Category Archives: Exposition

Where does Job’s hope lie, and where does our own? Pause for a moment to reflect back on one of your darkest times. Perhaps you tossed and turned for sleepless nights, futilely attempting to unravel the tangled web created by bad decisions. Perhaps you agonized over a bitter and angry child. Perhaps physical pain incessantlyContinue reading “Job Could Take It No Longer”

He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. Mark 16:9 Mary of Magdala was the victim of a fearful evil. She was possessed not just by one demon, but by seven. These dreadful inmates caused much pain and pollution to the poor frame in which they had found aContinue reading “Mary of Magdala”

Here’s a question: Can anything good come out of the mouths of Job’s friends? I don’t know about you, but I occasionally find myself thinking (dismissively), “Yes, but one of Job’s friends said that.” The subtext is that we can safely skim over what they said and then move on. The three friends, however, hadContinue reading “Stop Speaking for God”

I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail. Haggai 2:17 How destructive is the hail to the standing crops, beating out the precious grain upon the ground! How grateful we should be when the corn is spared so terrible a ruin! Let us offer toContinue reading “Hail Upon Your Toil”

Soon after my parents divorced, Dad remarried. Then, he moved out of the city to forty-two acres of flat, cactus-dotted pastureland in Central Florida to pursue his dream of becoming a cattleman-rancher. I loved helping Dad take care of our small herd, especially a solid black calf we named “Inky,” whose mama died while givingContinue reading “Stupid Cow”

There is almost nothing worse for a country than a power vacuum. With the death of Saul and Jonathan, the nation of Israel was thrown into turmoil. Who would be their next leader? While David knew he had been anointed by the Lord (1 Sam. 16:13), he had been on the run from Saul forContinue reading “Power Vacuum”

There are several passages in the Bible that indicate that God forgivesand forgets our sin. Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Hebrews 10 explains how Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for sin was a once-and-for-all sacrifice. Unlike theContinue reading “Forgetting Our Sins”

I’ve always been afraid of the book of Job. I’m afraid of Job’s story, the way I’m afraid of Abraham’s, and Mary’s, and the disciples’. I’m afraid the cost of following Jesus will be too much for me—unlike Abraham, who obeyed God and prepared his son for sacrifice; and Mary, who was willing to faceContinue reading “I Reject My Words”

“As you come to Him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion,Continue reading “You Are a Living Stone”