Psalm 19:1-6 1, The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2, Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3, There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4, Their line has gone out…
Now that we’ve finished studying Habakkuk together, it’s worth taking time to consider who else in the Bible similarly struggled with the difficult providence of God and ultimately came back to the same place of trust and worship. Three other OT men come to mind: Job Job was a righteous man who suddenly lost everything—a…
I hope you all got to enjoy the Sunday school presentation and/or conversation with our kingdom workers this past Sunday. I felt both encouraged and sobered by their report about what ministry in their country is like, especially when I compare my experience in America. Often missionaries or foreign brethren can give us a fresh…
One theme you might have noticed in Habakkuk over the past two Sundays is the theme of sight. Many times in the first two chapters of the book do we see terms that directly relate to looking, seeing, or beholding. In fact, these purposefully used sight terms emphasize for us what we should be doing…
One of the most poignant scenes in the Bible is Jesus’ praying to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record how Jesus requests in great agony and grief for God, if at all possible, to remove the “cup” from Jesus (Mt 26:39; Mk 14:36; Lk 22:42). The “cup” that…
I remember once trying to encourage a single young man who was struggling with contentment and sexual purity. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned something about the imminent return of Christ, and he said to me only half-jokingly: “I hope Jesus doesn’t return until after I’ve gotten married.” What the comment revealed in…
One of the spiritual errors that we American Christians can easily fall into is too much individualism. Ours is a culture that strongly promotes individual rights, personal independence, and self-fulfillment, and we can unwittingly bring these same values into Christianity. Now, the Bible does teach a richly personal aspect to our faith (e.g Ps 16;…
Imagine the scene; you hear about such in the news every so often. A man has been found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. He is not remorseful for his crime, nevertheless a close relative of the victim soon visits the murderer in prison and tells him through tears, “I forgive you.” No doubt,…
One technique I have come to appreciate in the art of storytelling is dramatic irony. Dramatic irony describes a situation in which the reader/audience understands the full significance of a character’s words or actions in a story but the character himself does not. Dramatic irony is often used to create humor. For example, in the…
When I first started marriage counseling while at seminary in California, I felt such great grief over the couples with whom I was meeting. Over the first few sessions with these couples, what I saw was professing Christian husbands and wives completely at odds with one another, acting and speaking toward each other in such…