed, remember that it’s only Hollywood. The reality of space travel is not what we see in the movies. We live in a universe designed by a Creator who gave us a special place with everything we need to live. Is there any kind of life, not just intelligent life, anywhere else in this vast universe? We don’t know, but the chances of meeting intelligent beings from another planet are very, very slim. That’s the reality of space travel.
By the way, my picture is poking a little fun at a statement made by the well-known atheist biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. He begins chapter 1 by stating, “Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilization, is: ‘Have they discovered evolution yet?’”
So does discovering evolution indicate advanced civilization and the level of our intelligence? More importantly, does evolution explain the reason for our existence? Personally, I think the reason for our existence is not found in evolution, but begins in Genesis chapter 1 and is developed in the rest of the Bible.
We live in a world of violence and senseless killing. When Jesus walked the Earth, not only did the Roman government control by violence, but even the Jews practiced stoning. One of the strengths of Christianity is that the teachings of Jesus Christ stood in total opposition to the violence of His day. When the Romans and Jews came to crucify Jesus, he told Peter, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword shall die with the sword” (Matthew 26:52). You can’t read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – 7 and get the picture of Jesus advocating or tolerating violence in His name. But today a group called Christian Identity promotes hatred.
Because we have some 4000 prisoners taking our Christian Evidences correspondence courses all over the country, we get letters indicating that a group calling themselves Christian Identity is very active in prisons. That group teaches that the Bible says salvation in Christ Jesus is only available to those in the white race. The consequences of such teaching should be obvious. Those teachings are not biblical and contradict everything that Jesus and the apostles said and did.
Just briefly let us point out some of the most egregious errors promoted by Christian Identity:
–They claim that “Adam” means “to show blood in the face” which is a characteristic of the white race only. Actually, the word “adam” in Hebrew means “out of the ground” indicating man’s origin. (See Genesis 3:19.)
–They say that white men governed all nations of the Earth. We have mummies, paintings, genetic studies and written testimonies that contradict that teaching. The Bible shows us that dark skin was a thing of beauty and is desirable. Read Song of Solomon 1:4-8 where one of Solomon’s wives begs him to love her for something other than her black skin. Biblically, humanity originated in the fertile crescent. (See Genesis 2:10-15.) People who are native to that area are dark skinned.
–Christian Identity invents words to fit their hate-filled message. They claim that the word “beast” used in Jonah 3:8 refers to inferior races of humans. The Hebrew word is “behemoth” which refers to a quadruped and never to a human of any kind.
Genetically we all have one common female ancestor proven by mitochondrial DNA research. Skin color is a function of latitude. If you move away from the equator, what happens to skin color? The basic principles of Christianity wipe out any claim of racial superiority. Galatians 3:27-29 is hard to misunderstand.
The Sermon on the Mount spells out the message of Jesus, and nowhere in it is there any justification for relegating secondary importance to any group. The woman at the well in John 4 was a Samaritan–a race despised by the Jews of Jesus’ day. (See John 4:9.) Jesus not only talked with her but stayed in her city for several days.
Christian Identity is a racist hate group hiding behind a corrupt presentation of Christ and the Bible. In our day of violence and hate, it is essential to know the enemy and his workers. Satan will have a field day with this group, especially in the prison population.
Philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) told the story of a king who refused to eat until he knew with certainty that his food had not been poisoned. The more he thought about how little he knew with certainty about his chef and his attendants, the more concerned he became. He finally starved to death. This story makes the point that everyone is operating on faith.
Atheists ridicule Christians for operating on faith not realizing that they depend on faith, and so does science. A classic example was a Greek scholar named Eratosthenes of Cyrene born in 276 BC. Eratosthenes noticed that on a specific day of the year, the Sun was positioned so that it illuminated the bottom of a well where he lived. From that fact, he had faith that the Earth was spherical.
