God is in the business of separating Christians from the world. Normally we focus our thinking on God’s unifying work. The Apostle Paul has quite a bit to say about the unity of believers in the sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection of...
One of Jesus’ famous last words on the cross were “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). What did Jesus mean by this? I’ve heard a couple of different explanations to these words of Jesus. Most...
As a Bible teacher, I hear the phrase “the plain meaning of the text” all the time. It’s used in the context of, “the right interpretation (i.e., “way to read”) of the text is the plain meaning of the text.”...
(This is from my wife’s blog (mshaiti.blogspot.com). I thought I would share for TIS readers.) I’ve got goosebumps. This is good. On Wednesday during the Academic Convocation, I was walking around the front of the chapel, trying to get...
In the opening chapters of 1 Samuel we find the story of a struggling family. Don’t you love, by the way, that the heroes in the Bible are the ones who struggle, the ones whose lives are messy? He came for the sick. What’s particularly noteworthy...
Psalm 1 answers a very simple question, “How can one be happy?” (the Hebrew word translated “blessed” in most English translations in Psalm 1:1 is “asher” which means “happy”). The first thing the psalmist does in answering that question is talk...
Outside of Jesus we are all completely and utterly bankrupt, and it is not until we come to the place of embracing this that we can fully receive him. The Bible affirms this point of theology. The book of Joel starts out by talking about locusts...
Another great one from Oswald Chambers. And Abraham built an altar … and bound Isaac his son. Genesis 22:9. This incident is a picture of the blunder we make in thinking that the final thing God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants...
One of the reasons Isaiah is known as the “Prince of the Prophets” is because he foretold the coming of the Messiah more than any other prophet. His prophecies are even at the heart of the Christmas story in the Gospel according to Matthew. This...
For Christians, Christmas is all about the story of Jesus’ birth. It is the story of the birth of the most significance person in human history; the story of the birth of the King of the universe, the very Son of God, Creator of heaven and...