This Coming Year… Eat Your Salad (A Brief Hebrew Lesson)

My kids actually like some vegetables…so I do not have to force feed them greens!

Due to my increasing pants size (ok – I still wear 34, but it seems that the pants are no longer a normal fit ) I am planning to eat mostly salads in the evening. Perhaps a brief Hebrew lesson and song (see below) should help me (and maybe you) with this resolution…and maybe my lovely wife will either stop cooking her delicious (but quiet rich) desserts, or I will have the wisdom and self-control to eat dessert only for lunch!?

Well – here is the brief Hebrew lesson on salads (from our friends at Learn Hebrew Online):

The one dish you find in almost every Israeli meal is the Israeli Salad (sometimes named “Arabic Salad”). This is a basic salad made of tomatoes and cucumbers thinly sliced and freshly seasoned. We may put it in pita bread, next to an omelet or simply as a meal by itself joined by a piece of bread and some cottage cheese.

Hungry? Well, today you’ll learn how to prepare an Israeli salad as well as the names of the ingredients in the Hebrew language, Don’t forget to cut it קָטָן קָטָן (to small pieces) and invite your family and friends!

Hebrew Words

סָלָט

Transcription: salat

Part of Speech: Noun, masculine

Literal Meaning: salad

Transcription: yerakot

Part of Speech: Noun, masculine, plural

Literal Meaning: vegetables

קָצוּץ

Transcription: katsuts

Part of Speech: adjective, masculine

Literal Meaning: chopped, thinly sliced

Israeli Salad Recipe
Ingredients:

Tomato (f) Agvanya עַגְבָנִיָּה
Cucumber(m) melafefon מְלָפְפוֹן
Onion (m) batsal בָּצָל
Parsley (f) petrozilya פֶּטְרוֹזִילְיָה
Olive Oil (m) shemen zayit שֶׁמֶן זַיִת
Lemon (m) limon לִימוֹן
Salt & pepper (m&m) melax vepilpel מֶלַח וּפִלְפֵּל
Preparation:
1. Slice and dice 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber and 1 small onion.
2. Combine the veggies in a salad bowl.
3. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of lemon juice, some salt and pepper and 2 tbsp of chopped parsley.
4. Mix, serve and enjoy!

Note:
You may add any other kind of vegetables, fresh leaves (like mint, oregano, or basil), garlic, or olives.

Salad Song
Lyric: Ayin Hillel
Music: Dafna Eilat מילים: ע. הלל
לחן: דפנה אילת

All of our family
Eat salad properly
But I love the most
To eat salad a lot. Etsleinu kol hamishpaxa
Oxlim salat kahalaxa
Aval ani yoter mikol
Salat ohev lizlol. אֶצְלֵנוּ כָּל הַמִּשְׁפָּחָה
אוֹכְלִים סָלָט כַּהֲלָכָה
אֲבָל אֲנִי יוֹתֵר מִכָּל
סָלָט אוֹהֵב לִזְלֹל.
You can listen to Dalia Friedland sing this song here .

Maybe my wife will read this post and I will eat an Israeli salad tonight!

Christmas in Korea 2011 – Christmas Is for Those Who Hate It Most

I am still in Seoul.  And it is cold (-5C).  But thank God for my warm office (thanks to my portable heater) and so much more!

While I am still preaching through Isaiah 9:6 (I should preach on Sunday on “Prince of Peace”) I find it easier to borrow from someone else than to write my own Christmas thoughts (I may have more to say on Saturday evening, but that is kind of late ).

So here is a fine writing from Matt Redmond about Christmas:
Christmas Is for Those Who Hate It Most.

Great points and hard to argue with the man!

Here are some of my favorite lines:

“I think we have it all backwards. We have it sunk deep into our collective cultural consciousness that Christmas is for the happy people. You know, those with idyllic family situations enjoyed around stocking-strewn hearth dreams. Christmas is for healthy people who laugh easily and at all the right times, right? The successful and the beautiful, who live in suburban bliss, can easily enjoy the holidays…Jesus came for those who look in the mirror and see ugliness. Jesus came for daughters whose fathers never told them they were beautiful. Christmas is for those who go to “wing night” alone…Christmas is for prostitutes, adulterers, and porn stars who long for love in every wrong place…Christmas is really about the gospel of grace for sinners. Because of all that Christ has done on the cross, the manger becomes the most hopeful place in a universe darkened with hopelessness. In the irony of all ironies, Christmas is for those who will find it the hardest to enjoy. It really is for those who hate it most.”

