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IN THIS ISSUE: Why the Land Matters: Unpacking God’s Promises in Scripture | From Scripture to Soil: Excavating the Lost City of Zoar | Detective Work with Biblical Manuscripts | Digging Deeper: Shepherds Theological Seminary’s Archaeological Focus . . . AND MORE!TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 President’s Letter 5 Why the Land Matters: Unpacking God’s Promises in Scripture 9 From Scripture to Soil: Excavating the Lost City of Zoar 13 Detective Work with Biblical Manuscripts 17 Digging Deeper: Shepherds Theological Seminary’s Archaeological Focus 19 Alumni Spotlight: Nathanial Jackson 21 Servant Leader Award: Sam Winchester 2PRESIDENT’S LETTER Why did 250 vocational leaders leave their ministry posts this past week—and every week, on average—in America alone? What caused them to walk away from a calling they once felt passionate about fulfilling? At the top of the list of reasons for this dramatic change are two culprits: discouragement and a sense of fruitlessness. Would it surprise you to know that the Bible offers a guarantee that enables believers to be fruitful and effective in ministry? I’m not talking about the size of a church building or budget, but the depth of a Christ-honoring ministry that refuels servant-leaders over the long haul. You might think it’s presumptuous to use a word like guarantee—but that’s exactly what the apostle Peter offers in 2 Peter 1:8 and 10. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful. . . if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. That statement makes me scramble back into 2 Peter to review this list of qualities. Here’s the inspired list: Supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self- control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, andgodliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualitiesare yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful. . . ifyou practice these qualities, you will never fall (2 Peter 1:5-10). What an amazing guarantee! Keep in mind, Peter isn’t talking about perfection— he’s talking about progression. The question isn’t whether or not we will tackle this list of qualities consistently or perfectly. . . the question is, will this list become our priority? Shepherds Theological Seminary is launching this biannual magazine because we want to reinforce your commitment to ministry and encourage your resolve to stay the course as a servant-leader who honors Christ. In this inaugural issue, we also want to embolden your trust in the reliability of Scripture as we highlight the strategic efforts of our STS archaeology department. Together, let’s avoid being added to yet another week’s list of 250 people who left the ministry. Let’s pursue Peter’s inspired list, strengthened by the fact that God’s Word doesn’t challenge us without enabling us, as we surrender daily to our Chief Shepherd. Satisfied in Christ, 3Distinctives: ■ Learn from Professors in the Field ■ Live Dig Experiences ■ Comprehensive Instruction on Biblical Archaeology ■ Bible and Theology Rich Cary, NC • shepherds.edu Master of Arts in Biblical Archaeology 4WHY THE LAND MATTERS: Unpacking God’s Promises in Scripture by Doug Bookman, PhD, Professor of Old/New Testament and Bible Exposition Beginning in the book of Genesis and continuing throughout the Old Testament, the Bible establishes the significance of God’s giving His people a certain “land.” In Genesis 12:1, God calls Abram to leave his country and his people and to go to “a land that I will show you.” God’s promise of the land is an explicit and dominant theme in Scripture, and especially for Abram and his descendants. The Bible records time and time again Yahweh’s promise to His people for a certain “land.” Gen. 12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” 5Gen. 13:15 “ . . . for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.” Gen. 15:7 And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” Gen. 15:18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land . . . ” Gen. 17:8 “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” Gen. 50:24 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Ex. 6:8 “I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord [Heb: Yahweh].” Deut. 6:10 Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you . . . Judg. 2:1 The angel of the Lord . . . said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you.’” Many modern biblical scholars often regard the New Testament as redefining many promises made in the Old Testament, including God’s promises to give His people a particular “land.” Modern theologians frequently hold to a more “spiritual” interpretation of what is meant by “land,” thus nullifying God’s promises recorded in the Old Testament as relating to a physical “land.” However, such an interpretation is deeply flawed and dangerous. In fact, the land itself—the physical tract of land so central to the Old Testament narrative—is infinitely important to the promises and purposes of God as revealed in His Word for several reasons. In the first place, the honor of God’s name is at stake. The name Yahweh, “I AM,” expresses God’s eternality, and thus, His covenant-keeping character. In Psalm 138:2, David sings to God, “. . . for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” David is celebrating the reality that Yahweh—whose God repeatedly ties the promise of the land directly and unalterably to His name, Yahweh (Exodus 6:8). 