In my earlier post on this blogsite about the minor prophets, I summarize the lessons from Jonah this way: “Don’t disobey God or be parochial. God wants all peoples to follow him; He answers prayers; He’s against violence and idols and is pro-sacrifice.” True enough, but since this is one of my favorite Bible books … [Read more…]
The main point of this post is that the order in which the Ten Commandments are listed makes perfect sense. The Ten Commandments are listed in this order (I paraphrase and shorten them, found at Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21): Thou shalt have no other gods besides God. No idols. No misusing God’s name. Keep … [Read more…]
In my post on this blogsite about the book of Joshua, I have a section called, “It’s the Land, Stupid,” and I note that in this book “the importance of the land is manifest, and big chunks of the book are detailed, survey-like description of boundaries.” I continue with this paragraph: This reflects an important … [Read more…]
What does God want our attitude toward money to be? Well, in Scripture the apostle Paul teaches that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (I Timothy 6:10). That’s important, but it must always be stressed that it is the love of money, not money itself, that is condemned. So there are … [Read more…]
I’ve divided this post into two parts: a list of ten general rules, and then some specific applications. Ten Rules Here are ten rules for interpreting Biblical texts, especially difficult ones: There’s a strong presumption in favor of all Scripture being true (if we can freely ignore any passage in Scripture that we find difficult, … [Read more…]
This post will address a fundamental question: How do you persuade someone that Jesus was divine, was the Son of God? This is important, and I think framing this issue properly is a little more complicated than it first appears. Caveats. Consider: You can persuade someone to believe that God exists without persuading him that … [Read more…]
Introductory Note The idea of this post is to list the Bible verses — or, more accurately, Bible passages — that are the most significant. The notion came to me because I find myself often going back time and again to particular passages, especially when arguing some point or wrestling with hard questions. A few … [Read more…]
You’re in a morally fraught predicament. What would Jesus do? Not a bad question to ask, of course, not at all. And in this post I’ll ask it in a more general rather than in a specific context: What habits did Jesus have in His daily life? Because, if they were His habits, they should … [Read more…]
If you consider a psalm a prayer, then these are the two most-prayed prayers in the Bible. It’s interesting to compare them. Although each is brief and elegantly but tightly constructed, the Psalm is almost twice as long as the Prayer. Each begins with an address to God, unsurprisingly, and each ends appropriately enough with … [Read more…]
It seems to me that this is a particularly important and reassuring passage for us, since it shows that even Jesus could be frightened about the future and unhappy with a course that God the Father has mapped out to follow. *** Here is the description of this event from each of the three Synoptic … [Read more…]