(BELOIT, WI - 6/26/2007)

Dear Partners and Friends,

It's time for us to fly away to Africa, again. As you read this, we are traveling from Beloit to Lujizweni to Six Trees to begin nearly 12 weeks of teaching and preaching at our beloved Kum Bible College. It's going to be a busy, industrious time between now and early September. We are counting on your support and prayer as we go from village to town to city to village training pastors, teachers, and evangelists for the African churches in 3 provinces. May we list the people, places, and projects that we would like you to pray for while we are gone? Thank you!

Please pray for the KBC classes that Larry will teach. Pray for Sue as she holds a training workshop for pre-school teachers in the bush villages. Also, pray that Sue will be effective as she works with government teachers in a primary school in the village of Nomadolo. Would you pray for Larry & Sue, Edmunds & Brenda, Ayanda, Zandile, Ewart, and Banzi & Zukiswa as they minister every night in district churches between Kokstad and Lusikisiki?

Please pray for Joe & Dawn Correll and Philip Allen as they come to assist Larry & Sue for 2 weeks. Joe will be doing a variety of repair and construction work. Dawn will work in village medical clinics and do door-to-door nursing, especially at Six Trees. Philip will be sharing the teaching load with Larry at both KBC campuses, Six Trees and Lujizweni. They, too, will be preaching and sharing testimonies each night in many churches and Christian house meetings. Pray for their travel and their transition to live and work in the African culture.

Please pray for Larry & Sue as they and their African teammates conduct revival meetings in places like Shayamoya, Mthantha, Conjwio, The Drakensburg Farms, and in new places in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Our work seems to be extending both east and west from our own province of Eastern Cape. This year we will minister across the entire width of South Africa, all by invitation of local and regional Christian leaders. We praise God that He is opening new areas where we can preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help encourage Christian workers.

Please pray for a very major development in our outreach. For the first time, we are invited to hold KBC classes and preach in the Capetown area, a 19 hour drive west of our main campus at Lujizweni. Israel Kande, a pastor from the Congo, has asked us to come to Capetown and use his congregation (Emmanuel Christian Church) as our base of operation for preaching and establishing our second Kum Bible College extension campus (you will remember that our first extension opened in 2006 in Six Trees). This is a great opportunity to reach many, many more Africans with the Good News of Jesus, and to help in the training of church workers in Western Cape. We are both humbled and excited by this new "open door" (1 Corinthians 16: 9).

You pray, we'll work... and once again, we will ALL be God's Team sharing this important task. We will write when we return in September, before we repack our bags and head off to minister in England, Scotland, Belgium, Ohio, and California next autumn. Thank you for your gifts and prayers. Your loyalty to Christ, and to us, keeps us going. We love you!

SUMMER 2007

The Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus is an event reported by all the Canonical Gospels, in Mark 14:53–65, Matthew 26:57–68, Luke 22:63–71 and John 18:12-24. After the arrest of Jesus, the Canonical Gospels report that Jesus was taken to the Sanhedrin, a legal body composed of the chief Sadduccees, Pharisees, and elders (Kilgallen 255). The precise location and nature of the trial varies between the canonical Gospels, and particularly between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John.

In the Synoptics, Jesus is taken to the Sanhedrin, with Matthew adding that the Sanhedrin had assembled where Caiaphas was located, possibly implying that the gathering occurred at the home of Caiaphas.

At the time in which the narrative is set, this body was an ad hoc gathering, rather than a fixed court (Brown 146), as in the latter Council of Jamnia, and its gathering in Caiaphas' home is historically plausible, though irregular. Daniel J. Harrington argues that being located in a home makes it more likely that this was a small first preliminary hearing and not a full trial. According to Rabbinic Judaism, the Sanhedrin of the Pharisees, probably a different sanhedrin, was led by Gamaliel from approximately the year 9 to 50. This is believed to be the same Gamaliel who appears in Acts 5:34 and 22:3. Shammai may have also played a role.

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Theological Dictionary word of the day: death of Jesus

The death of Jesus is an event described by the New Testament, as occurring after the Passion of Jesus, as a result of his crucifixion. In Christianity the quasi-annual day of commemoration of the event is a highly important feast day, known as Good Friday.

