How did Jesus ever come to be in what we now call Lebanon?  We know about his excursion there because of his encounter with a woman, called Syrophoenician by Mark, Canaanite by Matthew.  Why was he there? 

It’s become a cliché to say that something is “a marathon not a sprint”.  There are certainly times in life when a brief very intense effort is called for.  Yet most of life shows the cliché is the reality—most things in life require long-term, sustained effort.

Thirty years, and he still surprises her!  Meal follows meal, day follows day, year follows year…and things you shouldn’t forget just seem to fade into the background.  You shouldn’t be surprised, but you are.

I can’t remember the last time I heard a speaker or teacher direct my attention to the prophet Habakkuk.  Rereading his short, three chapter book, I’m wondering why.  There’s a lot there to build up believers, as the New Testament writers clearly understood. 

Unanimity is an exceedingly rare commodity.  Agreement across cultures, languages, religions, political leanings…well, you know how often that happens.  But here we are, looking at a unanimous opinion of the year that’s ending:  “Good riddance!” 

Toward the end, God is going to really shake things up. 

If you are following just about any Bible reading plan (I hope you are!) then here at the end of the year you are almost certainly reading Revelation.  This book puts many people off.  It is filled, as we all know, with a lot of symbolic imagery.  Figuring out the symbols is a life-long endeavor for some, and differing conclusions are reached.  Resulting in arguments, of course—all the students being human beings.  It’s this outcome that puts many off.

In the earliest days, when Bible manuscripts (or individual Bible books or letters) were copied for circulation, the copyists took every possible precaution to avoid errors. They knew that an error, once left in a manuscript, would be copied and recopied time after time, thus multiplying the first mistake.

In Psalm 122, David expresses his love for the City of Jerusalem. His words are familiar to us and used in a long-popular anthem which Christadelphians have sung for generations. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.” (vv. 6-7). It focuses our minds on the future of this marvelous city when our Lord makes it the worldwide capital of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Lots of people are reading and quoting from Luke 1 this week: the visit Gabriel paid to Mary.  Most would say this is the beginning of Christianity, though a few might have at least a partial realization that foundations were laid much earlier.

We aren’t told what the topic was, but it seems clear that Jesus was being grilled. There were hard questions being put and the answers were scrutinized.

Tonight we attended a Bible study (remotely), part of which was spent on James chapter 3.  There wasn’t a lot of time left by the time we got to James’s discussion of the “wisdom from above” in verses 13-18.  But as it generally does, this passage got me thinking.  If we take the passage apart, there’s just so much to think about, in relation to our own walk.