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Bible Insights

Women in the Bible

women in the bible

Discover the Amazing Women in Scripture

I spent a season with my Bible reading focused on notable women in the Bible. Some are famous, many are obscure, and a few are infamous. It’s been an interesting study, and I’ll share some of what I’m discovering.

What I’ve learned is that even though the writings in the Bible cover a time in history when men dominated the culture and women were disregarded, God often tapped his female followers to accomplish amazing things.

Join me in celebrating their lives and contribution to our shared faith. So far my list includes:

  1. Ruth (the great grandmother of king David)
  2. Esther (the Queen who saved her people)
  3. Deborah (the judge)
  4. Hannah (Samuel’s mom)
  5. Sarah (Abraham’s wife)
  6. Naomi (Ruth’s mother-in-law)
  7. Rebekah (Isaac’s wife)
  8. Rachel (one of Jacob’s wives)
  9. Leah (one of Jacob’s wives)
  10. Abigail (one of David’s wives)
  11. Michal (one of David’s wives)
  12. Tamar (in the family tree of Jesus)
  13. Rahab (in the family tree of Jesus)
  14. Bathsheba (in the family tree of Jesus)
  15. Naaman’s servant girl
  16. Jephthah’s daughter
  17. Mary (the mother of Jesus)
  18. Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist)
  19. Anna (the woman in the temple who awaited Jesus’ birth)
  20. Eve (the wife of Adam)
  21. The Mother of Jabez
  22. Miriam (the sister of Moses)
  23. Dinah (the daughter of Jacob and Leah)
  24. Orpah (the sister-in-law of Ruth)
  25. Peninnah (the wife of Elkanah, along with Hannah, the mother of Samuel)
  26. King Solomon’s Wives
  27. The Wise Woman from Tekoa
  28. Jochebed (the mother of Moses)
  29. The Widow of Zarephath
  30. The Widow and her oil
  31. The Shuammite Woman
  32. Athaliah (the evil queen)
  33. Jael (the brave woman who kills Sisera)
  34. The Chosen Lady (who John write about in his second letter)

Guess what? I have one hundred more biblical women to cover. And they’re all in my new book Women of the Bible.

Learn about other biblical women in Women of the Bible, available in e-book, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Christian Living

Explore Our Faith Practices

examine your faith practices

Why Do We Do What We Do?

I have a compulsion that irritates people, especially in religious circles. I ask, “Why?” I need to know why we do the things we do. What reason is behind them? Is there a biblical justification?

Or is it a manmade tradition that has become meaningless ritual?

For example, in 52 Churches, I witnessed many services that began by lighting two candles. I’m still trying to figure this one out. Why do they light candles in the first place? Is there biblical support for it? And why two?

Three would represent the Trinity, but two? If there’s a symbolic reason for two – or even lighting candles for that matter—then we need to know what it is so we can celebrate it. Else we should eliminate it as a practice without purpose.

Candles and the number two, however, are minor considerations. Whether or not we light two candles is of little consequence—as long as we don’t attach spiritual significance to it.

However, there are bigger issues, much bigger issues, that have permeated our faith practices.

Let me be bold and assert we’ve messed up most of what we do, elevating tradition over biblical command.

Consider the process of becoming a Christian. This is rife with manmade ideas that aren’t in the Bible. Yet many have elevated these processes as nonnegotiable faith requirements, superseding what Jesus taught.

I think that makes them heresy. Yes, I said many churches practice heresy. I talk about this in How Big Is Your Tent?

So you know I’m not making this up, the origins of our religious ways are researched in the mind-blowing book, Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola and George Barna.

So many of our practices are not rooted in scripture and several emanate from secular culture; that is, their origin is pagan.

I encourage you to boldly examine your faith practices. Eliminate all that lack biblical support. What remains will be a purer, more God-honoring spirituality.

Join me in asking, “Why?”

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
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Reviews of Books & Movies

Movie Review: A Time for Burning

a time for burning

Reviewed by Peter DeHaan

Shot documentary style in the 1960s, A Time for Burning captures honest, balanced, poignant, and candid insights into race issues and segregation from a different era.

In the decades since, some things have changed dramatically, while others are disappointingly the same.

The film chronicles one minister’s attempts to nudge his all-white congregation forward by encouraging simple acts of intentionality in reaching out to members of an all-black church, of the same denomination, located only a few blocks away.

The youth of each church make an initial effort by visiting each other’s church. Although the adults engage in much discussion—some hostile, others fearful, yet open—it doesn’t result in action.

In an unexpected twist the minister who pushed the idea suddenly resigns, yet the cameras continue to roll. As such, there is no satisfying end to the saga, only insight to contemplate and unanswered questions that now seem more complex.

