The annual Jewish holiday of the Feast of Tabernacles (sukkot) is coming quickly! (Sept 23–30). This is one of the annual festivals that makes me wish I was Jewish. It’s a time filled with activities, parties, and lots of delicious meals. It is...
Four weeks ago my wife gave birth to our fourth child. This time around was different. This time we decided to deliver here in Haiti. By God’s grace, everything went extremely well and mom and baby are doing great. One of the downsides to having...
In this post I wrote about the phrase, “incline your ear” as an idiom meaning “please pay attention!” I said that this frequent expression in the Psalms reminds us that it’s okay to feel desperate in the Christian life and that God expects us to...
The phrase “incline your ear” appears in the Bible approximately seventy-six times. As is relatively evident, it generally means “pay attention!” It appears a lot in the book of Psalms when the psalmist asks God to incline His ear to the psalmist’s...
One of the most famous passages of the Old Testament is Exodus 3:13–14. It says this: “But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” what...
Last week I wrote about Elkanah and his family situation as described in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel (chapters 1–2). We looked specifically at the fact that Hannah, one of Elkanah’s wives, had both internal (she could not bear children) and...
The opening story in the Old Testament book of Samuel features two female characters: (1) Hannah, and (2) Peninah. Hannah and Peninah are the wives of Elkanah. The storyteller explains why Elkanah has two wives. He has two wives because Hannah, his...
Most of the time, people read the Psalms as independent poems that have been gathered together (rather haphazardly) through history to make up a collection, or anthology of poems, prayers and praise hymns. People tend to read it almost like a...
One of the fundamental teachings of Christianity is that Jesus is our model for life. One of the better-known Bible verses that talks about this is Philippians 2:3–5ff which says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking...
Easter and the resurrection of Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom of God is both now, and not yet. How does this work? The resurrection of Jesus ushered in a new era in the larger scope of human history. Jews during Jesus’s time believed that human...