2 Samuel 11:1-27 “Your faith was strong, but you needed proof, You saw her bathing on the roof, Her beauty and the moonlight over-threw you.” (Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah) David was famously a man after the LORD’s heart. He was the second King, succeeding where Israel’s first King, Saul, had failed. He was messiah – christ – an anointed king. […]
1 Samuel 17:1-54 Any time a little guy takes on a big corporation it’s called ‘a David and Goliath story.’ Any time a 2nd division football club beats a Premiere League team it’s called ‘giant killing.’ Everyone thinks they know what David and Goliath is about. It’s about the underdog gritting their teeth and pulling […]
1 Samuel 13:1-15; 16:1-13 “You’re a man after my own heart” says one music fan to another. “You’re a woman after my own heart” says the man to his new girlfriend as she serves him his favourite dessert. These are common ways that we use the phrase today. But they are subtly different from each […]
1 Samuel 9:15-10:27 This book highlights the impact of the King James Bible on English. Yet, as this phrase shows, many times the influence went the other way. It was the culture that shaped the translation of this verse. It appears in 1 Samuel after the people had asked for a king (1 Samuel 8:5-9). There […]
1 Samuel 2:1-11, 27-36 Two quick questions to start the week: What’s the meaning of life? And what’s the message of the Bible? You might think that these are impossible issues to solve. Surely they can’t be answered with any final clarity or certainty – at least, not in a paragraph. Well I think they […]
Ruth 2-3 After the brutality of Judges, Ruth is often seen as a nice little love story. A ‘rom-com’ to take our minds off the raping and genocide! If we think like that perhaps we need to rehabilitate our view of romantic comedy. The story of Scripture is most certainly a romance – the tale […]
Judges 21:1-25 George Carlin once observed a universal rule of the road: “every driver slower than you is an idiot. And every driver faster is a maniac.” You on the other hand… You are the golden mean. You are, because you say you are. And who would dare to contradict!? We all naturally “do what is right […]
Judges 13:1-25 Ever since Adam, humanity has craved a good king to set the world to rights. Adam was set over creation to rule but dragged it down to death and curse. Yet from the beginning the Messiah was promised – in Greek it’s the word “Christ.” It just means Spirit-filled King. He would raise […]
Click for source Judges 12:1-15 Are you “in” or “out”? “Bang on trend” or “out of fashion”? “Up to the minute” or “behind the times”? Life is full of exclusive clubs. We discriminate by age, gender, race, wealth, strength, intelligence, looks, taste. We can turn anything into a barrier to entry. But the LORD is […]
Joshua 3:1-17 The story is told of a wealthy man’s funeral at which “Guide me O thou great Jehovah” was the opening hymn. It may have been a typo but the final verse read as follows: “When I tread the verge of Jordan Bid my anxious fears subside Death of death and hell’s destruction Land my […]
