We get the story of David and Goliath wrong.
For one thing, it’s not the story of the underdog beating the powerful against impossible odds. For another thing, it’s not David defeating his enemy. In fact, Goliath wasn’t David’s enemy. David only cared about him because he was the enemy of Israel, God’s people. For another, David didn’t defeat Goliath. God defeated Goliath, and David was his tool.
… Read the rest
I picked up a tract one time that had Mark 6:31 on the cover: “Come away with me to a lonely place and rest a while.” It held great promise at a time when I was experiencing great turmoil. I couldn’t wait to get home to see the verse in context. Then I would find out about real peace.
Imagine my disappointment when I read that 5,000 families invaded what Jesus intended to be a quiet place. All four gospels tell the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Three of them follow it with the disciples struggling in a storm at sea.… Read the rest
In Psalm 27, David begins with a stirring declaration of faith and then plunges into near despair before emerging with another, calmer declaration of faith.
The change is so abrupt that many commentators have suggested that somehow two separate psalms got jammed together. Unless some unknown editor was thoroughly incompetent, that doesn’t explain the structure of the psalm as we have it.
The suggestion comes, perhaps, because no modern poet would structure these thoughts the way David did. Perhaps no European poet even back in antiquity would structure these thoughts that way. So one lesson of Psalm 27—repeated by many other Old Testament passages—is that the ancient Hebrews didn’t think the way we do.… Read the rest
Jezebel is the name of an ancient queen of Israel. She is notoriously one of the most evil women in the Bible.
Jesus criticized the church at Thyatira in Revelation 2:18-29 for tolerating “that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess.” Her parents never named her Jezebel. Jesus invoked the name of the ancient queen to show what spirit animated her teaching.
We don’t normally think of Jesus as intolerant. It is clear, however, that whatever he didn’t tolerate two thousand years ago, he still doesn’t tolerate. “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 NKJV).
Unfortunately, the spirit of Jezebel has reared her ugly head in America in recent decades.… Read the rest
I just came across a quotation about waiting on God from 19th-century American missionary Adoniram Judson:
I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came; at some time–no matter how distant the day–somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came.
I have come to realize that if that’s not my experience, it is either because I have prayed without real faith, or I haven’t waited with real faith. As a consequence, when the answer has come, I haven’t recognized it as such.
God does not necessarily answer prayer in the way we expect when we pray.… Read the rest
Heaven is God’s throne, and the earth is his footstool (Isaiah 66:1). By grace, we have not only been raised with Christ, but seated in the heavens (Ephesians 2:6). Scripture commands us to seek what is in the heavens with Christ (Colossians 3:1). So isn’t the earth properly our footstool, too?
When I was growing up, we had some easy chairs in the living room with matching footstools. Those footstools were fairly substantial pieces of furniture. We could sit on them.
But now, most of my chairs are recliners. I pull on a lever, and the footstool rises from the front of the chair.… Read the rest
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.
… Read the rest
Have you ever noticed that some people just like to complain? They don’t even need a legitimate reason. Alas, you can easily find them in churches.
But here’s a better question. What is the effect when griping goes into overdrive? It would try the patience of a saint. Or in the case of an Old Testament illustration, Moses. Nobody comes out looking good in the sorry story told in Numbers 11.
We often refer to the people Moses led out of Egypt as the children of Israel. They never acted like grownups, did they? But according to Exodus 12:37-38, 600,000 Israelite men left Egypt, plus the women and children—plus a large number of other people.… Read the rest
Jeremiah 29:11 ranks high on the list of favorite Old Testament scriptures. As much as we love it, do we really understand how much it promises? “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)
“Prosper” translates the Hebrew word shalom, a word (a noun, by the way) so rich it has no good English equivalent. It usually appears in English translations as “peace.” In fact, many English translations of Jeremiah 29:11 say, “plans for peace” or something similar.
… Read the rest
Christians readily agree with the statement that God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-sufficient. But when trouble turns up, how many of us really know how to respond as if we believe it?
We turn to idols instead.
Our idols aren’t quite the same as those of the ancients, but they work the same way. We trust our own resources more than we trust God. Certainly God expects us to use our own resources much of the time, but we must not trust them. We must trust God. Otherwise, whatever we trust instead becomes, functionally, an idol, the god we truly worship.… Read the rest