In Matthew 11 Jesus spontaneously breaks into a prayer of thanksgiving. What is he so thankful for? “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.” (Matt 11:25) Does this bother you? Is he saying only fools and the unintelligent will buy what he’s preaching? If we consult multiple translations and dig into the Greek words (with the help of lexicons), we find that there’s broad agreement that “wise” is in fact what Jesus meant. The second characteristic is variously rendered prudent, intell ..read more

I’ve reached a point in life where it’s clear that time is running out. Oh, nothing imminent, but there are inescapable indications in body and in mind. Of course, time is running out for all of us, and we’ve all known it since we came to understand what death is, and absorbed the truth that we are not exempt. When we’re young and relatively healthy, it’s mostly theoretical to us. Until a death strikes close to us, or we become seriously unwell. For a time it becomes much more real to us, that we only have so much time. And the kicker is, we don’t know how much. Not everyone survives to the p ..read more

Outside my window, the trees and bushes are thrashing around. Looks like they’re being violently shaken by an unseen hand. It’s the wind, of course. It reminds me of what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3, but we’ll leave that for another day. Today it’s just striking me how much power there is in the wind. Nothing new in that of course. We’ve been using this power since ancient times to grind grain, pump water, propel ships and more. Lately we use it to generate electricity. On the other hand, even if it hasn’t ever impacted us personally, we’re aware that the wind can be devastatingly destr ..read more

How often do you ever encounter the word “gnashing” in ordinary conversation? Hardly ever. It’s a word we associate almost exclusively with the parables of Jesus. About a third of Jesus’s parables are about judgment: reward given to the faithful and condemnation of the unfaithful. The reward is glorious. The condemnation is horrific. We don’t always absorb the shocking nature of the language used by Jesus to depict what will happen—what Jesus himself will do—to the unfaithful. In various parables, the king / judge / ruler orders them to be executed in his presence (Luke 19:27), to be cut in p ..read more

An autodidact is someone who is self-taught, rather than being taught by a teacher. To some extent, any household cook or handyman is self-taught, and we recognize the existence of the “school of hard knocks,” people learning by experience. But generally none of these are entirely self-taught. They watch others (sometimes starting in childhood), they get tips and advice along the way. There are autodidacts in many fields, some of them quite complex and difficult—but even these usually rely on books and other resources. They don’t have a teacher per se, but indirectly they are still learning f ..read more

There’s a lot of power in these three little words: “I don’t know.” Far from conveying weakness, they are the foundation of investigation and discovery. If, that is, we follow up on the honest admission, and actually do some investigation. When we’re talking with someone about the Bible, we shouldn’t ever be ashamed to say, “I don’t know,” in answer to a question. (And our next words should be, “Let’s see if we can find out.” Or, “I’ll try to find an answer.”) What we should be ashamed to do is to speculate or make something up, unless we make it very clear that’s what we’re doing. Of course ..read more

You’ve almost certainly heard talks, and read articles (maybe books), and thought about, and discussed the “fruit of the Spirit” that Paul talks about in Galatians 5: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (verses 22-23) If by chance you’re not that familiar with the passage, you have a treat in store. Every believer needs to explore these nine character traits—preferably with a concordance, exploring each of them in depth. Those who do find it’s a treasure chest. One of the fir ..read more

You’ve probably heard W.C. Fields’s famous quip: “A man’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.” Meant to be funny, but perhaps actually a sad comment on just how shallow faith can be. How deep, how strong is your faith? There’s no simple answer, is there? Our faith has ups and downs, stronger times and weaker times. Just posing the question to ourselves can bring on guilty feelings that our faith isn’t what it should be. But failing to pose the question isn’t helpful either. However, “how deep” and “how strong” are quantity questions—not the first questions to be ad ..read more

Led by the reading plan I’m using this year, I’ve just finished reading Judges. It’s a book that presents a number of challenges. It can help a little bit if we understand the structure. The first 16 chapters relate the history of this period. Then chapters 17-21 present two example incidents, both of which occurred early in the Judges period. The account of Micah, the Levite and the Danites illustrates a fall into idolatry masked by a veneer of honoring the God of Israel. (We know it’s early because it turns out the Levite is Moses’s grandson—18:30.) The account of the Levite and his concubi ..read more

Many of the people we encounter in the Bible, called by God to serve in some way, responded positively, even eagerly. Noah and Abram both obeyed without complaint when the Lord’s command turned their lives completely upside down. Hannah eagerly gave her son to the Lord’s service. David volunteered wholeheartedly to face Goliath. Nehemiah volunteered to rebuild Jerusalem. Isaiah said, “I’m here, send me!” Mary said, “I’m the Lord’s servant. Let it be for me as you say.” But there were others who weren’t so eager, were in fact reluctant to answer the call. Moses pleaded he was inarticulate. Gid ..read more