Isaiah 18
There are some people who believe God plays favorites, that He keeps a list of who’s been naughty and nice and doles out blessings or curses accordingly. As evidence of this, some people point to the Israelites and claim that since God chose them to be “His” people, He plays favorites. This kind of thinking usually leads these folks to conclude that “they” are on God’s popular list and “others” (mainly those who do not think, talk, act, dress, or behave as they do) are not.
Song of Solomon 1
If you were going to write the “song of all songs” to be published in the Bible, what would you write about? What subject would you choose for the song that would be greater than any other song? I don’t know about you, but I suspect most Christians would choose to write a song of praise and worship to God. Don’t you think that’s what God would want? A song that exalted Him?
Proverbs 5
I can almost guarantee you’ll never hear someone get up at church and say, “Our Scripture reading this morning is from Proverbs, chapter five, verses 18 and 19: ‘May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.’”
Psalm 128
I’m continually amazed at the “math” of heaven. It runs so contrary to the math we learn in school. For instance, we all know what 1+1 is, right? It’s the first math problem we ever learn: 1+1=2. But not so with God.
At the outset, when God brings 1 man and 1 woman together, we end up with 1 flesh. 1+1=1. By the time this “1 flesh” is done having a family, the equation might be 1+1=5 or (in the extreme case of a family like the Duggars) 1+1=20! I have to chuckle when I think that God would fail a first-grade math quiz.
Psalm 100
This has always been one of my most favorite psalms. I think I used to hear it on a recording as the introduction to a song when I was a child. In my mind, I can still hear a conglomeration of different children’s voices reciting the verses of this psalm. It is succinct and simple. It’s my kind of psalm.
Ezra 2
In the nation of Israel, it was very important to know (and be able to show) where you came from. Who was your family? Your clan? Your tribe? After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, I’m surprised that those who returned to Jerusalem following the decree of Cyrus could even trace their family history. Yet, the vast majority of those who made the journey home were able to show that they were, indeed, descendants from the tribes of Israel.
Photo © Unsplash/The Joy of Film
In the Most Holy Room
of God's Desert House,
there was a small, open door
to the universe,
where God sat between
His angels and talked
with humanity.
Okay, so the angels were gold
and it was just one man
and God had to make Himself tiny enough
to be stuffed into a room.
Still, for those moments,
it was as if God could have
His cosmic family
together in the same place.
Kind of like a mom
who dreams of having everyone
home again
for Thanksgiving.
1 Chronicles 19
When reading through the Old Testament, it’s very easy to jump to the conclusion that God is an elitist, exclusive kinda guy. After all, it seems He chose a nation (Israel) for Himself, called them out of slavery, and worked very hard to try to give them everything He could. On such a cursory reading, it could be easy to conclude that God loved and protected Israel to the exclusion of all other nations.
1 Chronicles 17
I think it means a lot of different things to say that we are created in the image of God. I believe that includes things like having freedom of choice, having the power to create little people in our own image, and being able to think intelligently. However, I also think it can point to other, more minor, characteristics or character traits, such as the example we find in this chapter.
1 Chronicles 8
After eight chapters, we are nearly done with the genealogies. (At least the ones at the beginning of this book. I’m sure we will encounter more as we go along.) In today’s chapter—as I’m sure you noticed if you read it—there wasn’t particularly much to take hold of. Just another long list of names, following a previous seven chapters of long lists of names.
1 Chronicles 7
The more you read these genealogies, the closer you examine them, the more you will discover that there are certain, shall we say, discrepancies in them. This isn’t necessarily a problem, and neither is it necessarily surprising—considering that most all of these genealogies were passed down through oral tradition. Could you keep nearly four thousand years of genealogy straight without a computerized family tree?
1 Chronicles 1
Okay, brace yourself. We’re about to wade through nine—yes, that’s nine—chapters of genealogies at the beginning of 1 Chronicles. Mercy! Seems like a daunting task for a blogger. However, I think God had a very good reason for inspiring the writer of this book (Ezra, perhaps) to begin with this long genealogy, and it’s a lesson we can take to heart as well.
