Sabbatical week 6

While in Phoenix, I hung out with Drew, Josie, Brendon (my man with the Broncos jersey), and Brooke – I love this family!

We went to the one and only Fajitas - good food, I highly recommend it. Take a wild guess what their speciality is?

I also got to see my friend Dean Sale.

I took a day and spent it at the Grand Canyon.

It’s been years since I’ve been at the Canyon, so I was glad to be able to take it all in again.

It was an absolutely picture perfect day!

It was a little chilly so I needed my sweat shirt.

The rock formations are just absolutely amazing.

I took a lot of pictures but I’ll share just a couple more.

The cloud formations were almost as impressive.

There’s nothing like spending time with the Lord at a place like this.

Saturday evening I attended a worship service at Christ’s Church of the Valley.

This is one of the largest churches in the country and I believe the largest church in Arizona with some 25,000 people in attendance.

A very large worship center.

In this huge sea of humanity, I looked to my right and saw long time family friends Lee and Mary Long. It was nice seeing them.

The buildings and grounds are remarkably pristine.

Their children’s department is massive.

Very nice campus. Associate pastor Paul Wilson preached a very good message about the feeding of the five thousand.

While in Phoenix, I was extremely fortunate to visit this temporary display by Legacy Ministries entitled From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America, showcasing rare fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other rare publications. I really was fortunate because this temporary exhibition was only until March 1st.

I wasn’t allowed to use flash, but I was able to use the museum setting on my camera. This is a three to four hundred year old Torah from the region of Yemen.

It’s hard to see in natural lighting (even in person), but of the 800 + Dead Sea documents discovered in 1947, this is the only known fragment from the book of Nehemiah. This is from Nehemiah 3:14-15.

This fragment is Deuteronomy 8:2-5 of which verse 3 Jesus quoted during His temptation in the wilderness when He said, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

The five lines of this fragment are from Daniel 5:13-16 where Daniel is identified by King Belshazzar as having insight, intelligence, wisdom, and interpretative skills.

This fragment contains portions of Scripture from Deuteronomy 27:4b-6. The amazing thing about these fragments of Scripture is that they are the oldest fragments of Scripture discovered to date, dating back to at least the time of Jesus.

This fragment is of Leviticus 10:4-7.

This is a 1731 first printing of Wycliff’s New Testament in the original middle English.

A 1455 original leaf from a Gutenberg Bible from the book of Isaiah.

A 1522 Erasmus Latin-Greek New Testament

This is an original 1523 first printing of Luther’s Pentateuch as he translated the first five books of Moses from Hebrew into German.

A second edition 1549 Tyndale English translation of the Gospel of Matthew.

A 1569 Spanish Casiodoro de Reina Bible, one of the first Spanish translations of the Bible following the Reformation.

A 1560 first printing of the Geneva Bible, the first English Bible to use verse numbers and commentary in the margins.

A 1568 first edition of the Bishops’ Bible. It went through 19 editions between 1568 and 1606 but never really gained popularity (even with cool pictures). It just could not compete with the influence of the Geneva Bible. It was however the rough draft for what was to become the King James Bible.

A 1585 original of John Calvin’s commentary on Acts with about a 40 year old binding.

A 1580 original Theodore Beza Latin-Greek Bible with original binding. Beza was one of Calvin’s closest associates.

1536 – 1599 original printings of Bibles and theological works by the Reformer Martin Luther.

A 1609 – 10 Catholic Old Testament in English. When Roman Catholic leaders realized they lost the battle to limit the Scriptures to Latin alone they allowed for English translations. The New Testament was released in 1582.

A rare 1740 Huguenot New Testament and Psalter printed in Amsterdam. The Huguenots were the French branch of the Reformation.

A 1611 first edition, first printing of the King James Bible.

This 2 x 2 inch single microfilm containing the full text of the King James Bible, all 1,245 pages, left the earth on February 5, 1971 for the Moon aboard Apollo 14, and so is referred to as the Lunar Bible. I was so glad to be able to view this unique exhibition up close and personal.

For the early Sunday morning worship service, I attended Community Church of Joy in Glendale. This story of the growth and difficult transitions of this mainline Lutheran church is well documented by its long time Pastor, Walt Kallestad, but also more recently in Kevin Ford’s book entitled Transforming Church.

This was the ultra traditional service. I haven’t sung most of these hymns in years. Pastor Kallestad was there (on the left) but preaching that morning was Bishop Dr. Washington Ogonyo Ngede of Kenya (right) who has been called by some the Billy Graham of Africa. He preached that morning about Zacchaeus from Luke 19.

I then attended CrossRoads Nazarene Church in Chandler.

The worship was very good and Pastor David Sharpes preached an impassioned message on the Biblical perspective on fasting in his series on spiritual disciplines based on the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.

CrossRoads is a beautiful campus with easy accessibility from the freeway.

Phoenix is such a great city with much to see and do. The sunset one night was just so beautiful I had to take a picture.