Category Archives: Scripture

There are two immediate possibilities that come to mind. First, ghost stories are nothing new and have a part of the human consciousness for all-time. Second, ghosts are real.

David understood the genuine experience and fear of being hunted, haunted, and pursued.

Saul, the reigning king, had been rejected by God after he made unauthorized sacrifices. David, a man after God’s own heart, was anointed as king but had not been inaugurated and placed on the thrown. Saul knew he had been rejected and that God had chosen David but this did not stop him from hunted David and trying to thwart God’s will.

There was also a lot of fun involved and by fun, I mean food. Most people who experience the sharing of life together know that it often revolves around a table and shared food. Every so often, our professor would bring bread or bagels and Nutella, Digestive biscuits, and theobroma. Many students had never experienced Nutella or Digestive biscuits, so this was always an exciting day when our professor brought these in, but none of us had ever had theobroma.
We are still in waiting. We are just like our ancestors, like Sarah and Abraham, the Israelites and Rahab at Jericho. Each one of these people mentioned was given one more “piece” in the promised puzzle.

Jesus the promised Messiah was this person in so many ways. He was the long awaited one who would redeem Israel, and He did. He has. He does. But what about the longing for a better country and a city built by God?

We are still in waiting. We are just like our ancestors, like Sarah and Abraham, the Israelites and Rahab at Jericho. Each one of these people mentioned was given one more “piece” in the promised puzzle.

We are in a very different time than the Israelites were and we cannot go back to having no king (or president). There is no place on earth we can go and establish a rule where God is king and there is no earthly ruler. Even when Christians have attempted this – think Calvin in Geneva or the Moravians in Herrnhut – there were still people set up as judges, kings, or rulers who presided over the people in God’s place. But even with these humans in place, presiding over us, who do we give our praise and worship to?

Like many of the named and unnamed women in Israel’s history, Hannah is barren, unable to conceive a child for her husband. We do not know the reason for her barrenness, but contrary to the belief of that day, it probably had nothing to do with God’s favor or disfavor. Instead, like so many women today, there was probably a biological reason to why Hannah’s body would not conceive a child, one only modern medicine could have told her.

Neither of these concepts are practiced today in mainstream society, and I don’t know of anyone anywhere who practices them individually. But what if we did? What if after six years we stopped working the ground and just let the earth rest? What if after fifty years we forgave debts and gave people their land back? These laws seem strange in our times, but the earth would be healthier, and the homeless population and socio-economic disparity would decrease exponentially.

Most people today struggle with the Old Testament laws, particularly those found in Leviticus. Leviticus focuses on the Levitical laws which are about cleanliness and uncleanliness and when to offer sacrifices and offerings for a person’s uncleanliness.

However, once we get past the cleanliness and uncleanliness aspects of the laws, once we get past the sacrifices and offerings for our wrong doings, we see that these laws are about being separate.

Christianity is based on the concept that we are saved by Jesus. We understand that we are saved from our sins and our salvation has nothing to do when anything we have done. But do we know that by being saved by Jesus from our sins that we are saved for something?

Aaron is honest that he and his sons are grieving but are still going about their duties as commanded. But because they are grieving, Aaron knows eating the meat, which was a holy task for them to do, would not have been done so correctly, worshipfully. They did one thing incorrectly, or in an unholy way, (burning the sin offering) because they knew they could not eat the sin offering in a holy way.