On the day that the Sun shone to the bottom of the well in Syene (modern Aswan, Egypt), Eratosthenes placed a vertical rod in the ground at Alexandria and measured the angle of its shadow. Using the difference in angle of the Sun’s rays and the distance between the two locations, he calculated the circumference and diameter of the Earth with high accuracy. He even established the concept of latitude and longitude from his measurements. Scholars of Eratosthenes’ day ridiculed his idea because everyday experience suggested the Earth was flat and endless. They indicated that he was mistaken or his measurements were wrong. Their criticism did not sway the strong faith of Eratosthenes in what he believed.
A modern-day Eratosthenes would be Albert Einstein. His radical ideas were still not accepted by many in the scientific community some 40 years after he originally proposed them. The critics were silenced only when Einstein’s ideas could finally be tested and proven correct.
For many scientific discoveries in the past, that pattern has been repeated. A scientist operating on faith expressed a hypothesis based on his or her observations. The hypothesis could not be tested when the concept was proposed, but from that faith, something important was eventually discovered.
The definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 fits this scientific concept of how discoveries are made: “Faith forms the solid ground of things hoped for, perceiving as real what is not revealed to the senses.” (Amplified Bible).
Today, March 20, 2019, is a special day as the spring equinox arrives for the Northern Hemisphere. Today the Sun will set exactly in the west and tomorrow it will rise exactly in the east when observed from the Equator. The day will be exactly 12 hours long and night will be exactly 12 hours long. After today in the Northern Hemisphere, the days will be longer than the nights. Officially spring arrives today at 9:58 PM Greenwich Mean Time (5:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time where we live).
In reality, all of this is an exaggeration of the real situation.Don’t expect a balmy spring day if you live in Michigan (as we do) or other northern areas. Ice and snow have to melt, and the land has to warm up. Nevertheless, the equinox does remind us of Earth’s design and how many variables control our existence on this planet. What does happen on this day is that the Sun will be directly overhead at noon at the equator.
During the northern winter, Earth’s tilt has caused the Sun to be overhead south of the Equator. As the Earth moves around the Sun, the Sun’s location relative our planet will drift north until June. When the summer solstice occurs on June 21, the Sun will be overhead at 23 degrees north latitude. The more direct sunlight not only warms the Northern Hemisphere, but it avoids overheating the Southern Hemisphere.
If Earth did not have a 23-degree axis tilt, the Sun would beat down on the equator from directly overhead all year long. The Equator would become so hot that nothing could live there. The northern and southern latitudes would both freeze. Wind belts created by air rising violently at the equator would be hurricane force 24/7. We see that happening on planets in the solar system that do not have an axis tilt.
Ancient people knew that the position of the Sun changes throughout the year. They used elaborate but primitive observatories to determine the time to plant and harvest based on the Sun’s position. Unfortunately, this led many cultures to worship the Sun. Nowhere does the Bible encourage or condone the worship of any celestial bodies. The Bible recognizes the seasons and the role of the Sun as designed by God for human existence. (See Genesis 1:14-15).
The ancient psalmist David said it (Psalms 8:4) and the writer of Hebrews quoted it (Hebrews 2:6), “What is man that you keep him in mind or the son of man that you look after him?” The equinox is a good time to be reminded of God’s provisions for us and thankfully worship the Creator, not the creation.
Any Christian reading the newspaper or watching TV has to be disturbed by the volume of hate coming from politicians, entertainers and media people, as well as extreme special interest groups of all kinds. There are even groups formed to oppose hate that are spreading their own hatred. What should concern Christians is that some of these groups have turned out to be as extreme as the hate groups they are allegedly opposing. We are even seeing anti-hate groups attack the Bible.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Citizens for Transparency have both posted materials attacking the Bible and those who promote the teachings of the Bible. A primary target of these particular groups has been the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). As we posted before, the ADF defends people like Jack Phillips the Colorado baker who refused to create a cake for a same-sex wedding. ADF also believes in the biblical concept of marriage between a man and a woman, which the SPLC and Citizens for Transparency label as being “a hate message.”
