Read about a friend, Rev. Scott Schmieding, who pastored a partner church of ours in Baton Rouge, Louisiana before starting at the church he now pastors in St. Charles, MO St. Charles preacher with no tongue speaks wisdom

Happy Birthday Church!  Its Pentecost where we recall the linguistic miracle that occurred to birth the Christian church when the Holy Translator spoke through the apostles in unknown languages and translated so that everyone there heard the wonders of God in their own language!  As we do the “The Esalas on tour” (see our speaking schedule) Pentecost provides a fat fastball right down the middle so that we can easily hit a Bible Translation homerun by talking about how the Holy Translator (Spirit) is still at work using humble people to translate his Word so that the Komba also may hear the wonders of God in their own language (Acts 2.8). Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Karissa and Nathan had the great experience of seeing the magnificent Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit which is at the Milwaukee Public Museum until June 5.   Get thee to the exhibit!

Here are some of the highlights of  what we saw

• many original Dead Sea Scrolls fragments. (I nearly set off the alarms leaning over the glass case trying to read the Hebrew on one manuscript!)
• facsimilie of the great Isaiah scroll – awesome!  (Find out how it was purchased through an ad in the Wall Street Journal here.)
• John C. Trever’s fortuitous photography of the great Isaiah scroll.  His story was very interesting. Many small details seemingly hap and stance resulted in what is now the best facsimile of the original mansucript of the Isaiah scroll. His photos remain the best source for study of the scroll. You can read about Dr. Trever’s life here. Scroll down to the Introduction to read about the production of the facsimile through the work of Dr. Weston Fields
• According to the exhibit presentation we very likely saw the ossuary of Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21-22)
• Great archeological pieces of the intertestamental era and an enlightening presentation of the history that led up to the New Testament era and the production of the DSS manuscripts and their storage near the Dead Sea and the community of Qumran.
• A nice representation of the continued life of the Bible and Bible Translation including German, English, Algonquin and Ho Chunk (native American language translations) and even a nice display of the new St. John’s Bible being produced on parchment in a similar fashion to many of the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves.