Part 4 of series: Ancient Ephesus and the New Testament Touring Ancient Ephesus, Part 2 A tour of Ephesus usually begins, as I explained yesterday, at the eastern end of the city because from there you walk downhill rather than uphill. In the map to the right, the tour would begin just to the right of the civic agora. On this map, you can see several of the major features of the ancient Ephesus, including the two agoras (public gathering... Read more
Part 3 of series: Ancient Ephesus and the New Testament Touring Ancient Ephesus Ancient Ephesus lies in a valley between two hills. This valley slopes toward the sea. Therefore, tours of the city tend to start at the eastern end and work toward the west, which means tourists can walk downhill rather than up. This is helpful in the summer especially, when the temperatures can be quite steamy. When we were in Ephesus in 2007, the thermometer was well over... Read more
Part 2 of series: Ancient Ephesus and the New Testament The Location and Environment of Ephesus Ephesus, or what is left of it, lies on the western edge of modern day Turkey, just about five miles inland from the Aegean coast. The picture to the right shows the location of Ephesus. It is close to the modern town of Selcuk. Most tourists visit Ephesus by way of the port city of Kusadasi, which is about a 45-minute drive from Ephesus.... Read more
Steve Lohr’s recent column in the New York Times is called: “In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column.” A real human as opposed, not to a zombie, but a computer. The article begins: “WISCONSIN appears to be in the driver’s seat en route to a win, as it leads 51-10 after the third quarter. Wisconsin added to its lead when Russell Wilson found Jacob Pedersen for an eight-yard touchdown to make the score 44-3 … . ”... Read more
Part 1 of series: Ancient Ephesus and the New Testament Ancient Ephesus and the New Testament: Introduction For many of us, the events of the Bible seem to take place in some distant, magic world of “Bible lands,” a wonderland rather like the one discovered by Alice. We read about Jerusalem, Nazareth, Corinth, and Ephesus, but picture some hazy world shaped by illustrations in our children’s Bibles. The places in which the stories of the Bible happened seem unreal, and,... Read more
A Prayer for the Next Generations Psalm 78:1-73 So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands. Then they will not be like their ancestors— stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God. Psalm 78:7-8 The headlines are not encouraging for the future of faith. It seems like every other week, I read some story about how the next generations are more secular and less religious than... Read more
Recently, I was walking along through a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. On the same street I saw a couple of unusual church signs, and though I’d share them with you. The subtitle reads: “Where People are Equipped for Management and Productivity.” Here’s the link. Not the most seeker friendly name for a church, but clear about identity for those who would be interested. Here’s a fascinating history of this church. The Wiki version is here. You can find just... Read more
A recent New York Times opinion piece asks the question: Do happier people work harder? Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, a researcher, answer this question in a way that challenges both workers and managers. Here are some salient observations from their article: • Workers today feel worse about their jobs and work environments than ever before (according to a Gallup survey). • How you feel makes a major difference in how you work. “Our... Read more
Among discussions of the rise of the e-book, I have found relatively little that considers how the very act of reading in this mode might change the way we read and think. Lev Grossman, writing for the New York Times, offers an intriguing perspective on this matter in his recent article, “From Scroll to Screen.” He begins: Something very important and very weird is happening to the book right now: It’s shedding its papery corpus and transmigrating into a bodiless... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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Clergy and 9/11 Ceremonies: Conflicts Reveal State of Religion in Our Culture
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times has written a fine piece on some of the controversy surrounding 9/11 ceremonies and the inclusion or exclusion of clergy: “Omitting Clergy at 9/11 Ceremony Prompts Protest.” Goodstein describes the decision of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York to exclude all members of the clergy from Sunday’s commemoration. There is a related controversy in Washington DC, where an interfaith service planned for the National Cathedral will not include a Southern Baptist or over... Read more