Thoughts of a Christian Husband, Father, and Pastor
If you’re on my Bible reading plan (there are at least two of you that I know of ) or any other similar plan, there’s a good chance you’re finding yourself smack-dab in the middle of Leviticus right now. That’s not an easy place to be. For most Christians, the new year’s zeal and the [...]
Pretty much any Christian who has lived for a little while as a Christian can look back at their lives and recognize that the seasons of life when they’ve known the most blessing are those seasons when they’ve been most faithful to read through the Bible. That’s certainly been the case for me! You look [...]
This semester I was able to take Homiletics 2 at TBS. I have much to learn and much room to grow in the realm of preaching, so I was happy to take this course. One of the great conversations we had in class this year was on the topic of the need to be preaching [...]
Warning: If you look down at the text below, you may see sheer volume and be tempted to not bother reading this post. The point of blogs is to appeal to people with short attention spans–this I know. But, let me urge you to read on through the end of this post. Any post I [...]
A few years back I was struck by the realization that the way I read the Bible was being handicapped by the way the pages were laid out. Here are just a few examples. The pages are laid out in columns. What other book is laid out like that? When I read the Bible, I [...]
In a previous post I suggested a four-level approach to interpreting some of the Psalms along the lines of redemptive-history. Here I hope to model that in an abbreviated form, using Psalm 16. 1. Read the Psalm as David sings. David cries to God as king of God’s people, in dependence on him alone. As [...]
I thought that this morning I could offer another method I enjoy using while meditating on the Psalms. I don’t really have a name for it, but it takes a sort of Redemptive-Historical approach. Using this method I’ll read through the Psalm on four levels–which usually means reading through the Psalm at least a few [...]
In keeping with our current theme, I wanted to post something on interpreting the Psalms today. That being said, I am scrambling to get up to the cottage, so I didn’t have time to write something new and thoughtful. But I came across this in my journal from a while ago, and it ‘just happened’ [...]
Here are just a few things that I find helpful on a very basic level with regard to reading the Psalms as a Christan. Read the Psalms regularly. One of the reasons the Psalms can be so little help to some Christians in their time of need is simply this: We’re not familiar with them. [...]
It seems that the Psalms are the centre of much attention in evangelicalism in North America these days. The Psalms is one of my favourite books, so this is exciting to me. It has saddened me over the years to see how many Christians are somewhat unable to understand, identify with, and apply the Psalms [...]
It seems to me to be an incredible blessing to live with the technology of the 21st century at our disposal. When the Bible was first written it was given to the people of God to be read aloud in their public worship services. Over the years, however, that practice was lost in our modern, [...]
I love Scripture because it boldly declares. It doesn’t go around tip-toeing and trying to qualify everything. There are profound tensions in Scripture, but rather than attempting to soften them, or thinking that we need to explain them away, I think we need to embrace them and let them speak to us. For most modern [...]
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately for several of my courses about textual criticism of the New Testament Greek texts. It’s been really interesting, to say the least, and I’ve been learning lots. One of the greatest things I learned was this. In the first century AD the copying of manuscripts was a [...]
Today I thought I’d do a google search for a chart giving a chronological listing of the New Testament books, according to the date authored. Maybe I’m just a really bad googler or something, but I had a hard time finding something that was (a) easy to read, and, (b) worth looking at. While there [...]
This morning I was blessed in my reading of 1 Timothy. I was quite refreshed to read Paul’s words to Timothy: The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. When Scripture records for us Paul’s letter to this young pastor (the first [...]
I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but if you are, then you probably wonder from time to time why you have to learn something so many times before it finally sinks in. This morning, as I was reading through Acts, I couldn’t help but be struck with the reality of my need to [...]
In my own devotions I’ve just finished reading through the book of Isaiah. I must say that I think one of the reasons why our churches today are so weak and shallow, and have such a small view of God is that we don’t read our whole Bible. I know so many Christians who just [...]
Yesterday I got to read through a portion of 1 Kings. My favourite part of what I read was Solomon’s building and dedication of the temple. After reading from Genesis all the way through to 1 Kings, it is a wonderful breath of fresh air! I think sometimes we lose sight of just how momentous [...]
Every child knows the story from Sunday School. From the time we’re little we picture it… Moses goes up the mountain to speak with God. God is there, in a cloud, fire, and lightning and the people are afraid. But God speaks with Moses. Amazing! But then the unthinkable happens: Moses dares to ask for [...]
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