For those who lived through the 60s, the film is a powerful reminder; for those too young to know, it is a powerful glimpse into what once was and the bias and emotion that flailed against change.

[Read more reviews by Peter DeHaan of other faith-friendly videos and movies.]

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
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​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

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Christian Living

When Will Winter End?

when will WINTER end

Always Winter and Never Christmas

In C. S. Lewis’s classic book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the land of Narnia is under duress: it is always winter and never Christmas. As winter drags on this year, I feel the same way.

In Michigan, we enjoy all four seasons and in about equal proportions. According to the calendar, winter lasts ninety days. However, this year our winter weather started sooner, piled snow deeper, inflicted frigid temperatures, and lasted longer.

Everyone I talk to is anxious for spring. Even people who claim winter as their favorite season, look forward to warmer weather.

A couple weeks ago enough snow melted to where our deck was bare (aided by my snow shovel—an act of desperation on my part). On Facebook, I asked about setting out our patio furniture.

The answer was “no.” They were right, of course, and I was rushing spring. Winter will remain with us a while longer, causing us to ask, “When will winder end?”

Yet as I wait for spring to arrive, I focus on the future and forget the present. In some ways, I’ve placed my life on hold, squandering today as I wait for tomorrow. I need to stop doing that.

On Tuesday it snowed some more. Today the temperature is above freezing. I’m declaring an end to winter. And even if that doesn’t happen, I won’t waste another day waiting for something better to come along.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

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Reviews of Books & Movies

Book Review: Pagan Christianity?

PAGAN Christianity

Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices

By Frank Viola and George Barna (reviewed by Peter DeHaan)

Pagan Christianity? is an eye-opening delineation of how numerous traditions, customs, and practices have been erroneously introduced to the church that Jesus’ followers started. This lengthy list lacks substantive biblical support.

Among the things we got wrong are the church building, sermon, paid staff, dressing up for church, tithing, how we baptize and celebrate communion, and Christian education.

The book’s concluding chapters suggest how to best study, understand, and use the Bible. Reminding us that Jesus was a revolutionary, the authors show that opposing the religious status quo is not without precedent.

In determining how to respond to this enumeration of deviations from biblical command and practice, we are encouraged to pursue new approaches to worship, spiritual growth, managing resources, and understanding our identity.

However, these are not found in something new, as much as something old—about 2,000 years old—the organic church, as modeled by the early church.

Meticulously researched and amply footnoted, with discussion questions for each chapter, Pagan Christianity? can serve equally well as a primer on Biblical Christianity, a discussion guide, or a research tool.

[Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, by Frank Viola and George Barna. Published by Tyndale Momentum, 2012, ISBN: 978-1414364551, 336 pages.]

Read more book reviews by Peter DeHaan.Save

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

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Bible Insights

Do You Hear the Voice of God?

voice of God

Listening for God’s Direction

Some people tell me they’ve never heard God speak to them. Of those, I suspect many actually do hear him, but they don’t realize it.

For others, they need to train themselves to listen. And there may be a few people with something blocking their ability to hear him.

Consider the Israelites in the Bible. They heard God speak and were so fearful they begged him to stop. Instead, they asked Moses to serve as an intermediary between them and God. And God did as they asked.

God ceased talking to the people and instead spoke only through selected leaders, priests, and prophets. I suspect the rest of the Old Testament would have unfolded quite differently had they not made this foolish request.

However, Jesus changed all that, allowing everyone who follows him to approach God directly and hear from him. This may be in audible words, a small whisper, or words, thoughts, and images he places in our minds.

If we aren’t hearing from God, maybe all we need to do is ask—and then listen.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Exodus 20-22, and today’s post is on Exodus 20:19.]

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

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Christian Living

How Should We Understand Jihad?

how should we understand Jihad

In further contemplating last week’s post about being spiritually militant—of fighting evil in the spiritual realm—the word jihad comes to mind. Jihad, originating from Islam, has some specific meanings and one that is more general:

  • A Muslim holy war or spiritual struggle against infidels in defense of the Islamic faith.
  • In Islam, the personal struggle of the individual believer against evil and persecution.
  • In Islam, an individual’s striving for spiritual self-perfection.
  • A crusade in support of a cause; any vigorous, emotional crusade for an idea or principle.

In a literal sense, the idea of a holy war repels me.

The various inquisitions and crusades, primarily during the Middle Ages, provide sufficient evidence to convince us that a physical battle to root out heresy or forcibly promote a certain religious perspective is never a good idea.

However, in a supernatural sense, a holy war should be pursued. As Paul says in the Bible, this isn’t a fight against people but “against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,” for which we need spiritual armor.

From this stems my idea of being spiritually militant. This is one way to understand and embrace jihad in a broader sense.

