Today marks our fifth Sunday in the book of Judges and we are still not having fun! A couple of weeks ago someone in my Sunday School class asked, “When do we get to the positive part?”
How did this “Obadiah” make it into the canon of Scripture? Twenty-three verses of anger shouted at the Edomites hardly seem edifying to a person desiring to grow in faith. Perhaps the text pushes us to face the tragedies and hard questions of life.
Because the Bible is about life, people and God, it includes tragedy and joy, failure and hope, and the powerful reminder that neither fate nor circumstance is the master of creation. Hence we have a story like Jephthah’s to remind us not to reshape God
When reading scripture, two things always surprise me: first, that God keeps offering us grace when we mess up and, second, that God’s way is beyond our expectations.
The book of Judges (c. 1200-1020 BC) has been referred to as Israel's “dark ages” because it is marked by idolatry, immorality, cruelty and war. The judges are fascinating individuals who rose up out of chaotic times, led the people spiritually as well as on
A common human wish is that if only we could see Jesus with our own eyes, touch him, and audibly hear him speak our name, then faith would be so much easier. You might want to converse with the apostles about that.
Jericho, Province of Palestine – Our community was rocked today by the news that one of our leading citizens has publicly announced his religious transformation after an encounter with the unorthodox Galilean rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth.
Have you noticed that most of Jesus’ conversations were with people on the fringes of society, people regarded as having little value or even as cursed by God?
