Blog: May 2019

Only two books in the Old Testament bear the name of a woman: Ruth and Esther. Ruth’s story occurs at the time when judges ruled over Israel. God’s people were characterized by rebellion and immorality. At a time when the Israelites desperately needed a king to lead them back to God, Ruth’s story of faithfulness points us to Jesus Christ, a coming Redeemer who will make all wrong things right again. Ruth was the daughter-in-law of Naomi, a woman from Bethlehem who settled in Moab with her husband and two sons to escape a famine. Naomi’s ...

Samson was the last of the major judges of Israel. He was born to parents who dedicated him to the Lord as a Nazirite after the Angel of the Lord announced that Samson would be born to save the Israelites from the power of the Philistines. Samson grew up, and God blessed him with great strength. But when Samson requested to marry a Philistine woman, his parents were confused. Samson was supposed to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. Why would he want to marry one of them? But God had a plan in all of this. (See Judg. 14:4.) As ...

I’ve been pondering this impulse we have (or at least that I have) to save stuff.  Material things—like books, papers, souvenirs, furniture, art­work, or no-longer-current electronic gear.  You never know when something might come in handy!  Trouble is, our attic and my study overflow with boxes and bags and piles and files of stuff. Plus, it’s not just material things—it’s information too.  Within books and now in digital space as well, I’m always stockpiling content.  For example, by highlighting reading material and jotting extensive ...

Last week, your kids learned about Deborah and Barak. This week, Judges 6 starts out in a familiar way: “The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” The period of Judges was not a good time for the Israelites. Their cycle of sin, bondage, deliverance, and peace clearly showed the law alone could not save them from sin.   The Israelites were oppressed by the Midianites, and they cried out to God for help. God chose a man to save them, and his name was Gideon. Gideon was an unlikely leader, and he knew this. Gideon said, ...

God IS love (1 John 4:8). And God IS a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29).  “God is great and God is good”—both/and, not either/or.  We need to see the Lord in the fullness of his glorious character.  Half-truths about God lead to false teaching and untold spiritual damage! A prime example of this is when people say God is a God of love, but they ignore his other attributes (like holiness and justice) and imagine love in very human-centric terms.  So if a person suffers pain or loss and then concludes, “I lack comfort, so God must not love me,” ...

Andy Bannister, a Christian author and speaker with a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies, and who formerly served with Ravi Zacharias Int’l Ministries in Canada, was recently invited to address the Edinburgh University Islamic Society on the topic of mutual misunderstandings between Christianity and Islam. He first named three common Christian misunderstandings of Islam:  1) “Many Christians think that all Muslims are violent, which is not a fair or accurate understanding of Islam.”  2) “In the West, we tend to separate … religion and state; by ...