Reflections and meditations about the Bible by Peter DeHaan, PhD.
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 […]
Were We Created or Did We Evolve? How did it all begin? That is, where did we come from? Let’s go back to the beginning. I don’t intend to end the debate over the beginning of life and our reality. This won’t change anyone’s mind. But I do want to offer something to think about. […]
Instead of Resolutions, Form Habits You Can Sustain Do you normally make New Year’s resolutions? How’s that work for you? When I used to do that, things never turned out so well. I might make it a couple weeks, rarely more than a month, and a few times my resolutions were no more than good […]
Churches Close for Tangible Problems, But Maybe Some Should Close for Spiritual Reasons In the book of Malachi, God laments about his people. Specifically he’s down on the priests because they show contempt for him. Their worship is so off-track that God wishes one of the priests would just shut the temple doors. This would […]