How to Discern the Difference Between Biblical Commands and Biblical Narrative In the Bible We Must Distinguish Between Prescriptive Text and Descriptive Text The Bible contains a lot of versus that tell us what to do and what not to do. These...
My Favorite Prayer in the Bible Discover How God Reacts to the Prayer of Jabez Last week I wrote about The Most Dangerous Prayer in the Bible, at least the prayer containing the most risky line. It’s a reminder that we must forgive quickly and...
Women in the Bible: The Mother of Jabez Though an entire book was written about his prayer (The Prayer of Jabez), we actually know little about Jabez. The Bible only mentions him in two obscure verses, buried among a lengthy genealogy. We know...
Should We Avoid Vain Repetition When We Pray? As a kid I took seriously the warning in the Bible to avoid vain repetitions when we pray. Even at a young age I knew that reciting a memorized prayer over and over did not impress God. In fact I...
What the Prayer of Jabez Means To Me In my prior post, I made a couple of tweaks to the prayer of Jabez. The original text reads: “Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore...
Don’t be a Pain in the Butt When I study the Bible, I use multiple versions (translations), depending on my mood and goals. One version that I seldom use, however, is the New King James Version (NKJV). There’s no particular reason, it’s just how...
What’s Your Favorite Bible Verse? What is your favorite verse in the Bible? Is it John 3:16? That seems to be one commonly cited. Or perhaps, it’s commonly cited, only because it is the only one people know. As a teen, just to be contrary and...
You Don’t Have to be a Pain The obscure Old Testament character Jabez is only mentioned in two verses in the Bible. A reoccurring theme (if two verses can have a reoccurring theme) is pain. The birth of Jabez is marked by pain and his mom...
My Favorite Verse It is about an honorable man who prayed—and then “God granted his request.” This is a simple phrase and seemingly not profound, but it is most encouraging to me. There is often a mystery to praying: when God answers, how he...
Book Review: The Prayer of Jabez The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life By Bruce Wilkinson (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, is a short work and a compelling read. It is based...
