Category Archives: Bible

Sweeter than honey

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Psalm 119

97 Oh, how I love your law!
I meditate on it all day long.

103 How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!

105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.

I love honey! Especially smothered on a biscuit from KFC or drenched in a sopapilla! Man, there’s nothing better! But, what still confuses me about honey is how it’s made. Yeah, yeah, I know. Bees and flowers. But how on earth is sweet, gooey honey made from hundreds of bees eating nectar, storing it in their stomachs, going back to the hive, throwing up that nectar into a comb produce honey? Sound gross to anyone else? That to me is a mystery! But, I still love honey.

Another thing I absolutely love is the Bible! It is the most beautiful and confusing book of all time. I believe wholeheartedly that it is God’s Word that He inspired through individuals to be a testimony of two things: 1) Who God is, and 2) How to have relationship with Him.

The Bible is sweeter than honey to my mouth!

I say it’s confusing because there is a lot more to the Bible than we tend to think. It’s simply not as cut and dry as many people assume. In fact, it is nearly impossible to just pick up the Bible with the assumption that it will be clearly understandable.

How could this be?

Why would God not make His word clear?

Perhaps it is because God wants us to look to Him, and not only His Word. Maybe just maybe the Bible has the potential of becoming an idol if we aren’t careful to handle it properly. Maybe God doesn’t want us to have it all figured out, and so somehow not to have any need for Him in our daily lives. I for one am guilty of going straight to the Bible for answers instead of praying to the living God who promises to be dwelling inside me. I don’t know…just a thought…

The danger I see is that we can twist and skew the Bible to make it say whatever we want it to say – within reason of course. Ultimately, the Bible has caused more divisions, more church splints, and created more denominations and religions than anything else.

Wait a minute?

Did I say the Bible has done this?

Okay, maybe what I mean to say is that people’s understanding of the Bible has created these things. It’s not the actual Bible that creates any division, but rather it is what people claim the Bible actual says that is the author of such division. It is this fact that makes my heart heavy.

The reality is that we all have certain lenses in which we view the Bible. Each person who picks up the Bible and reads it, interprets it through their own worldview. A Bible professor of mine used to say that once the Bible is read it ceases to be God’s Word. Instead, it becomes the reader’s interpretation of God’s Word according to their own values and convictions.

So what’s the point?

Should we not even attempt to read the Bible because it’s impossible to understand?

I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think the important factor in helping us understand the Bible is historical and cultural context. The Bible must be read with the knowledge of who the original audience was. For example, when we read the book of Colossians, we are reading a letter from the Apostle Paul to the Colossian church. This letter and others like it were written to a specific group of people, in a specific time in history. To ignore audience and the historical/cultural context would be pointless in understanding its message. Too often we read it and think it is talking directly to us within our 21st century, American context. I do believe that the Bible speaks directly to us. I do believe that God uses the Bible to teach us and guide us, but we must be careful and open to what it is actually saying and who it is saying it to.

The bottom line is that there is mystery when it comes to the Bible and there is mystery to God – something that our minds can’t fully comprehend. But thankfully He doesn’t require us to have it all figured out! To me that’s the beauty of the journey. Let us jump in and continue to strive towards more understanding of God and His Word. After all, it’s sweeter than honey to our mouths.

Woe is me!

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Job 2:7-10

7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.
9 His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.


I know now that Job’s suffering was FAR beyond anything I could handle. Why? Because somehow, someway I had a random allergic reaction to some unknown source. That reaction led to THE worst week of my life! It started off small, but eventually my body was covered from head to toe with the hives. I have never been more uncomfortable in my life (even worse than when I got sun poisoning a few years ago). My skin was itchy, burning and full of massive welts. NOT FUN! Although I’m sure there are much worse things that can happen (I don’t want to find out), this is the closest I ever want to get to relating to Job. Sorry if it grosses you out, but here are a few pics to prove it.

It started on a Tuesday night and didn’t go away until Wednesday of the following week. It made for the worst New Year’s eve ever, as I laid in bed drugged up on benadryl. I hope and pray that I never get the hives again!

Divine Patience

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In the last few weeks I have had to read through the books of Joshua and Judges for my Hebrew Prophets class. I must say that there are some crazy things that happen in theses books. To be honest, if I didn’t know any better I would not think this stuff would be found in the Bible. Have you read these books lately? War, genocide, scandals, apostasy, etc… It is phenomenal just how raw and uncut the Bible really is.

The difficulty that I wrestle with is that some of what I read seems to contradict the words and teachings of Jesus. It is hard to make sense of the stories we read and the journey that God has the early Israelites on. In the end I guess we just have to realize that God’s ways are beyond our understanding.

