One of the benefits of reading books like Leviticus is understanding the high requirements God put in place for Him to remain with His people.  If they were to be able to keep fellowship with Him, they needed to retain His presence with sacrifices to remove sin, and also to maintain peace.

Those sacrifices, however, had to meet a certain standard to be effective.  All of the sin offerings, and guilt offers for the people, and the priests had to be perfect, or unblemished. (Leviticus 1:3, 10; 3:1, 6; 4:3, 23, 28, 32; 5:15-18; 6:6; 9:2-3; 14:10)  Even the offerings that…

When God delivered His will to His people, He warned them not to obsess over all the details He had not revealed, but to be diligent to focus on what He had.  “The secret things belong to YHWH our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)  However, since then, people have obsessed over the things that the bible does not reveal, and have continued to show a morbid interest into the things God chose to keep secret.  As we look at the…

It is amazing how often children, when being chided or reprimanded, will point to the actions or the errors of another child for justification of their behavior.  Somehow, in their mind, their guilt is lessened by someone else doing something just as bad or worse.  Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise to us, as we so often do the same.

David was certainly a man after God’s own heart (I Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22), and he was the standard by which all subsequent kings of Judah were compared (I Kings 3:3; 15:3; II Kings 22:2; II Chronicles 34:2), but he was…

The account of Israel’s devastating loss at Ai due to Achan’s error is one that bears repeating.  Not only was the army defeated easily by a small force from a small town, but about 36 soldiers died, and it felt as though God had abandoned the people.  After Joshua addressed the sin in the camp, and the people were prepared to follow God completely, He gave them a specific battle plan.  They were to leverage the pride of the people of Ai, luring them out into the open and then attack from the rear, then attack from the rear flanks,…

Those who come into the church in this day and age have many questions that we can sometimes fail to give the consideration they deserve.  They might ask us about things we assume are true, and have not questioned in many years.  They might ask us things that we may consider trivial or elementary, and thus have not taken the time to explain.  Sometimes they ask us things that make us scratch our heads.  When they do, then we must be careful to give them a worthy, and correct, answer.

Sometimes people who come into the church with little prior knowledge…

Human ingenuity shows up in a great many ways.  Take archery for example; instead of the simple bow and string, the implements of archery are a modern marvel.  The first leap in having more effective and deadly bows was the recurve bow thought to have been invented in 800 BC.  Just by having the tips of the bow curve face the opposite direction, the strength and speed of the shot was increased dramatically.

Modern bows are even more complex, due to the invention of the compound bow, patented by H. W. Allen, Jr. in as late as 1969.  Instead of having…

When we consider the kinds of mothers that are celebrated on days like today, we might not think of those who gave their children up for adoption.  However, one of the best examples of loving, godly motherhood did just about the equivalent of that.  She even did so after a great deal of prayer for a child.  Her name is Hannah.

When we consider what qualities reflect our modern values of motherhood, they are hard to identify in Hannah.  She was the second wife of a priest in Ephraim and was treated terribly by her rival, specifically because for a long…

Paul's first letter to the church in Thessalonica was overall very positive.  He praised their faithfulness (I Thessalonians 1:2-10) and dedication to God's word even in persecution. (I Thessalonians 2:13-16)  This is noteworthy, because so many of the New Testament epistles have the occasion of correcting wrong behavior or addressing error.  The church in Thessalonica was on a much better track.

When he was encouraging them, however, he gave them some things in which they needed to “excel still more.” (I Thessalonians 4:1)  This means they were to do the things they had been, but more and be even better.  This…

I think we can all admit that sin is a problem, even among those who are trying to obey God.  The question comes down to how do we keep it from happening so often, and to such a great extent.  The good news is that we have a few examples in scripture of how people sought to prevent breaking of God’s law, and how that ultimately worked out.

The solution employed by the Pharisees was to extend what constituted sin outward from the actual command to prevent any real transgression.  Many bible scholars and preachers have referred to them building a…

There are often two song books in most congregations.  I’m not talking about the supplemental book of “new” hymns that the younger people sing, but the older disciples aren’t so sure about.  I mean that there are the songs in the book that we have available, and the songs that we know.  Those two catalogues are often very different from one another.  A good brother Ethan Longhenry wrote not long ago, “Do you want to understand the theology of a group of believers? Consider not only their song book but the particular songs they frequently sing!”

When we are choosing…