Reflections and meditations about the Bible by Peter DeHaan, PhD.
God Promises Rewards for Obedience and Punishment for Disobedience As we read through the book of Leviticus, which is a struggle for most of us, we read instruction after instruction of what God expects from his people. With precise detail, his commands come forth one after another. Then, in chapter 26, the book begins to […]
Don’t Put Off Following Jesus While we shouldn’t wait to follow Jesus, it’s nice to know that he’ll give us up to the last minute to make a decision In Luke’s biography of Jesus, the author sometimes shares details not found in the Bible’s other three accounts of Jesus’s life. One such example is about […]
Remaining Silent Is Not an Option The book of Leviticus in the Bible gives us a lot of instructions about things to do and to not do. It’s a challenging read and many readers skip it. Yet there are bits of truth scattered throughout it that are relevant in our world today. Here’s one example. […]
Jesus Teaches Us to Keep Praying and to Not Stop Jesus gives us an object lesson (a parable) of a widow who keeps appearing before a judge to seek justice. A bad adjudicator, he cares nothing of her, of public opinion, or of God, but she wears him down with her continual plea. He eventually […]
Discover Who God Is from Scripture We can learn a lot about God from the Bible. After all, we do sometimes call it the Word of God. Every book in the Bible, even every chapter reveals truth about God. This includes Psalm 33. It’s a psalm of praise. It reveals five biblical truths about God. […]
Sometimes We Need to Go Away for Jesus and Other Times We Need to Go Home Before Jesus returns to heaven, he tells his followers to go throughout the world and let others know about him (Matthew 28:19). Does that mean we’re all supposed to travel to a distant country for Jesus? Is that their […]
When Satan Tempts Jesus and He Quotes Scripture Satan was unsuccessful in preventing Jesus’s birth and he was unsuccessful in causing Jesus to die prematurely before he could start his mission. For the enemy’s next ploy to thwart God’s plan to reconcile us to him, Satan tries to tempt Jesus into taking a shortcut: an […]
Under Holy Spirit Inspiration Simeon and Anna Affirm Jesus When He Is a Baby Shortly after Jesus is born his parents take him to the temple in Jerusalem to present him to God and go through the purification rites as prescribed by Moses. As they do so, they receive two startling surprises from what others […]
Jesus Rose from the Dead and So Did Many Others In Acts chapter 26, the prisoner Paul makes his defense before King Agrippa. Basically Paul recaps key moments of his life and turns his testimony into a sermon. This must make King Agrippa squirm, because he pushes back, asking if Paul expects him to become […]
Helping Our Neighbors Should Be More Important Than Following Religious Rules A man comes up to Jesus. The guy’s an expert in Jewish law. Today we might call him a theologian. He asks Jesus a question, “What should I do to earn eternal life?” The answer is simple. There are two steps. Love God and […]