Bethlehem: City of David?

When did Bethlehem become the “city of David”? That title had always been given to Jerusalem. Forty times in the Old Testament Jerusalem is referred to as the city of David, and no other city in the Bible is ever called by that name. Until Luke’s gospel. “Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in...

Jacob and the Face of God

In the stories of Jacob and Esau there is a long history of interpretation that presents Jacob in a more positive light than his older twin. That’s understandable in that the Jews trace their lineage through Jacob and not Esau, and it’s rather unthinkable that a non-Jew would be a better example of the...

Right Field Bible Reading

Right field. On every baseball team there was always a kid who had a hard time judging fly balls. This was the guy who was so fixated on where the ball was that he never could figure out where the ball was going to be. So the coach stuck him out in right field, where few balls are hit. (Right-handed batters...

The Hang-Around God

Long before anyone ever came up with a word like “omnipresence”, humans believed that the gods lived “up there,” in the heavens. That’s right, before “Heaven” came to mean “the spiritual realm where the forgiven go to live in bliss forever” it simply meant “the sky and everything else up there.” It’s where...

Jesus Ain’t No Snake-on-a-Stick

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. In Numbers 21 God has just helped the Israelites defeat a Canaanite king. They are heading to the Promised Land, and they start complaining about the food. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water,...

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