God is good! We often say this when there is a happy ending to a life event. There’s a song that we sing that proclaims it. Our heart believes it when things are going well. However, what happens when we don’t get that happy ending, when life is sad and difficult and painful? Will our heart continue believing it when we don’t understand why He allowed something bad to happen or why He didn’t turn events around to spare us or our loved one from suffering? What do we do when God doesn’t seem good? Do I Trust God? It’s a common struggle and a prevalent reason many will turn their back on God and ..read more

I’m pretty sure it’s a statistical fact that at least one football game per week has to have some guy in the stands holding a sign that says John 3:16. And it’s not just football games, it appears at baseball games, other sporting events, or pretty much any time humans are gathered in one spot. It’s almost become cliche at this point, all part of a mass world-wide Christian scheme to evangelize to unsuspecting football fans, in hopes they’ll read the verse, see God’s love, and convert! They’ll never expect it! To my knowledge, it hasn’t really been super-effective in reaching the masses, but I ..read more

Jesus called them one by one — the apostles, that is. These 12 men would become his friends, his confidants, the men who would spend three years with Him trying to absorb all they could about the gospel. One of the more “well known” apostles is Peter. The Bible records several details about him-  he was a fisherman (Matt 4:18), he was married (Matt 8:14), just to name a few. Peter spent a lot of time with Jesus. Peter also sinned against Jesus. If I am being honest, when I was younger, reading about Peter got a big eye roll from me. It seemed like no matter how much time he spent with Jes ..read more

As we bring these studies to a close, the situation at present can be summarized as “Better Information – Better Access – Better Reasons to Believe.” We Have Better Information We live in a post-Christian era in which anything “Biblical” is attacked or dismissed without a fair hearing by many people. This is ironic because we have better information than we have ever had. In recent decades more Biblical manuscripts have been discovered, and stunning archaeological discoveries have provided a better framework for understanding the sacred text. Not only so, but an explosion of information is ava ..read more

After the death of William Tyndale, publication of the Bible in English began to escalate rather quickly. David Daniell estimates that from 1525 to 1640, printed English Bibles numbered over two million – and this for a population in England of only about six million. The popular demand was enormous! However, as the English translation of Holy Scripture gained legal and societal acceptance, there was a downside. The powers that be hijacked the enterprise to their own ends. As Bibles in the English language gained mainstream status, the whole process of how the Bible was packaged reflected the ..read more

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been confused by the Temptations of Jesus in Matthew 4.  Not the fact that Jesus was tempted. I got that.  But the temptations themselves were always a little curious to me. After all, how is it fair that God Himself could be tempted by things that seemed so…minor? He’s the Creator of the Universe; why would turning stones into bread be a “temptation”? One thing I know about these temptations though is that they’re designed to show the relatability of Jesus. He never asked us to do anything He Himself didn’t do, so going through a deliberate ..read more

The medieval period was truly the “Dark Ages” of Biblical literacy for the masses, in spite of Europe being a so-called “Christian” society. The Bible was copied, studied, and hidden in various monasteries, but the common people received a “filtered” version. David Daniell summarizes the situation: “For the medieval Church, the Bible certainly had authority, but it was alongside the greater authority of the practices and traditions which had grown over the centuries [in Roman Catholicism]… In the teaching and preaching of the Church, the Bible, in Latin, was a sacred text from which verses, or ..read more

On April 4, 1519 in Coventry, England, six people were burned at the stake for teaching their children the “Lord’s prayer” and the Ten Commandments in English. Several events, however, would spiral out of control, and within a generation the masses would have legal access to the Bible in their own language. The Gutenberg Press In some ways, an important event in the preceding century had already paved the way. With Johannes Gutenberg and the “printing press” revolution of the 15th century, hand-written manuscripts gave way to mass-produced printed books. In 1455, about 180 copies of Gutenberg ..read more

I have two older brothers. Even though our relationship has not always been a shining example of love and consideration, there are a few things I knew they would never do: dump acid over my head, turn me into a werewolf, and sell me into slavery, among others. Notwithstanding the fact that a portly 15-year-old would probably not fetch much on the open market, there is still a whole host of legal (and ethical) problems that stand in the way. Joseph’s brothers didn’t have that issue. Hated for his apparent arrogance and jealous of his father’s affection for Joseph (Genesis 37:2), the other eleve ..read more

Have you ever done something you were ashamed of? That’s probably the stupidest question ever. A better one might be, “When was the last time you did something you were ashamed of?” All of us can think back to at least a dozen instances where we could-have, should-have, would-have done something different, especially now that we’re looking at in hindsight. And yet, we can’t, can we? As much as some of us would love to take back some very terrible sins in our past – some of which may have caused near-irreparable harm – the unfortunate thing is that we can’t. It’s a lonely thought, and yet one t ..read more