Jonah’s story ends abruptly. We’ve been given narration, dialogue and miracles. Like so much of the Bible we’ve been told what sounds like a tall tale— but haven’t been told what we are supposed think or conclude. All that is truly clear is that Jonah is not on the same page as his sender or […]
In 1948 the New Yorker Magazine published one of the most famous short stories in American literature. Titled “The Lottery”, and written by Shirley Jackson, it’s about a small town that held an annual drawing in which every family picked a slip of paper out of a black box. As town people look at one […]
In the middle of the night, lately, I’ve found myself waking, with some of the same words running through my mind, over and over… and then over and over— as if something deep inside me is trying to reach and grasp something that seems too good to be true, suspended teasingly just beyond my will […]
A story is going around the internet that, in some ways, sounds more like legend than fact. But the idea behind it seems to represent a cultural value that is real. As related on an Ubuntu website, an anthropologist made an important discovery after completing his study of a tribe in a southern region of […]
Seems to me that the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, is one of the most compelling and provocative stories of the Bible. Indulged as a child of his father’s old age, Joseph, in the apparent innocence of youth, talked to his other brothers about dreams of reigning over them. Together his brothers were […]
Do we agree with those who say, “Every promise in the book is mine?” If so, in what sense do we mean that? Do we read the Bible until something jumps out as being a phrase we want to claim for ourselves? If so how do we keep from claiming to have a Word from […]
Two passages of the Bible that are often used to emphasize the importance of Scripture may be doing something more. Example One: When, after eating no food for 40 days, Jesus resists Satan’s temptation to turn stones into bread, he quotes Moses as saying “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word […]
Another combination of statements that could look like a contradiction shows up in the Sermon on the Mount. First Jesus encourages his followers to “let their light shine before others” so that others can see the good that they do (Matt 5:16). But then a few statements later the Teacher begins an extended emphasis in […]
Sometimes the apparent contradictions of the Bible happen in such quick succession that it is apparent that they are intentional devices to provoke thought. For example, in Proverbs 26:4, the person of wisdom says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.” The very next proverb in vs […]
Does the Bible contradict itself? More than a few people have written books or hosted websites to say that they lost their faith after seeing how often the Bible contradicts itself. Some have spent a lot of time compiling lists of apparent discrepancies in both Old and New Testaments. Collections of alleged Bible contradictions are […]
