Bible at Home

Once while teaching a Sunday School class to sixth graders I mentioned that it might be hard for us to imagine the situation of the Israelite slaves in Egypt, since we in America knew no one who owns another human being. Phillip raised his hand and said, ”Yes we do! A person can be adopted,…

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and rain salvation upon you. (Hosea 10:12) The love of God is a steadfast love that lived in eternity but emerged onto a human being the moment…

Angels cannot preach the gospel. . .Presumably they do not hear the gospel the way we do: in their purity they have escaped the effects of sin and are unable to comprehend what it means to be lost. Rather, God has commanded the church to preach. . .Only man can speak salvation’s experience to man…(“Angels”,…

The arrival of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem was preceded by the arrival centuries earlier of the baby Isaac to Sarah in her old age. These two babies embrace the history and the progress of God’s people in getting to know and to love Him. Isaac’s birth from Sarah was a public miracle witnessed and…

The interaction between God’s angels and human beings has a very long history. Jacob wrestled with an angel before he went to meet Esau, his brother. Jacob insisted on being blessed before he released the angel, and Jacob received a new name: Israel. “Please tell me your name”, Jacob said. But the angel refused. (Genesis…

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has become a holiday almost bigger than Thanksgiving itself. In one way it really is bigger, for merchants of all kinds announce that “Black Friday” will begin the week before Thanksgiving, and continue for the whole following week, while Thanksgiving lasts for one delicious meal and an afternoon at…

Ripe Harvest I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for a harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life. . . (John 4:35-36) Once I asked a class if they believed that the “fields” are still “ripe unto harvest.”…

The Christian holidays bring us busyness unlike any other in the year. It’s as if we know that we need to get on a train to a new destination in our relationship with God, and so we hurry to the station, but when we arrive, there are so many distractions, that we could even miss…

Nell, a Christian friend of mine who had many times been on mission trips, especially to disaster areas, once said to me that she knew that God had forgiven her for her past, before she had been a believer, but she knew that she had sometimes sinned against God Himself, and so she could not…