6name expresses His eternality—highly exalts His Word with His own Name. To claim that God changes the interpretation of His Word in the New Testament is contrary to all that God claims for Himself in His Word. God repeatedly ties the promise of the land directly and unalterably to His name, Yahweh (Ex. 6:8). Why would Yahweh retract and abandon explicit land promises He made in the Old Testament? This questions the integrity, the honesty, and the character of God Himself. Secondly, the physical land is an essential element of God’s revelation of Himself to the world. The primary means by which God has made Himself known to finite and fallen mankind is through event revelation, by breaking into human history in dramatic, palpable, real-world fashion. These are the “mighty acts of God” (Ps. 150:3)—waters part, walls fall, the lame walk, and the dead are raised. Those events are themselves revelatory; that historical narrative is God putting on display His person, His character, His purposes, and His majesty. The land is basic and necessary to that revelatory narrative. God calls Abram to a land; He enables Joshua to conquer the land; for 800 years in the Person of the Glory-cloud, He physically dwells and reigns in a tabernacle/temple in the land; He uses Cyrus to bring the exiles in Babylon back to the land; He dispatches His Son to live and die and rise again in the land. That little land called Israel has been (since Abraham) the physical stage on which God has so dramatically and graciously shown the entire world who He is—the powerful, persevering, righteous, gracious, promise-keeping Sovereign of the moral and physical universe! The manifest and undeniable testimony of Scripture is that the land is essential to God’s plan to make Himself known to a world which is not interested in knowing Him. Finally, in the days to come, the land will again be an intrinsic and essential aspect of God’s plan to put His majesty on display to the entire cosmos. Scripture read literally teaches that there is coming a day when God’s glory will be universally and unmistakably on display on this spinning globe. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). Jesus will reign from a throne in that land, indeed in Jerusalem (Ps. 2:6; Isa. 2:2-4; Jer. 3:17; Zech. 2:10). Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11). All of this does not occur in some abstract, unreal, mystical otherworld, but in actual time-space human history. Basic to that will be the land to which God had called Abram all those millennia earlier. Indeed, the testimony of Scripture is this: that little land is undeniably and unspeakably important to the plans and purposes of God. 7BECOME PART OF THIS ARCHAEOLOGICAL ADVENTURE! STS faculty hosts a study trip to Israel with the specific intent of not only educating each student about Israel . . . but educating them in Israel. OUR CONVICTION ►In all of ministry, it is the message of Scripture that can change people’s lives ►The careful work of grammatical-historical exegesis is absolutely necessary to a ministry that honors God’s Word ►Familiarity with the physical setting of the text is an integral element of biblical interpretation shepherds.edu/sts-israel-initiative/ 8Because the Bible records the details of real history (not myths or fairy tales), Biblical archaeologists are always hopeful that their work will uncover the actual places written about in the Bible. For example, they have succeeded in unearthing cities like Jericho with its collapsed brick wall, Mamre with its tree rings cut through the bedrock from the giant oaks that shaded Abram’s flocks, and the City of David with its massive stones that formed the walls of King David’s palace. There is one city, however, that has remained buried to this day, even though the Bible and extra-Biblical sources describe right where to look: ancient Zoar, the city that harbored Lot and his daughters while everything around them burned. FROM SCRIPTURE TO SOIL: Excavating the Lost City of Zoar by Joel Kramer, Research Professor Biblical Archaeology, Field Archaeologist 9Next >