Faith: January 2013 Archives

UPDATE: Don't bother with the Sacra Pagina exhibit at ORU, especially if you have young children. The line to see the first exhibit case stretched halfway around the room. After waiting for over 30 minutes with two kids bored and tired of standing in line, we were finally up to the front of the line for he first case, when a group of people old enough to know better cut in front of us. When I politely pointed out where the line began, one of the group said, "Sir, there is no line." While it was true that no official was enforcing a line, and you could opt to elbow your way in or peer over someone's shoulders to see any of the exhibit cases arranged in a circle around the room, nearly everyone was proceeding counterclockwise around the room starting at that first exhibit case; and there was a long line waiting to see it. With two kids under five feet tall, peering over shoulders or squeezing our way in was not going to be an option. We gave up and went home.

For the next few days, through Saturday, February 2, 2013, Oral Roberts University (ORU) is hosting an exhibit of 50 rare items from The Green Collection, the world's largest private collection of Biblical manuscripts and artifacts.

The exhibit is called Sacra Pagina, Latin for "the sacred page." Admission is free. The exhibit is in the Mabee Center, 8023 S. Lewis Ave. in Tulsa, in the Conference Banquet Center at the South Lobby. Exhibit hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., through Saturday, February 2, 2013.

Some of the items on display:

• A leaf from the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, which contains some of the earliest and most extensive copies of the New Testament in the dialect closest to Jesus' household language of Palestinian Aramaic. (Shown in the photo to the right. Photo courtesy of The Green Collection.)
• A leaf from the Aitken Bible, the first-known English Bible to be printed in America and the only Bible ever to receive official Congressional approval.
• A leaf from the first printing of the Gutenberg Bible.
• Manuscripts from the 13th through the 15th centuries.

As you might have guessed, the Green in The Green Collection is the family that owns Hobby Lobby and which has led the revitalization of ORU. The Green Scholars Initiative is giving researchers at over 30 universities in the US and Europe (including ORU, Oklahoma City University, and the University of Oklahoma) access to ancient manuscripts for study. That research is to be conducted by teams led by a senior scholar working with and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.

Notes hither and thither:

If you're a fan of beautiful cartoon art, you should make at least a weekly visit to Whirled of Kelly, which features the art work of Walt Kelly, most famous for the comic strip Pogo. Blogger Thomas Haller Buchanan has been running a series of Sunday strips from 1952, scanned in color from the newspaper. The sequence involves Albert telling a fractured fairy tale called Handle and Gristle. The January 2013 archive also includes scans of Story Book Records from 1946: The discs were illustrated by Walt Kelly, and he's the reader on the recordings.

Nice Deb's Sunday tradition is a hymn, and this week it's a metrical setting of Psalm 23: The King of Love My Shepherd Is.

Maggie's Notebook has a bizarre story: The State of Delaware is stripping its county sheriff's departments (all three of them) of the power to make arrests and enforce the law. This despite a constitutional provision that says that "the Sheriffs shall be conservators of the peace within the counties respectively in which they reside." Only one of the three sheriffs, from Sussex County, is objecting to the change.

Route 66 News reports on a new Route 66 Dining and Lodging Guide, handy for finding comfortable, historic, and locally owned along Route 66. (I love Jack Rittenhouse's guidebook, but it's old enough to collect Social Security, and Michael Wallis's book is old enough to drink.)

It's easy for Christians to get tangled up in everyday life or politics and to lose sight (or never gain sight) of what God is doing around the world to redeem a people for Himself "from every tribe, tongue, and nation," much less what we could be doing to participate in His redemptive work.

At 200 sites across the nation this winter and spring, including nine sites in Oklahoma you have a golden opportunity to correct that deficiency. It's a 15-week collegiate-level course called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Weekly classes begin this week in the Tulsa area, and you can sample the first night of the course for free. The course is offered by the U. S. Center for World Mission, an organization focused on mobilizing effective action to reach those cultures which are yet unreached with the Gospel.

The course begins with Biblical perspective, and God's purposes in reaching every nation as revealed from Genesis to Revelation. Historical perspective covers the spread of Christianity in the early centuries and the tremendous push over the last two centuries to fulfill the Great Commission. The final six sessions deal with culture and strategy for reaching every ethnos -- every distinct culture -- in our time with the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ.

As this preview video hints, the Perspectives course will change the way you think about world missions and can turn your life upside down.

The course can be taken for college credit through Trinity International University, for a certificate (you complete weekly homework and a semester project and receive course feedback from an instructor), or, if you don't have time for all the work, the key readings level allows you to see the lectures but do less reading and homework. Course cost is $500 for college credit, $275 for certificate or key readings levels.

There is a Perspectives course in the Tulsa area for nearly every night of the week:

Mondays: Garnett Church of Christ, begins January 7, 2013 (tonight!)
Tuesdays: Arrow Heights Baptist Church, Broken Arrow, begins January 8, 2013
Wednesdays: Baptist Collegiate Ministries Building, University of Tulsa, begins January 9, 2013
Thursdays: Tulsa Bible Church, begins January 10, 2013.

The course will also be offered starting next week in Bartlesville, Norman, Edmond, Stillwater, and Yukon.