Biblical numerology is the study of how numbers in Scripture sometimes carry meaning or significance beyond their numerical value. It can be a slippery endeavor. Sometimes it’s clear that a number carries underlying significance, and one is able with relative ease to determine what that is. Think, seven. Other times, however, a number’s significance is…
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives…
In Joshua 9, we’re introduced to an interesting group of individuals, the Gibeonites. Having heard of the great successes of Israel (verse 3), they put together a scheme designed to save their lives. Verses 4-5 detail the great lengths they took to make it look as though they came from a far country: …they worked…
Please read about the withered fig tree in Mark 11:12-14, 20-25 and consider: Fig trees in Palestine may live as long as four hundred years. A well-cultivated tree should produce fruit for ten months of the year in those locales. However, because of the difficulties of translation, some have extrapolated a point from this text…
The book of Joshua ends with the death of Eleazar, son of Aaron. Phinehas, his son, succeeded him as high priest. Phinehas is best known for decisively ending God’s punishment of Israel for their unfaithfulness with the Moabites. God praised Phinehas: Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger…
Teaching in higher education for ten years taught me that you cannot assume people will do what’s obviously right, and they will not admit to understanding what is obviously wrong. When people are left without marked boundaries to exercise their own free will, they will defy their own conscience, ignore any sense of right and…
One of the things that makes the Bible so real to us is the relatability of the stories it gives us. On some level, each of us will no doubt have very similar issues as those that we read about in these stories. What got me started down this path was considering the story of…
What is the most precious thing you “own”? I put the word “own” in quotes because this is something you have total control over. It must be something you have earned. It must be something that is only yours. It must be your most precious possession. There are very few things in this world that…
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Many of us have had the blessing of witnessing a beautiful transformation over the past several weeks. As summer melts into fall, God’s creation has responded. Hot, humid days have succumbed to cool, crisp nights. Lush, green foliage has given way to brilliant,…
As Joseph did, we can live our lives to His glory, learning, following, applying the examples of the faithful, and especially the example our Lord has given for us to follow! “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”(Romans 8:31-32). So, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, with His help, let us dig down deep, firmly root ourselves in the Lord, growing and developing and blooming where we are!