I was reading this week about how God’s covenant with the people of Israel was centered on the promise of His presence. Old Testament scholar, John Walton writes, “God’s purpose in making the covenant was to initiate a relationship that would eventually lead to the reestablishment of his presence on earth after humanity had lost access to his presence in Genesis 3” (Wisdom for Faithful Reading: Principles and Practices for Old Testament Interpretation). On the other side of the...
I recently started teaching Sunday School again and the lesson last month was on the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. After all I’ve been learning about faithful Bible reading, I knew better than to assume that I understood why the Biblical authors and compilers included that story! I found helpful information in this book by Old Testament scholar, John Walton: “The Bible Story Handbook: A Resource for Teaching 175 Stories from the Bible” (I got the Kindle version...
Purely for pleasure, I have been reading through Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache murder mystery series. I just finished The Beautiful Mystery (#8 in the series). I love the way the characters in the books develop over the series. The focus of her books is not so much on the murder as the motivations and emotions of the characters involved. The Beautiful Mystery is set in an aging monastery hidden deep in the Québec woods, where a group of monks...
Artwork: Christ and His Disciple on the Road to Emmaus by Henry Ossawa Tanner (in the public domain) If you’re following me here, you’ll know I’m expanding my series on “Jesus Speaks to Women” to a Bible study (or maybe a few Bible studies). I’m in the process of researching for the studies now, so I’ll be sharing some of the questions I’m exploring with you here on the blog. In my last post, I laid out the Scriptures...
Are you ready to be a Bible super-sleuth? How do we reconcile the four accounts by the four different Gospel writers, of the anointing of Jesus by a woman who is only named in one account? Was Mary of Bethany (the sister of Martha and Lazarus) also called Mary Magdalene? Why was she called Mary in some accounts and Mary Magdalene in others? Let's look for clues in the text!
