What Will Make Me Happy?

Everybody wants to be happy. The question is, “What will make a person happy?” The book of Ecclesiastes is remarkable because it provides a detailed account of a wealthy, powerful man pursuing various supposed means of becoming happy, or contented. Solomon tries every main category of secular pursuit. That is, he looks for happiness “under […]

Replacing God’s Words with Emoji?

At the end of May, a new Bible was published. It is called Bible Emoji: scripture 4 millenials. (The misspelling of “millennials” is intentional by the editor.) This “translation” replaces as many biblical words as possible with Internet abbreviations, Internet slang, and Internet cartoon images such as smiley faces, praying hands, and peek-a-boo eyes. Liam […]

Lot’s Choice

We are familiar with Lot’s decision to move to the valley of Sodom. After Lot’s uncle Abram gave him the choice of the land, we read: And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the […]

Revolt in Israel

Numbers 16 and 17 are fascinating chapters. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, along with 250 chiefs of Israel, accused Moses and Aaron of taking the leadership of Israel by presumption: “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you […]

Five Great Lessons from the Book of Ezra

The late gospel preacher Frank Dunn, in his book Know Your Bible, noticed five great lessons from the book of Ezra, each of which is relevant to the present-day Christian. ((Temple: Frank and Yvonne Dunn (1997), 163-165.)) I have adapted these five lessons here: There are disastrous results from failing to study God’s word. The people’s ignorance […]

Killer Priests

Hosea is known as the “deathbed prophet,” or the “weeping prophet of the North,” because he prophesied during Israel’s last days prior to Assyrian captivity. Hosea decries many heinous sins of the part of the Israelites, including widespread idol worship and fraudulence. These sins, breaking the covenant yet again, were already resulting in the people […]

God’s Compassion in the Old Testament

Some prominent figures in the history of philosophy, such as Hegel and Spinoza, have said roughly either that God is nature or that nature is part of God. ((Pauline Phemister, The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), 80-81; Raymond Keith Williamson, An Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (New York, SUNY Press, 1984).)).  […]

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