Saint John Chrysostom (Golden Mouth) on Family and Love

I know this will be controversial (old fashioned etc.), but I am posting it for two reasons.  First, it is relevant to my class on OT Backgrounds because it provides us with an early understanding of the roles of the husband and wife in a Christian family (and I assume they were fairly similar in an OT family).  And second, it describes very well the importance of dependence for love.

Here is the text from Chrysostom (On Living Simply):

In a family the husband needs the wife to prepare his food; to make, mend, and wash his clothes; to fetch water; and to keep the rooms and furniture in the house clean.  The wife needs the husband to till the soil, to build and repair the house, and to earn money to buy the goods they need.

God has put into a man’s heart the capacity to love his wife, and into a woman’s heart the capacity to love her husband.  But their mutual dependence makes them love each other out of necessity also.

At times love within the heart may not be sufficient to maintain the bond of marriage.  But love which comes from material necessity will give that bond the strength it needs to endure times of difficulty.

The same is true for society as a whole.  God has put into every person’s heart the capacity to love his neighbors.  But that love is immeasurably strengthened by their dependence on one another’s skills.

Preaching Psalm 3

I just posted some notes and the message of Psalm 3.

It can be found here.

As always – I am frustrated that I did not have time to prepare better. However, I did learn a lot.
Hopefully – so did my congregation!

On Dating Biblical Books

I am very much interested in the dating of Biblical books, especially as it pertains to Ecclesiastes and Job.

Usually  - they are both dated late (especially Ecclesiastes).   Of course – there are some scholars that date Ecclesiastes early – in the monarchic period.  Two of these are Dan Fredericks (more recently in his commentary on Ecclesiastes) and Ian Young.

The debate on dating biblical texts is fairly intense. For some relevant links to this debate and also links to some useful articles on dating, see the latest post from Robert Holmstedt.

As you can see, the debate is fairly intense between Ron Hendel and Young, Rezetko etc. .

JoAnn Hacket, Phil David, Lemche, Tania Notarius, Lenzi, George Athas and even Bill Schniedewind pitched in (see the comments on Hendel’s response).  This is certainly getting interesting.

I still think that we need to be humbler in the dating of some (most?) books…because in my opinion “we are working with no data” – to steal a quote from Thomas Lambddin (admittedly - I have no idea in what context he used it ).

Reading the Bible with the Reformers – Timothy George

Even though I was raised in a Romanian Baptist family without any access to the church fathers or the reformers (it was under communism when Christian literature was very scarce), I was attracted toward them from the very beginning.  While many of the church fathers are usually associated with the Orthodox Church which was understood as being (mostly) dead in Romania when I grew up as a Baptist, there is no doubt in my mind that many of the writings of the church fathers are still very useful for the church.  After all, the Holy Spirit has a history, and to read the Bible with the church fathers, the Reformers, and the Puritans is like having a bible study across the centuries.

Some Guidelines for Theological Engagement

This is a brief note to point out a few great articles by Tim Keller on theological engagement.

The first one is entitled Gospel Polemics.

The second one gives Three Rules for Polemics.

And the last one gives some very good guidelines from the the 17th century Scottish divine George Gillespie on how to Be Winsome and Persuasive .

I find all that I read very useful for any kind (not only theological) of debates and discussions.
ENJOY!

A New Blog: Preaching the Psalms

By God’s grace I am planning to preach from the Psalter (selected psalms) for the next few months (years?).

In connection with this I opened a new blog: Preaching the Psalms where I plan to post my notes and (hopefully) audio sermons.

These days I am preaching at Wangsung English Ministry . Feel free to visit us!

Please visit my blog and leave your comments and suggestions. If you have some links to great messages on the Psalter, please let me know. I especially like the sermons of Dick Lucas (St Helen’s) at this point.

I hope and pray that my notes will be useful to English speaking workers who do not have access to the resources I have.

Persecuted Christians

Open Doors has just posted the World Watch List.  Much prayer is needed especially for North Korea, Iran, etc.

You can see the World Watch List  here .

Here is some more information from the Open Doors website:

Each year Open Doors releases the World Watch List, a detailed analysis of Christian persecution worldwide. In this free resource, countries are evaluated and ranked according to the severity of persecution that occurred in the past year.

We offer the World Watch List free as part of our mission at Open Doors to inform and inspire others with the message of the persecuted. Join the cause of the persecuted and share the World Watch List with your friends and family.

To PRAY or Not to PRAY?

I just read a very good article about public prayer by Professor John Stackhouse .

I highly recommend it.

However – I still wonder if I should/would decline praying (even in a public place) if I am INVITED!? Perhaps an appropriate prayer may do a lot of good, even in a public context where many do not believe and share my beliefs!?

Having said that – I do believe that Dr. Stackhouse makes a very powerful argument for his point of view.