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I had a friend once who allowed that human beings were, to God, like fish eggs. We were sitting in the sun on a bass boat trying unsuccessfully to catch something and he was trying to make sense of the world. A fishing boat is a great place for philosophizing. I know, he said, that there is only one way of salvation, and that is by the name of Jesu…
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Many years ago, before I learned better about arguing religion, I was engaged in a discussion focused on people who never even heard the name of Jesus anytime in their lives. How could it be right for God to torture these people forever? Tell me he is just going to leave them dead and we have one picture. Tell me he has arranged for their eternal t…
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Verse one of the Gospel of John is one of the most loaded sentences in the entire Bible. There aren’t many places in the Bible where the various translators agree, but this is one of them. Word for word, from the King James Version through the most popular modern translations, they present this formulation of the Word. At first blush, it is an enig…
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The third psalm has a striking subheading: A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. No one is certain as to when the subheadings found in the Psalms were created or whether they are authentic or not. But sometimes, if you know some of the history of the time, you can get very strong clues as to whether they fit or not. The incident in q…
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I've been doing some writing recently on the Psalms, and there are some profound lessons that just keep growing on me. I can't help thinking that there's something quite special about this book of the Bible, but it's hard to put my finger on it. It may be the musical style of the psalms; but it's hard to figure how that would quite come through, be…
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What kind of people are we coming to be? And What kind of Christians might we be when we no longer govern our lives by the words of Jesus? The road ahead is long and dangerous. And our educational system has given us a generation who are governed by what? What informs us about right and wrong? Experience? It is a hard teacher, but effective. Philos…
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Science has very little to say about origins. We can theorize about the origins of life, but no one has been able to demonstrate that it’s possible to create life—either purposely or on accident. I don’t mind scientists concluding that God’s existence (or non-existence) is outside their purview. The problem arises when we are told with certainty th…
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I bought a CD course on the Old Testament once, because I was considering teaching an online course myself. I hadn’t got very deep into the first disc before the teacher said flatly that King David did not actually exist. She was assuming that the stories about David were a Hebrew myth. I went no further. The teacher was revealing a radical positio…
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Even victory can be bitter. How can there ever be a clear victory when there is war between a father and a son? To be sure, it was a short war—only one battle—and David’s son…well, no one can know for sure, but a suspicion lingers that David may have been willing to give up the kingdom rather than see his son Absalom killed. When he told the men go…
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When a palace coup takes place, any influential person is going to have walk very carefully. It may, in fact, be impossible to sit this one out. You may wish you could retreat into the wilderness and come back when the battle is over, but everyone knows who you are and what your loyalties have been. You are forced to choose sides no matter how much…
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Sometimes, there is no explaining love. It just is. The love of God for King David of Israel knew no bounds, and that love persisted through some terrible times and some terrible acts on David’s part. Maybe, in a vague sort of way, it can be explained by the fact that David himself was a man of great emotion; he was himself a man of love. I think t…
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It is hard to think of a family situation worse than one created by a man named Amnon, the son of David. It was event of sexual violence, ultimately leading to bloodshed. But considering what David had done with Bathsheba, and the wretched example it set, it is just as hard to think this event was not connected, somehow. But there is a lesson or tw…
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It is always painful to see a good man fall. And in the affair of David and Bathsheba, that is pretty much what happened. It happened to a good woman at the same time. Who knows, maybe this was somewhere in the back of King Solomon’s mind when he wrote: Dead flies cause the ointment of the perfumer to send forth a foul odor: so does a little folly …
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And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. Then said David, I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David’s servants came into the land of the child…
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It isn’t always easy to understand why God does some of the things he does. It isn’t always certain, even, that God does everything attributed to him. In our generation, for example, we use the expression, an act of God, for all kinds of things I really don’t think God is directly involved in. An earthquake, for example—insurance people would call …
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When I study the prophets, I am looking for God. I’m not looking for an outline of what’s going to happen tomorrow or the events of the next few years. What I want to know is: What does God have to say, what does it mean, and how might it affect my life? Because God doesn’t change, if God came down on an ancient people because they behaved a certai…
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It is fascinating, when you’re reading history, to see how much people are the same—in every age and every time. Cultures change, standards change, technology changes, but human nature—at its base—changes very little, if at all. Petty politics, palace intrigue, deal making, trivial and great jealousies: They make us feel right at home even in stran…
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War makes strange bedfellows sometimes. It’s possible that David might well have been an ally of the Philistines when they went to war against Israel and Saul. It’s hard to imagine David at war with Israel, but it was on its way to happening…except for one thing—the lords of the Philistines didn’t trust him and wouldn’t bring him into combat. After…
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The long pursuit of David by King Saul, would make for a great movie. It has all the elements. Danger, treachery, romance, suspense, the chase. And the characters are all fascinating and any actor would love the roles. There was King Saul, who was a depressive paranoid, and yet a big handsome fellow; David, of course, red-headed, small, good lookin…
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And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi. Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men on the rocks of the wild goats. And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where was a cave; and Saul we…
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In the pages of your Bible, you may find something mildly surprising. You find holidays, quite prominently, and in both Testaments. Not only that, but they are found observed by the Church in the New Testament. These festivals are called the appointed times of Jehovah and around them flow the entire history of the people of God—from the Israelites,…
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After the win over Goliath, David went on to show himself a true fighting man. He apparently fought without fear, believing with all his heart that he was in the right and that God would fight alongside him. He chalked up some great victories, and the people loved him and honored him to such an extent that it generated great jealousy on the part of…
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One of the truly great ironies of the Bible followed on the heels of the failure of Israel’s first king: Saul, the son of Kish. From the moment of Saul’s rejection by God and the anointing of David as King in his place, the Spirit of God departed from Saul and went to David. The result for Saul was tragic. Because in the beginning, God gave him eve…
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The first king of Israel was exactly what the people envisioned for a king—tall, handsome, athletic. And God gave him the gifts he would need as king. He had a chance to become great and to have his dynasty established forever. It was a real chance, too—not something extended and then taken away. But it was as true then as it is today that power co…
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The decision by Israel to change their government from a theocracy to a monarchy was a disastrous decision. It was surely not God’s will for them, because they had lived in freedom for so long. But freedom includes heavy burdens for a people, and they just got tired. Sadly, I see signs of the same fatigue among our own people today. But the fact th…
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Freedom is a terrible burden to bear, and it is a sad fact of life that men are all too willing to lay down that burden in the name of security or some other combination of social goods that are promised by political leaders. We need to think about this, because the result of laying down the burden of freedom is the laying down of freedom itself. O…
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If you saw the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, you will have been introduced to the idea that the Ark of God is a source of great power. Power that could be used, theoretically, as a weapon of war. Anyone remotely familiar with the Bible should know that while the Ark had great symbolic power, and was an object of great holiness, whatever power tha…
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There aren’t very many things you can do that are worse than making people dread the worship of God. I know, you can kill people, you can maim them, you can cut off their heads. All these things and a lot more have been done to Christians in history. But when you begin to undermine the joy of worship, when you take away the comfort that people feel…
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It has been said repeatedly that those who cannot learn the lesson of history are condemned to repeat it. I can only conclude that not many people believe that statement, because so few have any interest whatsoever in history. Eyes glaze over when it is mentioned. You may even have started to reach for the button on your radio when I mentioned it. …
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Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as …
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And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for you must go with this people unto the land which the Lord has sworn unto their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that does go before you; he will be with you, he will not fail you, neith…
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These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those gr…
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If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and …
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