What I’m about to say is certainly not new. It’s not ground-breaking or revolutionary by any means, and if you’ve been in church for any lengthy period of time or heard a sermon based on any of the Old Testament narrative, from Judges all the way through to the exilic period, chances are it was…
Category: Scripture
The Word of the Lord
We’re studying the first half of 1 Samuel in our Wednesday Bible study this semester, and I’ve been stuck on a phrase from 1 Samuel 3:1: “the word of the Lord was rare in those days”. I think that goes far to explain the backdrop of the book, actually. Samuel was the last of the…
Hope in the Midst of Grief
This seems to have been a summer full of loss. There are 5 families close to me – including my own, actually – who have lost loved ones since that’s the beginning of the summer, and whether that’s a coincidence or more a symptom of growing older, I’m not sure. But one of the outworkings…
One Generation to Another
I’ve been meditating on Psalm 145 for several weeks, and particularly verse 4 comes to mind often: “One generation shall commend Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.” This is one aspect of our small group Bible study that I greatly cherish – the cross-generational demographic of each group. There, one generation…
He Who Promised
Recently we had the pleasure of traveling to an astronomy park for a summer meteor shower. The weather forecast was rather unpromising, but as we had already made the reservations and taken the time off work, we went for it anyway. It was a rather cloudy night, with rain both earlier in the day and…
Imitators of God
Ephesians 5:1 – “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” We see it all around us: From the young boy who loves to wear “Daddy shirts” to church to the small girls playing dress-up with Mom’s heels from the closet, small children imitate their parents. It’s one way in which they learn about their…
The Worst Story in the Bible
Thanks in part to Jen Wilkin, for giving me the courage to write this. Well, with an opener like that, who really wants to keep reading? Actually, there are more contenders for this infamous title than one might expect – apparently humanity is sinful and makes terrible decisions (hello, Judges) – and I consider this…
Weapons of Warfare
2 Corinthians 10:3-6: “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive…
Great Spoil
Psalm 119:162: I rejoice at Your Word like one who finds great spoil. At the end of the summer a year or two ago, it was time to harvest our garden, and surprisingly enough, my darling little children (who were 5 and 3 at that point, I believe) weren’t all that interested in helping me…
In Due Season
One of our hobbies (or mine, anyway; Z indulges me by constructing whatever I need and putting it in place, but the daily labor is mostly mine) is growing as much of our own food as possible on our little plot of land. We have more property than a typical house “in town”, but far…