Special Speaker
We had a special speaker at congregation today. A professor from Moody Bible Institute. My first thought upon the first 30 seconds of of his speaking was "oh my goodness, he is so American." As he continued his message I cannot say my thoughts changed at all. This man was every bit the pound your fist on the pulpit and shout as you speak person. Unfortunately, in spite of his Ph.D and professorial status I cannot say he holds a candle to Menno Kalisher, the pastor of Jerusalem Assembly, in part because Menno is Israeli and grew up here in Israel so he is more familiar with the way things are here in Israel. So today we were subject to about 15 - 20 minutes of cultural insight that hasn't changed much in the last 2000 years. People still wear sandals here instead of shoes a lot of the time, and people's feet still get dirty due to the dust that is everywhere (because of the hot dry climate) and even today you have to wash your feet when you get home after walking around the city (which is done a lot by American standards).
Some fun points that came out of the message though was when the professor was emphasizing his point by repeating it with a bunch of different synonyms and the translator turned to him and said, "I've run out of words. " Hebrew did not have as many synonyms as for that point as English does... At another point the professor was talking about a servant who was actually a slave. Only it was quite obvious that the translator used the same word, עֶבֶד, both times.
Edit: It has been called to my attention that this may seem as if I being judgmental of the Moody professor. I want to clarify that that is not my intent. Rather I was just trying to show so cultural differences that came out when he was speaking. Personally I do not care for his style of preaching, but that is just a matter of personal preference, and I am sure that for every person out their who would agree with me on the matter, there is another person who would prefer the pulpit pounding and shouting.
Some fun points that came out of the message though was when the professor was emphasizing his point by repeating it with a bunch of different synonyms and the translator turned to him and said, "I've run out of words. " Hebrew did not have as many synonyms as for that point as English does... At another point the professor was talking about a servant who was actually a slave. Only it was quite obvious that the translator used the same word, עֶבֶד, both times.
Edit: It has been called to my attention that this may seem as if I being judgmental of the Moody professor. I want to clarify that that is not my intent. Rather I was just trying to show so cultural differences that came out when he was speaking. Personally I do not care for his style of preaching, but that is just a matter of personal preference, and I am sure that for every person out their who would agree with me on the matter, there is another person who would prefer the pulpit pounding and shouting.
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