On Monday I was one of millions to journey into the path of the total eclipse that passed over the width of the United States. I was in absolute awe watching the total eclipse. The corona glistened in splendor, a few planets winked into the sky, the entire horizon looked like a sunset in every direction. If you’ve never experienced a total eclipse, I highly recommend experiencing one. How does the eclipse relate to the world of the Bible? I could easily refer to several passages of gloom and doom about the sun going dark, but there’s a more definitive […]
Category Archives: Other
Crumbs
The Lord’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. On the fifteenth day of that month the Lord’s Festival of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Leviticus 23:5-6 Passover is upon us. It’s an annual reminder of God’s salvation. God saved the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt. When Jesus came, he used that as an image of what he was doing spiritually, saving people from their sins. The most prominent command surrounding the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread is the removal of yeast/leavening from one’s […]
A Great Miracle Happened There
Today was Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah (how often does they coincide like this?). What is this day about? Christians around the world commemorate the arrival of Jesus born in lowly conditions in Bethlehem. God come to earth. God had not abandoned the earth to its sins but was personally intervening to deal to it. Jesus’ Hebrew name, Yeshua, means ‘salvation’. Going back to about 165 BC, we find the origins of Hanukkah. The land of Israel was under the rule of the Greeks. Under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Torah was outlawed. The Temple was […]
Vote for Saul!
So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” 1 Samuel 8:4-5 After the Israelites came out of Egypt, they conquered the land of Canaan and settled it. Then the era of the judges began. The people would be prosperous and turn from God, which would lead to ruin (invading armies). As a result, they turned back to God. God sent a judge to rescue them. […]
Overturned
Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Jonah 3:4 Today was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is the holiest day of the Biblical calendar where atonement was made for the nation of Israel (see Leviticus 16). One of the traditional readings on this day is the book of Jonah because of its connection to repentance and mercy. God threatened to destroy the city of Nineveh and sent the prophet Jonah to announce its demise. After a detour at sea involving a storm and a great fish, […]
Wrong Season
The last week we’ve had several inches of snow. It’s April and people here are ready for spring. It’s one thing to have snow in January when it’s expected. It’s another thing to have snow when the flowers are starting to bloom. Granted, here in Michigan snow in early April happens more years than not, but rarely in these quantities. Something similar took place in the Bible. The people of Israel asked the prophet Samuel for a king. After he appointed Saul as their king, Samuel gave a farewell speech. In it he warned the people to not turn away […]
To What Can it be Compared?
I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old Psalm 78:2 The sages in Jesus’ day used two basic teaching methods: aggadah and halachah. Aggadah involves using stories and parables to convey a message. Halachah is a more direct approach, diving directly into the legal details. Both methods are important. Parables make complex ideas easier to understand but can lose some of the details. Halachah can communicate the raw, technical details, but it can lose anyone who doesn’t have enough knowledge. Jesus used both approaches, depending on his audience. He was in […]
Walk
Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11 I got a fitness tracker last month. These little gadgets seem to be all the craze right now. I see I’ve walked over 7000 steps today. By showing me how much I’ve walked, it encourages me to get in my required steps each day, hopefully leading to a healthier lifestyle. How I walk has impacts on the much of my life, not just while I’m walking. The Bible uses the word ‘walk’ […]
Master and Apprentice
Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve–designating them apostles–that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Mark 3:13-19 […]
Light
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:5-7 As we lit the Advent candles at church this morning, I thought of the lighting of the Hanukkah candles now, […]