How would you feel if you had your yearly work review and the verdict on your performance was, “Unfaithful.” You might expect negatives like “incompetent” or “negligent” or “unqualified” or “lazy”. But “unfaithful”? What if your boss said your work was “adulterous”? “Adulterous”? You might well protest: “Hang on, I’m not married to my job […]
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Glen
Given the suffering of this world, how can anyone believe in a good God or a happy ending? In Daniel 7, the prophet has a vision of the most terrible cruelty imaginable. It was a “vision by night” that left him, in his own words, “grieved in my spirit… and the visions of my head […]
The bible is all about dramatic reversals. Perhaps Mary said it best when she was told that the Mighty Christ would be born into her humble circumstances: “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath […]
In the Fuhrerbunker, Hitler married Eva Braun and the generals toasted the “Thousand Year Reich.” But the writing was on the wall. The phrase denotes the judgement of doom that gatecrashes the dinner party. The original party-pooping happened to the Babylonian King, Belshazzar. In all probability, the invading Medes were already upon them and so […]
It’s the biblical equivalent of the Achilles’ heel. When a leader has a flaw that makes him vulnerable he has “feet of clay.” The phrase orginates in the book of Daniel which, like Ezekiel, is set in the Babylonian captivity. Daniel, along with others, is carried away to Babylon and then hand-picked to serve in […]
“Says who?” Children learn that phrase very quickly. A sibling tells them to set the table. What happens next depends entirely on the source of the command. If the reply comes: “Thus saith mum!” things might just get moving. Hundreds of times the bible contains this phrase: “Thus saith the LORD.” Even when it’s the […]
They looked so nice on the vine but the acid bursts into your mouth and you realise they are unripe. You spit them out proclaiming, “I didn’t want them anyhow!” “Sour grapes” has come to mean disparaging something you had previously desired – probably because you can’t attain it. That particular meaning originates with Aesop […]
Much of the bible’s description of exile sounds at a distance. It happens to those people who deserved it for having committed those sins. Lamentations feels very different. Here the anonymous author (traditionally thought of as Jeremiah) lays bare the horror of Jerusalem’s destruction. He describes the whole thing as a first person lament. He […]
Can people change? Really change? Aristotle thought so. And here’s how he thought change can happen: “it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man.” If you want to change, well then, perform righteous acts and you will become righteous. It’s ancient wisdom. But […]
What could be so bad that it warrants this warning? A scientist morphing into an insect? An alien monster rampaging through a spaceship? What could have possibly produced: “Be horribly afraid”? What dread terror might have birthed this saying? Answer: The refusal of God’s abundant grace. According to God, that is the horror of horrors! […]
