Category Archives: Sin

From Gilgal to Bokim: a squandered opportunity to walk by faith

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Judges 2 opens with a statement that the angel of the Lord went from Gilgal to Bokim. Throughout the book of Joshua, Gilgal served as Israel’s headquarters, the location of the tent of meeting. Think of it! God had to follow his people to a place of woe because they no longer followed him.

The story of Judges represents a recurring theme of the apparent victory of sin and rebellion that made it necessary for Jesus to come and die.

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The leaven of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herod

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beware of the leaven of pharisees sadducees herodIn Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus warned the disciples of leaven. Each passage is a little different, indicating that Jesus issued the warning more than once. Each passage warns of the leaven of the Pharisees. Matthew adds the Sadducees and Mark adds Herod. What were the disciples supposed to learn from the warnings? And what do they mean to us today, when the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herod are all ancient history?

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The unforgiving servant and the king: parables of the kingdom

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Matthew’s gospel records six parables in Matthew 13 that start, “the kingdom of heaven is like. . .” Three more gospels of the kingdom appear later in Matthew. In this post, we will look at the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35), which starts, “the kingdom of heaven is like a king . . .”

The parable immediately follows Peter’s question about forgiveness. According to typical rabbinic teaching, forgiveness was unnecessary after the third offense. Peter asked if he needed to forgive seven times. In other words, Peter asked if forgiving more than twice as much as other rabbis required is good enough.… Read the rest

How ungodly men started the world system: how God redeems it

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Have you ever noticed that the Bible attributes all the building blocks of civilization to rebels against God? Ungodly men started the world system.

Cain founded the first city. His descendants invented agriculture, music, and metal work. After the flood, Nimrod invented architecture, government, war, and religion.

We like to talk about the rise of civilization, but it all began as a consequence of the fall. Surely unfallen humans would have eventually invented all the best parts of it. But given its ungodly start, civilization hasn’t needed to rise. It has needed to be redeemed. God’s redemption of civilization started with Abraham. … Read the rest

What does it mean that Jesus will winnow and burn chaff?

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John the Baptist burst on the scene with such power that people wondered if he could be the Messiah. He identified Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.

In explaining what the Messiah would do, he didn’t refer to anything Jesus did in his earthly ministry. He pointed to Jesus’ post-resurrection work and used an agricultural image to do so. The message was plain to those who heard John, but it’s obscure to us today.

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What Jesus says about sexual sin

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If people know nothing else about Christianity, they know that it doesn’t approve of sexual sin. Unfortunately, large swaths of the church have forgotten that.

Child abuse and sexually predatory behavior scandalize both church and society. Too many people who grow up in the church reach adulthood without learning biblical standards of morality. Children of ordained ministers shack up with their blessing.  High ranking denominational leaders favor homosexual marriage and ordaining homosexual clergy.

Many point out that Jesus himself said nothing on the subject of homosexuality, as if that means he had no objection to it. He said nothing explicitly about rape, incest, or child molestation, either.… Read the rest

Christianity and environmental stewardship

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In recent decades, the environment has become a contentious issue. We argue about whether the climate is changing and how much it matters. We argue about the need for environmental regulations. Are the ones we have too harsh on industry or too lenient?

In all this controversy, we tend to forget that God made the heavens and the earth. He has expressed his own thoughts on the environment throughout Scripture. We find some of them in well-known passages. Or, we would find them if we didn’t focus so much on the other issues in the same passages.

Others come in parts of the Bible we seldom read, parts devotional and teaching literature seldom quote.… Read the rest

What is the most harmful sin?

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Another blog I follow makes a good case that the most harmful sin is sexual immorality, the one sin that people commit against their own body.

No doubt it seriously threatens everything God ordained about human relationships.

But I’m leading a Bible study on Isaiah. It shows me something else even more harmful: the sin of self-sufficiency. After all, not everyone commits sexual sin, but no one is immune to the sin of self-sufficiency.

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Exchanging swords for plowshares

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God’s promise, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares,” stands on a wall near the United Nations. The UN exists because the world wanted to make it come true.

What happened?

The first four verses of Isaiah 2 leading up to that promise presents a compelling image: God’s house sits on a mountain higher than any other mountain on earth, and “all the nations stream to it.”

Imagine! A stream flowing uphill! 

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When Christians ought to judge

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Have you ever noticed that much of the American church today doesn’t like to mention sin?

Try saying aloud that something is sinful. If you’re not careful about what company you say it in, someone is bound to thunder, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

Why do they always quote it in King James? Simply because they have memorized it that way, and it becomes a handy club to beat up anyone who dares to criticize sin.

They have no clue that their use of the verse amounts to judgment of you, the one who dares to bring up the very idea of sin.… Read the rest