Don’t Hold on to Guilt Over What God Has Already Forgiven From the life of Jacob, we learn a lesson in how to receive God’s mercy. After Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers come to him. They’re worried he’ll hold a grudge against them for what they did to him when he was a teenager. At that […]
A Sign of Completeness and Power We’ve talked about the number three in Scripture. Now let’s look at the number seven in the Bible. We see the number seven pop up early in Scripture, during the creation account. On each of the first five days, God sees what he did and pronounces it as “good.” […]
Forgive and be Forgiven As followers of Jesus, we shouldn’t judge others, but we do. Too often, we judge Christians for their theology. We must stop. When we evaluate others based on what they believe, we diminish them in the process. And we smugly elevate ourselves over them. When we do this, our egos show […]
Jesus shared a story (parable) about forgiving others. Jesus’ illustration was prompted by Peter, who asked if forgiving someone seven times was enough; Peter thought seven times was generous. Jesus upped the figure considerably, saying seventy-seven times. We don’t take this amount literally, instead understanding that Jesus really meant we need to forgive others “more […]
Psalm 163 from Beyond Psalm 150 Abner is captain of Saul’s army and initially opposes David. Later, he switches his allegiance. Nevertheless, Joab, the leader of David’s army, kills Abner to avenge his brother’s death. David weeps for Abner and sings this lament. Should Abner die as a fool dies? Your hands weren’t bound, and your […]
The King Confesses His Mistake and Asks God to Take Away the Guilt In 1 Chronicles 21 we read the account of David telling Joab to take a census of the people to determine how many fighting men are in the nation. This was Satan’s doing who tempted David into numbering his military. This could […]
An Old Testament Parable Warning about the Perils of Prostitution and Idolatry Ezekiel shares a story about two sisters. It’s an Old Testament parable. And it comes directly from God. The older sister is Oholah, and the younger sister is Oholibah. Oholah is Samaria, the capital of Israel and represents the ten northern tribes. The […]
But Luther Believed the Pope Had No Power Over Purgatory Martin Luther’s second group of ninety-five theses addressed the pope’s authority over purgatory, or to be more correct, the pope’s lack of authority. Martin asserted that the pope had no power when it came to remitting sins and their penalty in purgatory. Though some accounts […]
The book of Proverbs contains the majority of the Bible’s mentions of the word “adulteress” (seven times in Proverbs compared to five times in the rest of the Bible). It refers to a woman who commits adultery, that is, she has sex with someone other than her husband. In today’s language, that is referred to […]
Forgiveness Is a Serious Thing, and We’re Well Advised to Never Withhold It You’re probably familiar with the Lord’s prayer, sometimes informally called by its opening line as the Our Father. It’s a well-known passage in the Bible and many Christian traditions recite it as part of their Sunday worship service. Growing up in a […]