Also intriguing is the third definition of “striving for spiritual self-perfection,” but we must proceed carefully.

Though we should desire to more fully be like Jesus, we can’t achieve this on our own; we cannot earn our right standing with God through our own efforts.

Instead, we work with him, through his Holy Spirit, to move towards what he would have us to become. This is also an understanding of jihad that I can embrace.

Because of the likelihood of being misunderstood, we must be careful in using the word jihad. However, these are two ways we can embrace jihad as a follower of Jesus.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

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Reviews of Books & Movies

Book Review: Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity

By C. S. Lewis (reviewed by Peter DeHaan)

C. S. Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity, is based on a series of BBC radio broadcasts in the early 1940s.

Initially, published as three separate volumes Broadcast Talks (1942), Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1944), the works were combined in 1952 to result in Mere Christianity, that is to say, merely expounding on Christianity.

Mere Christianity is divided into four sections:  The first is “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe,” which aptly serves as a strong foundation on which the rest of the book—and Christianity—is built.

The second section, “What Christians Believe,” shows that we have free will to love God or deny Him, but Satan, our enemy, wants us to think we can be like God (which explains all of history).

God sent Jesus into the world; his death puts us right with God, yet it evokes a response: change. “Christian Behavior” is the title for part three, which covers practical behavior issues. Doctrine is addressed in the book’s final section.

Lewis concludes with the encouragement to “look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in,” a fitting conclusion to this intellectual treatise on what is merely Christianity.

[Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis. Published by Harper San Francisco, 2009, ISBN: 978-0060652920, 227 pages.]

Read more book reviews by Peter DeHaan.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

Categories
Christian Living

Are You Spiritually Militant?

are you spiritually militant

We Are on the Winning Side and Can Tell the Devil Where to Go

This is my second and likely last post about music from my past. First, I blogged about “I Scream Sunday” and today my topic is Stryper’s “To Hell with the Devil.”

This heavy metal tune stirs up a passion inside of me, a desire to oppose and push back the onslaught of evil. I’m not talking about evil within this world; my focus is on evil in the spiritual realm. In short, I want to be spiritually militant.

Some people diminish or dismiss the concept of an evil spiritual force, that is, the devil, a.k.a., Satan, the enemy, the deceiver, the father of lies. In a modern world, he doesn’t make sense.

After all, we can’t tangibly observe or measure him, so he must not exist. Modern-thinking people laugh him off as myth. I do not.

Other people cower in fear over his power to inflict suffering. They see him as an equal and opposing force to the goodness of God.

Instead of living in freedom, they shrink back in terror, worrying about what evil he might throw their way next. I do not.

Spiritually Militant

Yes, our spiritual enemy is real, and he is powerful. But God is more powerful. I’m on the winning side. Through his power and by his authority, I can tell spiritual evil where to go.

I can say with confidence, “To hell with the devil”—and I do, in both a figurative and literal sense. This makes me spiritually militant.

As I read the Bible, especially the book of Acts, I get a sense that God wants spiritually militant followers. He desires we walk in his power and do battle in the spiritual realm.

But too many people are content to play it safe, protected in the comfortable cocoon of complacency.

Fight the Christian status quo. Become spiritually militant. Check out the lyrics or listen/watch the song, “To Hell with the Devil”; join me in belting out the chorus.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.

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Peter DeHaan News

News Release: Peter DeHaan Overhauls Website

Peter DeHaan Overhauls Website

PeterDeHaan.com Integrates Author’s Main Blog and Website in One Place

Mattawan, Michigan, March 12, 2014—Peter DeHaan announced the completion of the overall of his website peterdehaan.com. The site, which shares his writing and career, features three exciting developments:

The new site is powered by WordPress, the world’s leading blogging and website platform. “This effort actually began a year and a half ago, almost as soon as the last website overhaul was finished,” said Peter.

“Although WordPress was recommended at that time, I selected a different direction. That site looked great but updating it was problematic from the start. Now with WordPress, making changes and adding new content is quick and easy.”

The second change is that for the first time, Peter’s main website and main blog are now fully integrated on the same site.

“This allows people to read my blog posts and access information about me and my writing all at one place. There will be no more bouncing from the blog to the website and back again,” Peter added.

The final development is a fresh new look. “The pages have a clean appearance and navigation is a breeze. What’s interesting,” said the author, “is that the new site contains all the same information—as well as some new content—but it’s now easier to find and much more inviting to read.”

PeterDeHaan.com highlights Peter’s current writing and future projects, outlines his writing services, and allows readers to receive weekly email updates. It showcases his books and blog posts.

The overhaul has been an ongoing process, evolving over the past few months while the site was live, with regular visitor seeing incremental changes every week.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”
​
​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.