Your cart is empty now.
Samaritans
The following article is part of the "Biblical Obscurities" blog series by Mike Velthouse, author of Journey...
The House of Annas
We must understand that Annas and Caiaphas were not simply innocent bystanders in Jesus' death, forced to be involved in the situation only because of their offices. They were willing plotters and participants. They were not awakened out of sleep during the night of Jesus' illegal trial, quickly putting on some clothes and freshening up, so they could ask Jesus a couple of questions to make everything seem legitimate. They were lying in wait for him. This was finally the moment for which they had been waiting! In cold blood, they were responsible for murdering our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gehenna
Sometimes the Bible takes us to scary places. Think of the cottage of the witch of Endor, which King Saul visited at night, hoping she would bring back the spirit of the dead Samuel (1 Samuel 28). Or remember the cemetery in the land of the Gadarenes, where a demon-possessed man lived at night among the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones, before Jesus healed him (Mark 5). We are going to visit another such scary place today...In the New Testament, Gehenna is synonymous with hell (also called Sheol). Jesus employed this word (“hell”) eleven times as the name for the place of ultimate and eternal fiery destruction and separation for those outside of the Kingdom of Christ.
Maschil
Some of the most interesting parts of the psalms are the subtitles found under specific chapter headings throughout this book of the Bible. We can learn much about a psalm from what we see in these brief statements. Sometimes they share with us the historical setting behind the writing. For example, Psalm 3 says it's "a Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom, his son." Psalm 57's subtitle tells us that it was written by David "when he fled from Saul in the cave." Other times, these subtitles let us know what kind of psalm it is. There are psalms of praise. There are psalms as prayers. There are psalms as songs. There are psalms of degrees, which show that a psalm was sung by the people as their families or groups of families walked up the elevation to the tabernacle at Mount Zion, where they gathered for worship. Significantly, thirteen psalms have a very mysterious word as their subtitle. Maschil.
Book Review - Two Books, One Message
I have just finished two recent books published by the RFPA, and I thought to give you my reactions to them. The books both have a similar message and that is to spread the gospel to peoples of different races and cultures than our own. Even though they have a similar message, they are very different in the manner in which the message is written. One of the books is an expository nonfiction work, and the other is a realistic fiction book.
Recent Posts
