Before you read a book of the Bible it is quite helpful to get a little background of that book. This is especially a great idea for the Old Testament prophesy books (to give you an idea which historical era the prophet was writing to) and for the 21 epistles (letters) in the New Testament (since they are written to various audiences and for various reasons.) Reading an introduction to a book of the Bible before you read that book will greatly enhance your reading of the Bibl

AGAIN. It happened again. At 5:42 pm on Tuesday April 30, 2019 on the last day of classes before finals at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte, a student opened fire on his classmates. He killed two people. Shot four other people - critically injuring three of them. Students fled and hid. An entire campus was on lockdown for hours in shock and terror. Evil. All of this just down the road from my home. Near where I work. My son and his fiancé graduated from UNCC. My s

People think that if you live a good life that good things will happen to you. And conversely that bad people will have bad things happen to them. So they conclude that if something bad happens to you that you must have done something to deserve it. The account of Job is a resounding NO to this way of thinking. The book of Job tells us he was blameless, upright, feared God and turned away from evil (Job 1:1). Job was innocent. Bad things do happen to good people. Living life

Jesus was betrayed by His disciple, deserted by His friends, taken in by the religious leaders, arrested, tried by the Roman governor, given over by the Jewish crowd, tortured and mocked by the Roman soldiers, crucified, died and buried. This is holy week and I thought as we approach Easter Sunday and the celebration of our risen Savior and all that means for us; we would explore some of the players in the historical account. We begin with Judas Iscariot. One of the twelve di

Last night I stayed up way too late having an internet conversation with a woman. It got quite exasperating and I finally thought this is ridiculous and I need to just go to bed. Right before bed I had jumped on the forum and scrolled past the usuals and I noticed this woman who I hadn't seen on there before. She had posted an article on King Herod and made a comment that generally historians regard the claims of the census and slaughter of the infant males in Bethlehem as un

A friend texted me about an upcoming Christian program on TV and asked me if I thought it would be worth watching. The channel the program was on often skews things in an un-Christian way. I've learned this station often uses a professor who is an unbeliever as their "scholar." He often omits information to appear Christianity has it all wrong. The second red flag on the program was who was producing it. It was a well-known Christian man who has a reputation in the Christian

Recently I published about if we know if our pets which have died will be in heaven. The answer is the Bible doesn't say, but personally I believe they will be. [Pets in Heaven? dated March 9, 2019] An anonymous atheist (from another country and hence the "u" in neighbor) replied to this article: “If you're able to imagine your atheist neighbour burning in hell for eternity, courtesy of the god of love, then your dog certainly will.” He is right in that if we believe our pets

I decided to see how a poll would go over on social media. I asked Do pets go to heaven? with my picture of my beloved Riley. The response was 93% yes and 7% no on one site. And 71% yes and 29% no on another site. Years ago my friend and I were taking a class called the Pentateuch about the first five books of the Bible. A couple was taking the class with us and came a little late to one of the classes. They apologized for being late and said they had been busy dealing with t

A woman and her young daughter walked into church and sat in front of my husband and me. Right before the service began in walked her husband and son. The young son sat down right away, but the husband stood at the end of the row. He looked back searching for open seats in the back. He scowled. Sorry guy, church was full. Hesitantly he sat down. His body language was stiff. We stood to sing and he put his hands in his pockets. Stood rigid and didn't open his mouth. He looked

When I came to Rachel's Hope I was a Christian, but one with verrrryyy shallow roots. And I was being buffeted by a storm. No it wasn't a storm, it was a full head-on tsunami and I was close to being swept away. Rachel's Hope threw me a life line and those women held on with all their might. Rachel's Hope was a women's Bible study group that explored biblical perspectives on handling discouragement, depression, anxiety, and/or self-esteem issues. This is what the Lord says: “

This is the perfect verse to revisit the subject of gender neutral language in modern Bible versions! I shared this picture on social media today. It is the job of translators to take the original language manuscripts and translate them into our language so that we can read them. The original language manuscripts were written in masculine gender language. It was the way it was done back then. I read from the New American Standard Bible (NASB), last copyright 1995, and it is i

I shared this picture on social media. I've been trying to share some verses you may not be as familiar with. Jeremiah 23:24 makes me smile. It speaks of the Creator and He knows all about you - He sees you. You cannot hide. Now I suppose to some not being able to hide from God doesn't seem like a good thing. But I see it as a wonderful thing. He cares. He wants what is good for me. He knows all that I'm doing and thinking. The Creator of the universe sees little insignifican

I'll try to gear my anger down for this post. But I am pretty riled up. You will have to get to the bottom to see why. I've written two posts that had to do with male authority in the church. It came up when my women's group was taking an online Theology Survey I class and the PhD professor brought it up in his lecture. So we looked into it. We studied what the Bible said. Women's Proper Roles in the Church dated 2/13/19 Equal, but Not? dated 2/21/19 Complementarianism is thi

We had no idea when we decided to do an online theology class that we would be discussing the "proper" roles of women in the church. But the professor brought it up and we wanted to discuss it. Not that any of these women wanted to have a leadership role in their church. It was all they can do to work full time, go to church, serve at church, do this Bible study group, take care of their families, and live their lives. I already wrote a post on how it began that we got on thi

Do women have proper roles in a church setting? I majored in civil engineering. My father who was a civil engineer did not believe women should be engineers. Back then it was a male-dominated field and he believed that women had proper roles and being an engineer wasn't one of them. There weren't many women in civil engineering in the late 70's. Often I would be the only female or one of two in a class. When I graduated and had six job offers to choose from, I thought the men

I don't think I look like someone who has had a heart attack. But I did. One year ago. For Christmas 2017 my husband gave me an Apple Watch which I didn't want, but I've grown to appreciate. I don't exercise. Never got into it. I hate figuring out new technology. It was vibrating and buzzing at me and annoying me to no end. One of the things it does is measure your heart rate and I noticed just carrying the laundry basket would make my heart rate spike way up. This sort of fr

Athaliah wasn't your run of the mill average Grandma spoiling and doting on her grandchildren. She was evil! Queen Athaliah was one of the twenty rulers of Judah from about 930 BC to 586 BC. There was Rehoboam (bad), Abijah (bad), Asa (good for most of his reign, but ended badly as recorded in 2 Chronicles 16), Jehoshaphat (good), Jehoram (bad), Ahaziah (bad), and then Queen Athaliah who was bad. ... You can read about the kings and queen in 1 and 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Th

In my opinion the most action packed books of the Bible are the kingdom books - Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Kings. I particularly find 1 and 2 Kings fascinating - probably because of all the fighting and blood and gore, and drama! Israel was a United Kingdom under Saul, David and Solomon. In 930 B.C. they became a divided kingdom with ten tribes becoming the Northern Kingdom of Israel and two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) becoming the Southern Kingdo

I am studying the prophetical book of Nahum and I want to share what I'm learning with you. It is about a specific time period in the Bible and will enhance your reading of other books of the Bible. Nahum is a minor prophetical book. This just means it is a short prophetical book, not that what it says is less important. The last 17 books of the Old Testament are the prophetical books of the Old Testament. The last 12 of these 17 books are called "minor." WHO: The book of Nah

"Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places; it if were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going." Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way