The SPLC and Citizens for Transparency are well funded and recently placed a huge billboard attacking the ADF on Times Square. Teaching Bible morals and the principles God has established for us to live by is not hate. Concerning their attitude toward those who promote biblical principles, the SPLC has stated that their goal is to “say plainly that they aim to destroy these groups.” If teaching God’s word is accepted as hate then every Church that preaches the moral teachings of the Bible is vulnerable.
Rational human beings cannot read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – 7 and construe what Jesus said as hate. It is true that the way you say things is as important as what you say, but we need to be careful not to stand by as anti-hate groups attack the Bible. We cannot support them as they use the current battle over hate to condemn the Bible and promote atheism.
One of the strong arguments for the existence of God is the data that shows there was a beginning to time, space and matter/energy. If you admit that there was a beginning, then you have to deal with what was the cause of that beginning. There must be a causer of some kind.
Atheists have avoided this discussion in the past by saying that there was no beginning and that the cosmos is “self-existing.” One version of this self-existing concept is that the cosmos may be oscillating. The hypothesis is that the cosmos will eventually slow down, stop, and collapse on itself leading to another “big bang” to start the process over again. This oscillating model could be eternal thus avoiding the whole question of cause and causer.
There are several difficulties with the oscillating model. The most telling one is the evidence about the movement of galaxies and the cosmos as a whole. The newest data collected by NASA shows clearly that the universe is accelerating in its expansion. Data from doppler measurements at various wavelengths and further analyses of inter stellar-reddening continue to support the fact that the acceleration is not slowing down.
There are several possible causes of this acceleration. One is the shape of space. The fact that light bends when it goes around a massive object suggests that the curvature of space is causing the acceleration. Another view is that there is a “great attractor” beyond the cosmos that is producing the acceleration. A third view is that dark matter is producing the acceleration. Scientists are devising various ways to test these hypotheses. It is an exciting time to be a student of astronomy and astronomical evidence. Whatever the cause of the acceleration, it adds to the data that leads us to reject the oscillating universe theory.
Most discussions about this subject end up with the conclusion that there are dimensions outside of the X, Y, Z system which we experience. Theories like string theory suggest eleven spatial dimensions. Because there are so many possible equations to describe such a proposal, it falls more in the realm of fantasy than of testable, falsifiable science.
The evidence that there was a beginning is overwhelming. The biblical descriptions of God indicate that He is outside of space/time. Thus God is a logical answer to the question of what caused the beginning. “In the beginning, God” turns out to be a highly complex statement, but one that is strongly supported by the evidence.
If the sky is clear tonight (March 16, 2019), you will have an opportunity to observe an interesting phenomenon known as the Moon’s Golden Handle.
The Sun’s light will strike a mountainous area of the Moon at a shallow angle. The Moon will be in what is known as the waxing gibbous phase. Waxing means that more of it is becoming visible as sunlight increasingly illuminates the surface. Gibbous means that it is not yet a full moon, but it is more than a half moon. At this exact angle, the sunlight will illuminate the Jura Mountain Range, and the mountains will appear as an arc on the upper left side of the Moon’s visible surface. The arc resembles a tiny handle on the side of the Moon, so it has been called the Moon’s Golden Handle.
Galileo (1564-1642) observed this phenomenon as he looked through an early telescope. You can see it with a pair of binoculars. If you have a small telescope, you can get an even better view. The angle of the light gives a unique opportunity to get an idea of what the surface of the Moon is like. Not only does the Moon have mountains, but it has lava flows and numerous craters from bombardment by meteors.
The fact that we can predict when lunar eclipses will take place and when phases of the Moon will occur shows how much precision God has built into His creation of the cosmos. We know when the Moon’s Golden Handle will be visible because we can depend on that precision as we depend on God. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalms 19:1).