Another thing that just completely baffles me is how unfaithful the Israelites are. Time after time God gives them second chance after second chance, yet they still turn aside and worship “Baal” and “Asherah” who were gods of the Canaanites. Why? Why does God remain so faithful despite Israel’s prostitution?

For class I am also reading a book called Deuteronomic History by Terence Fretheim. In it he shares some great insights into God’s judgment of Israel and what Fretheim calls the divine patience of God. Here are some quotes:

“It becomes apparent quickly in this text [Judges] that God’s purposes are not annihilation, but that on the far side of the experience of judgment there might be restoration of relationship which God intended.”

“…what comes through is the divine patience: God continues to save them from the hands of their enemies in spite of continued apostasy.”

“This makes it very clear that the divine judgment is not considered to be an end in itself, as if God had no concerns beyond judgment. Judgment there must be; evil must not be allowed to go unchecked in the world. But judgment is not the end of things for God. Once that judgment has been experienced, and indeed in the midst of the very experience of judgment, God is working graciously for deliverance. Deliverance is what God truly desires for the people. But, finally, it is only in and through the experience of oppression and death, that the experience of deliverance is possible. There can be no direct move from apostasy to deliverance, except through judgment. And so the judging activity og God is finally motivated by gracious purposes. And the degree to which one discerns repetition in these texts with regard to the sin-judgment-deliverance cycle is finally a witness to the incredible mercy of God in desiring life, and not death, for the people.”

“God’s people, again and again, exhibit patterns of life which threaten their existence. God’s response is remarkable in its variety and flexibility, in order to accomplish salutary purposes. A highly personal divine response is revealed, which values mercy above retribution; we see a God who chooses to experience suffering rather than visit the people with the finality of death; we are surprised by a God who finds ways of working in, with, and under very compromising situations in which people have placed themselves in order to bring about good. In the midst of unfaithfulness, the faithfulness of God is revealed, a God who never breaks covenant. Only in such a God is hope to be found.“

The Covenant of Yahweh

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I’m taking a class right now on the Pentateuch [first five books of the Bible] and I came across something in my reading that was so profound. To me, it fully captures the beautiful relationship that God wants with His people. It comes from a book called Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction by Lawrence Boadt.

“Berit [covenant] is a term so rich it captures the heart of Israel’s religous befliefs: (1) they are bound to an unbreakable covenant-union with their God; (2) he has made known his love and his mercy to them; (3) he has given them commandments to guide their daily life; (4) they owe him worship, fidelity and obedience; (5) they are marked by the sign of that covenant-bond. The covenant created the unity of the nation Israel, based not on blood relationship but on submission to the divine will and the confession that he alone is God. In turn, God pledges himself to be Israel’s personal protector and helper, not only against foreign enemies, but against sickness, disease, and chaos as well. Most of all, he will be present whether it is a time of prosperity or of failure, for he has laid claim to his people as his own. Yahweh is a personal God who demands personal loyalty. He gives no guarantee that his protective love and help always involves victory in battle, wealth in possessions, or increase of territory; it may at times include such gifts, but more often it describes the blessing that trust in the Lord will bring: freedom from fear in the promised land, the fruitfulness of children and crops, permanent peace and the joy of knowing God is near.”

The Call

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I am 12 chapters in now in my study of Jeremiah. So much good stuff, but it’s hard to blog because there is so much detail. However, lately I have been able to relate with Jeremiah’s call from God. Through current circumstances in my life I’ve often found myself praying, “No God, not me…” Yet God has always guided and directed my path, even in directions I didn’t want to go. My only responsibility is to humbly and obediently follow. It’s not so easy though. At times it seems impossible. I am sure this is how Jeremiah or Moses felt.

In the verses above God calls Jeremiah to a massive task – to be God’s ambassador to His people and to the nations. Jeremiah’s response? “Not me God! I am too young! I don’t speak well!” Have you been there? I sure have – many times. There is hope when I read these callings because I can see that even the heroes of the Bible struggled with confidence and faith. In Exodus 3, Moses is a flat out whinny wimp. I love that! Then you see the journey that God took him through. It’s amazing! I can only have faith that the journey God has me on, no matter how treacherous it seems, will be well worthy it.

I think that many times the only obstacle in following God’s call is ourselves. Both Moses and Jeremiah wanted to make it about themselves, choosing to focus on their shortcomings. God’s emphatic response was that it wasn’t about them – it was about Him working through them. How many times has God told me, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you!”? Probably too many.

One of my professors in college used to always say a quote that I have kept near to me and used as a constant reminder:

“God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.”

AMEN!