Bathsheba, a beautiful woman, is married to Uriah. Despite being a foreigner, Uriah is loyal to the nation of Israel, King David, and God; he is an honorable man, who is off fighting in the army. Back home, David, from his rooftop vantage, sees Bathsheba bathing. Both are at fault. David shouldn’t have been looking, […]
Shepherds Have a Responsibility to Their Sheep and Sheep Have a Responsibility to Their Shepherd We know Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The Bible also addresses bad shepherds. The book of Jeremiah talks about this, but it’s easy to miss it if we read too fast. The Bad Shepherd Quoting God, Jeremiah writes, “My people […]
Both Groups Commit Theological Errors We Must Avoid In Jesus’s lifetime, there were two major sects in Judaism: Pharisees and Sadducees. Both sects appear in the Bible, with Pharisee mentioned ninety-nine times and Sadducee occurring fifteen, all in the New Testament and mostly in the Gospels. Though Jesus extended love and acceptance to all people, […]
An unnamed Israelite girl is captured in a raid. Then they force her to work as a slave in the household of the enemy commander, Naaman. Although Naaman is an accomplished military leader, he suffers from a limiting physical ailment. He has leprosy, a contagious skin disease that can cause a loss of feeling, decay, […]
We Would Never Burn Scripture, but Ignoring a Passage Is As Bad God tells his prophet Jeremiah what to say. Jeremiah dictates it to his scribe, Baruch, who records it in a scroll. The scroll eventually makes it to the king. Though the people who hear Jeremiah’s words take his warning seriously, the king does […]
Social Media Has Trivialized What It Means to Follow Someone and Be Their Friend Today when we think of the word followers, our mind quickly takes us to Twitter. As in, “How many Twitter followers do you have?” Instagram and Pinterest also lists our number of followers. And when someone wonders about the number of […]
When Candy and I celebrated the wedding of our daughter, Laura, to our new son, Chris, it was a wonderful day that we had been building up to with increasing anticipation and focus. 1. Are you Nervous? In the weeks and days leading up to the nuptials, I was surprised by the number of people […]
What Can We Learn from the Ending Sentence or Thought in Each Book of the Bible? As a writer I know the two most important things of anything I write are the beginning and the ending. A strong opening draws readers and keeps them interested, while a powerful close gives readers something to take with […]
Lessons of Art Appreciation Can Help Us Study the Word of God Until recently I never considered myself a creative person, and I certainly never considered myself an artist. However, I recently realized that I create art through words. I guess that makes me an artist. As such, that means I’m studying art (writing) and […]
When God Tells Us to Do Something He Has a Reason and We Should Obey After Joshua leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land and takes control of it, he divides the territory among the tribes. Though they have conquered enough of the area to occupy it, remnants of other people, such as […]