Women in the Bible: Orpah Orpah Begins a Journey but Then Returns Home Orpah is the widowed daughter-in-law of Naomi and sister-in-law to Ruth. When Naomi decides to return to Judah, her daughters-in-law start out with her, but Naomi releases...
Who Wrote the Book of Hebrews? When We Don’t Get Credit for What We Do As a child someone told me that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. This has stuck with me, and I still consider Paul as the book’s most likely author. But as I look for...
A Family That Likes to Sing (Visiting Church #37) Including us, twenty-one people have gathered. Up front, a rugged wooden cross has a purple cloth draped over it and a white dove perched on the crosspiece. The bird seems out of place until my...
Do You Go To an Acts 2 Church? I recently visited a church that upheld Acts 2:42-47 as their model for church. Shocked, I checked the passage to make sure I remembered it correctly. Here is what the Acts 2 church looks like: Their Four Keys The...
Omission or Addition in the Bible? After prior discussions about adding to or taking away from the Bible, it gives one pause in considering footnotes in some translations, which effectively note that a certain phrase or verse is “not found...
Are You a Person of Integrity? Righteousness is Another Word for Integrity Someone once surprised me, catching me off guard by calling me a “man of integrity.” Though honored by their perception, I shook my head. Yes, I aspire to be a person of...
Church Happens Anyway (Visiting Church #36) We arrive at church to find an empty lobby. Hearing an amplified voice, we head towards the sound. We find a large sanctuary with 162 chairs and 20 people. Like last week, we slink into a back row. A...
Onesimus, the Useful One The focus of Paul’s letter to Philemon is Onesimus, the runaway slave. Ironically, Onesimus means “useful.” After Onesimus flees, he encounters Jesus through Paul. Paul mentors the escaped slave and the...
The Victory and Despair of Jephthah Another judge, who is prominently noted in the book of Judges is Jephthah. Jephthah, the son of a prostitute which doesn’t say much for his dad>was exiled from his people. However, when they became...
What to Do When the Bible Doesn’t Make Sense Discover How to Grapple with Difficult Passages in Scripture When we read the Bible, it’s human nature to dwell on the parts we like and skim the parts that confuse us. We camp out at the many passages...