In the accounts, as Jesus is dying, a darkness appears over the land. The Gospel of Mark states it was at the sixth hour (noon). Some have interpreted the darkness as a solar eclipse, but this is astronomically impossible, since Jesus is described as dying around the time of the Passover, a date on the Hebrew calendar fixed to a full moon, while solar eclipses can only occur at a new moon. It is clearly phrased for dramatic effect, but it could simply mean that the day was overcast.

Both Matthew and Mark state that Jesus cried out his last words - My God, My God, why have you forsaken me, Mark indicating that it was the ninth hour (3 PM). John states that Jesus just said I thirst. A passer is described by both the synoptics and John as then wetting a sponge with vinegar and offering it to Jesus via a stick, but the crowd is described as saying that they should wait to see if Elijah will come to save Jesus. John states that Jesus drank what was offered. Elijah fails to arrive, and shortly after the sponge is offered, Jesus [gives] up the ghost, crying out wordlessly (according to Matthew and Mark), or crying his last words according to Luke and John, and dying.

Luke and Mark report that the veil of the temple split at this point, but Matthew claims that there were earthquakes, splitting rocks, and that dead saints were resurrected. The synoptics report that the immediate events after Jesus' death led a centurion to say Truly this man is [a/the] Son of God (there is no article in the original Greek, so this could as equally be a Son of God as the Son of God), which might be considered a vindication of Jesus (Brown 147), or might be sarcastic (Miller 51). John makes no such supernatural claims, and doesn't mention the centurion.

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Theological Dictionary word of the day: Christ
The Anointed; the Messiah; the deliverer of Israel whose coming was foretold by the Hebrew prophets.

Christ is the English representation of the Greek word Χριστός (Christos). The Christian religion takes its name from Christ, as a title given to Jesus of Nazareth, always capitalized as a singularly descriptive title meaning literally The Anointed One. In English translations of the New Testament, the Greek (Iēsous Christos), and related phrases, are almost invariably translated Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, leading to the common, though inaccurate, perception that Christ was the last name of Jesus of Nazareth. The part of Christian theology focusing on the identity, life, teachings and works of Jesus, is known as Christology (see also Christian worldview).

Full etymology
The spelling Christ in English dates from the 17th century, when, in the spirit of the enlightenment, spellings of certain words were changed to fit their Greek or Latin origins.

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Theological Dictionary word of the day: resurrection of Jesus
According to the Trinitarian (the Trinity) interpretation of the New Testament, Jesus was both human and God, so he had the power to lay his life down and to take it up again; thus after Jesus died, he came back to life. This event is referred to in Christian terminology as the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and is commemorated and celebrated by most Christians annually on Easter Sunday.

Most Christians, even those who do not interpret other parts of the Bible literally, accept the New Testament story as an historical account of an actual event central to their faith, though some do not accept a literal bodily resurrection, sometimes arguing for docetism. But it so seems that in the past, a large group of Christians known as the Gnostics, who were later declared heretics and partially exterminated, argued against its singular importance, and claimed that the New Testament supported their claims. Non-Christians generally view the story as legend or as allegory.

Resurrection accounts
The New Testament

The primary accounts of the resurrection are in the last chapters of the Canonical Gospels:

• Matthew 28,
• Mark 16,
• Luke 24,
• John 20-21

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Theological Dictionary word of the day: Jacob's Ladder
Jacob's Ladder refers to a ladder to heaven described in the Genesis 28:11-19 which the biblical patriarch Jacob envisioned during his flight from his brother Esau:

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth." (Gen. 28: 10-22)

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Theological Dictionary word of the day: Isaiah
Isaiah (יְשַׁעְיָהוּ "Salvation of/is the Lord") was the son of Amoz, and commonly considered the author of the Book of Isaiah.

The Book of Isaiah is a book of the Jewish Hebrew bible as well as the Christian Old Testament, containing prophecies attributed to Isaiah. This book is often seen by scholars as being divided into at least two sections. The first section, consisting of chapters 1-39, is generally accepted as being written by the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem, or by his followers who took down his words.

Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of four kings -- Uzziah (Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Legend has it that he was martyred during the reign of Manasseh, who came to the throne in 687 BCE. That he is described as having ready access to the kings would suggest an aristocratic origin.

This was the time of the divided kingdom, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. There was prosperity for both kingdoms during Isaiah’s youth with little foreign interference. Jeroboam II ruled in the north and Uzziah in the south. The small kingdoms of Palestine, as well as Syria, were under the influence of Egypt. However, in 745 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne of Assyria.

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