Reflections and meditations about the Bible by Peter DeHaan, PhD.
Walking in our Parents’ Footsteps The books of 1 and 2 Kings are filled with the accounts of many rulers who reigned over the nations of Israel and Judah. Most of them were bad kings, with varying degrees of disobedience to God’s laws and exhibiting evil. A few, however, were good rulers, mostly following God […]
During a long drought and famine, God sends Elijah away from Israel to the city of Zarephath in Sidon where God directs a widow, a foreigner, to give Elijah food. When Elijah reaches the town gates, he see a widow and asks her for water and bread. Though she is willing to fetch him water, […]
Discover What the Bible Says about Being a Member The word member appears throughout the Bible showing up eighteen times in the Old Testament and nineteen times in the New. A common convention in studying the Bible is to let earlier uses of a word inform our understanding of later occurrences. Here is how the […]
In reading the book of Ecclesiastes there is one section that may be very familiar. It was used as song lyrics and set to music, which the Byrds recorded in 1965. Compare Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 with the lyrics to Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season). Songwriter Pete Seeger only added six words to […]
What the Bible Teaches About Wisdom May Shock Us The book of Proverbs talks a lot about wisdom. The word pops up in fifty-five versus in this thirty-one-chapter book. That’s a lot of wisdom. This may be the reason why many think of Proverbs as a book of wisdom. As Solomon and his co-writers compile […]
The New Testament Cites the Old Testament Many passages in the New Testament of the Bible quote parts of the Old Testament, which was written hundreds of years before. In some versions of the Bible, footnotes—added by the translators—refer us to the original text. Holy Spirit One verse, however, cites the source in the text, […]
When it Comes to God, Should We “Fake it Till We Make It?” Psalm 142 is a prayer of lament. David’s hiding in a cave, likely fearing for his life. He feels alone with no one walking alongside him or having any concern for him. He cries out that he has no refuge, no protective […]
Celebrating the Sabbath People have different ideas about what you can and can’t do on Sundays, how you should and shouldn’t act. This ranges from Sunday being the same as every other day to it being a solemn set-apart time when you go to church, rest, and do nothing else. Though I have never pursued […]
In my last post I noted that the Bible says we are to fear God—and I confessed confusion over precisely what that means. The next step in my progression of thought is to recall that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and of understanding. I think that means it’s okay I don’t […]
We Must Remove Anything That Threatens to Push God Aside Asaph writes that God’s ways are holy, and that no other god is as great as he. Great is our God. In the context of that day, other gods refers to idols or made-up deities aside from the God revealed in Scripture. Today bowing down […]