80 pounds of barley. It was a heavy engagement ring, but it would have to do on such short notice. Boaz did not know he was going to leave this party with a fiancé. It was Ruth’s mother-in-law that had first hatched the plan. Ruth would sneak down to the threshing floor after the harvest party. She was instructed to uncover Boaz’s feet, and lie there until he woke up shivering. Naomi told her to let Boaz take the lead at that point, but Ruth called an audible. “Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” It was a preposterous proposal. Ruth was a widowed foreigner. The laws o ..read more

[an excerpt from Forgive by Tim Keller] How do you know if you have a relationship that needs reconciliation? Here are seven signs, each more serious than the one before, by which this dynamic begins to work on the heart and cool your relationships. You roll your eyes and think: “You idiot. What a mess you are.” When you do this and there is no sadness or sympathy, but instead disdain or sneering, that is the beginning of a relationship going bad, the beginning of your heart getting haughty and hard. You are calling them “raca” or “fool” in your heart. You hear about the person having a pr ..read more

Little baby Perez (meaning “breakthrough”) was born to Tamar, and ended up in the genealogy of King Jesus. You’ll never guess who the father was… If anyone needed a breakthrough it was Tamar. After the deaths of her first and second husband, her father-in-law Judah had pushed her out to live as a widow — a marginalized outcast in society. Mourning the deaths of two husbands, and with no family or lineage to support her, Tamar was about as low as you can go. So she hatched a plan. She dressed up as a prostitute and slept with Judah, taking his ring, staff, and cord as payment. When it was found ..read more

By all accounts, Rahab was on the winning team. She grew up in the shadows of these tall Jericho walls. Yet she made a split second decision when the spies arrived at her door. And now she was lying to the local police. She had heard the rumors. A scrappy tribe of herdsmen bringing the Egyptian empire to its knees. There was something unstoppable about these Yahwists, and she knew that to come up against their God was to face sure defeat. “They’re gone,” she whispered to the spies. As they crawled out from the barley sheaves, she struck a deal. “I saved your life. And when your God gives you t ..read more

Two humilities are required for accepting Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. This is true because two versions of pride crop up in our hearts. The first says, “I don’t need saving,” and the second (which often masquerades as religious sincerity) says “I’m beyond saving.” How do we move past these twin dangers? With two humilities: Humility One: Acknowledging Our Need for Salvation The first humility beckons us to kneel in recognition of our innate human frailty. It requires a sincere acknowledgment that we, in our imperfection, stand in need of salvation. This humility dismantles the illusion o ..read more

Religions offer a set of beliefs and practices that help one achieve some form of transcendence and fulfillment. Whether Buddhism, The Joe Rogan Experience, or Pastafarianism, the message is essentially, “do certain things, and get a certain reward.” The problem with Christianity is that it doesn’t quite fit this framework. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. - Jeremiah 31:33 We might compare religious ef ..read more

The Israelites faced a pivotal moment at the edge of the promised land. The choice to enter seemed rational, yet anxiety crept in as they heard reports the giants across the border. “Next to them, we are like grasshoppers!” was the newspaper headline. (Numbers 13) Anxiety almost always has reason on its side. The Israelites were right — they were outmatched. But they were also wrong. Wrong in thinking that this was ever on them! Isaiah 40 reminds us: Do you not know? Have you not heard … The Lord sits above the circle of the earth. And all its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” They had a rig ..read more

Hebrews 7 serves as a profound lens through which we witness the shift from the old to the new covenant. In a recent sermon, Marshall likened this leap to the advent of the Nintendo 64 gaming system. The passage compares the Levitical priesthood of the old covenant with the eternal priesthood of Christ in the new. It's not merely a move from black and white to color, but from flatness to depth, from limitations to boundlessness. The pixelated rituals of the past find their fulfillment in the living, breathing reality of Christ's eternal priesthood. Just as the Nintendo 64 revolutionized gaming ..read more