Old Testament

Fortune Tellers or Memory Keepers

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Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash Here’s a great question to ask the next time you play a round of Would You Rather: Would you rather know the future or remember the past? Think about that for a moment. We’ll come back to it. We just finished 1 Chronicles in our Bible reading plan. Like several other Old Testament books (and the Gospel of Matthew), it begins with what looks like the contact list on your smart phone – a bunch of names. The first one even starts with an “A” – Adam. A decade ago, I would have said it reads like … Read more…

How to Eliminate an Enemy

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Even without a read-through-the-Bible plan I spend a lot of time in the Old Testament. It’s kind of a big part of my day job. But like a lot of people, I tend to go back to the same passages – or at least the same kinds of passages – over and over. Comforting Psalms, the creation narratives, the Exodus, prophesies of Jesus, the promises of God. It’s not exactly O.T. lite, but it is O.T. soft. That’s why a reading plan is so good for us. It compels us to read or re-read the scriptures we might otherwise avoid. … Read more…

Don’t Eat That Gecko!

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This post reflects on Leviticus 16 – 27 ~~~ They say there are 600 separate laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. I don’t think that’s right because I counted something like a million in the book of Leviticus alone. At least it felt that way when I (finally) finished reading it this week. Some of the Leviticus laws are just gross: When a man has a bodily discharge, the discharge is unclean (15:2). Ya think? Some of them are odd: Don’t eat Geckos, (11:30). Some, especially for guys like me, are comforting: When a man has lost his hair … Read more…