That “Ugh” Feeling when Reading Scripture
Don’t pretend you don’t have it. When reading Scripture there are people, events, and laws that make us gasp and, think, “really, how? Why?” and they cause repulsion. If they…
Category: Knowing Scripture
Love and Social Media
1 Corinthians And Its Original Audience We all know 1 Corinthians 13 for its elaborations on love. But I want to remind us of a few elements that tend to…
Wickedness and Righteousness
Reading through 1 Samuel again, this time from the Christian Standard Bible, I paused to reflect when I came across this statement from David to Saul: “As the old proverb…
Does Romans Call for the Death of Homosexuals?
Bad interpretations can have devastating consequences. This is especially seen in the recent debates regarding the LGBT movement and the push to get those who oppose the practices to bow…
Under Grace
“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). By this point in Romans, Paul had been laying out his…
Mercy Not Sacrifice
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees…
Jesus and Isaac: God is For Us
The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac (Genesis 22), the son of the promise, has long been seen as a prefiguring of God sacrificing Jesus, His unique Son. There are similarities…
The Intent of the Law
“Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise…
Made To Be Sin
Sometimes I am struck with the beauty of a passage while, at the same time, humbled by the fact that its fullness and depth is out of my reach. The…
The Grand Picture of God’s People
Think of the completed picture. Think of the temple (tabernacle) and its articles. Think of the priests and the various functions they performed around the temple, including the sacrifices they…