Roughly a year after a child broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman and his parents are settling a lawsuit for $20,000, Cabell County, W.V., schools are yanking swing sets from school playgrounds. The lawsuit was one of two filed in the last year against Cabell County schools over swing set injuries, the West Virginia Record reported Thursday. School safety manager Tim Stewart, who is overseeing the removal, said he sees “a high potential when it comes to swings and lawsuits.” … A Massachusetts elementary school has told students they can’t play tag. One Boston school forbids [...]
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Two University of Pennsylvania economists have completed a study showing that over the past four decades the happiness gap between whites and African Americans has been significantly reduced. … And Baird notes that increased happiness among African American women is not the only reason that the gap has diminished. The other reason is that white women are considerably more unhappy today than they were forty years ago. -Had Enough Therapy? Here’s a puzzle: The feminist movement in the US agitated for (and still agitates for) “freedom,” to be treated as “more than an object” —and yet somehow women now [...] The Age of the Earth and Genesis Can the record of God’s work in Creation be reconciled with the uniformitarian presumption of modern scientist? The reading of Genesis 1 appears to allow no leeway in reading them as anything other than a literal, historical, six days of creation. Is it possible to insert a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 to to “make up the time?” This paper argues that while a gap is possible, and may even be the best reading of the Scriptures, any such gap cannot be used to “make up the time” to correlate modern [...] The 35th hour of material is up for our small group’s narrative study of the Scriptures. This material focuses on Genesis 32, and the strange incident at Peniel. Why is God wrestling with Jacob? How does a man prevail over God? An interesting aside in this set of slides —we find out the true origin of the name “Palestine.” Hint: It doesn’t have anything to do with the Philistines. A specter is haunting the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations—the specter of the Nakba. The literal meaning of the Arabic word is “disaster”; but in its current, expansive usage, it connotes a historical catastrophe inflicted on an innocent and blameless people (in this case, the Palestinians) by an overpowering outside force (international Zionism). The Nakba is the heart of the Palestinians’ backward-looking national narrative, which depicts the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 as the original sin that dispossessed the land’s native people. Every year, on the anniversary of Israel’s independence, more and more Palestinians (including Arab citizens [...] And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32:24-26 To set the scene, Jacob is fleeing from Laban, much as he fled from Esau some 20 years before. He has reached a point where he cannot [...] For those following along in our narrative study of the Scriptures, the slides for the 34th hour are posted here. This hour we discuss the 31st chapter of Genesis, where Jacob decides to flee, and ends up confronting Laban in the mountains of Gilead. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have a lot of friends who go out and party occasionally, send their kids to public schools, don’t go to church, and just don’t seem to believe in anything you believe in. They all seem happy to me. If they’re fine, then why should I change my life? Why can’t I be happy just like them? When I hear this line of argument, I’m tempted to reply with the snarky line my Mom used to give me. “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it to?” [...] Jacob’s life is fertile ground for understanding faith and living by faith. When Jacob stopped at Bethel, he had nothing —perhaps a pack of food and a change or two of clothes, maybe a water bottle— literally what he could carry on his back. He has his father’s blessing, but he can’t eat or drink his father’s blessing. He has an inheritance, but his angry brother blocks his access to that inheritance, and there is no apparent hope of him ever gaining this inheritance. Jacob, then, is cast into the world on his own. Technically rich, but literally poor, [...] The 33rd set of slides for our small group’s Narrative Study of the Scriptures are now up. This time, we’re discussing Genesis 29 & 30, dealing with the birth of Jacob’s first 11 sons, Dinah (his daughter), and his increasing wealth in flocks and herds. Enjoy! Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account Dr. John Sailhamer I’m currently working on a short (around 15 pages) paper for my Systematic Theology I class at Shepherd’s Theological; I picked this book up as part of that project, examining whether or not there could be a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. This specific book is out of print, although I think many of the same topics are covered in later works by Dr. Sailhamer. The general thesis of this book is to examine the creation account from within the Scriptures themselves with as little [...] Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” Genesis 27:36 After purchasing Esau’s birthright for the cost of a meal, Jacob then steals Esau’s birthright by way of a subterfuge. Or does he? Is this another all too familiar story in the Scriptures that hides more than we might suspect? Reviewing the ordering of the events, there are some odd things that need to be called out and understood. First, Since Esau sold the birthright to Jacob, [...] For this hour of the narrative study in our small group, we’re looking at Genesis 28, specifically the dream Jacob had at Bethel on his way out of the Land. Was he simply fleeing, or was there more to his travel to Haran? For those following along through our narrative study of the Scriptures, the 31st set of slides are up. This session covers Genesis 27, where Jacob “steals” his father’s blessing from Esau. You’ll have to read the slides if you want to hear the other side of the story; it’s a very interesting section of the Scriptures. |
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