Bible at Home

The Heart of God God spoke to Abraham. He spoke to Jacob, to Moses, among others, and to a young boy named Samuel, who had to be introduced before he could know that it was God who was calling him: Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go…

The story of Esther in the Bible is a story of perplexities unscrambled as an unexpected savior emerged. Nothing about the orphan girl Esther suggested that she would save her people from annihilation in a pagan country to which they had been exiled. While it’s true that she was exceptionally pretty, there were many beautiful…

The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now something greater than Jonah is here. Luke 11:32) More than once in the Bible Jesus calls upon the story of Jonah to explain his own relationship to God’s people.…

Nancy, my older sister, had bright red hair. She taught second grade for several years and loved being in the classroom. One October day her principal brought a red headed boy to her class and handed Nancy his folder. He had been transferred from another class in the same school. In fact, he had been…

We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also. (2 Corinthians 6:11-13) These are the words of St. Paul , who founded…

The cardinals that built a nest in the shrub outside my front door have flown away. I was fascinated with them for the duration of their stay. They persevered when we had the shrubs pruned and even after I discovered the nest and wanted to visit it every hour, but limited myself to twice a…

The Prodigal For five months the millionaire Harvey Cheyne Sr. and his wife Constance believed that their only son, Harvey Jr., who had been swept off the deck of a trans Atlantic ship on a trip to Europe, had perished in the ocean. They were still immersed in grief when the telegram in Harvey’s office…

Lydia (not her real name), the five year old girl we were fostering, had been taught by her mother that she must never tell the truth about her own activities: where she had been or what she had been doing. This remarkable piece of advice Lydia communicated to me after I had noticed that she,…

You Need Me Waiting in my car in a line at the school to pickup the little girl whom we were fostering, I started to pray. I prayed, “Lord, you know that I have no skills to deal with a young girl who has come from such a traumatic life. I know nothing about therapies,…

The Stories G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “I had always felt life as a story; and if there is a story, there is a story teller.” ( Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p.59). Often, Christians are taught Bible stories at a very young age, and as they grow older, they seem to outgrow them. Those who return to them,…