I used to be a member of a large community church that had an Institute that taught classes on the Bible. I took several classes and then I began to teach in the Institute. The first class I taught was Bible Basics. As we were going over the organization of the Old Testament books I had a woman ask why her Bible had more books than I was going over. The woman was from a Catholic background and she had brought her Catholic Bible to class. These extra books are called the Apocr

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 scourged by the Roman soldiers. A Roman flogging was brutal. The person was bent over a post and tied to it. The flagrum used to flog the person was made of leather, but on the end of the straps were metal and bits of bones and stones. The scourging would rip the flesh and bruise the body. Hebrew law required no more than 39 lashes, but Romans were not limited to that number. It was to be brutal enough to inflict severe pain and damage to the person, but for them to

Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea. Before we go a step further let's clarify how the Romans governed Judea. The Romans came into the region in 63 B.C. and took over rule. They wanted to control the land near their hated enemy, the Persians. They thought the people inhabiting the area had a strange religion, but continued to let them practice it at first. They just didn't care about that. The Romans imposed heavy taxation on the people they ruled. The Romans didn'

Peter, he was the most relatable of the disciples I think. Always the most vocal and sticking his foot in his mouth. Something about him just makes me smile. And I imagine he made Jesus smile too. We all need at least one friend like that. Simon Peter: Most often referred to as Peter. His Hebrew name was Simon and Jesus named him Cephas (John 1:42) which in Greek is translated Peter and means “rock” or “stone”. Peter is the brother of Andrew (Matthew 4:18). He was a fisherman

I am posting about the various people involved in the last day before the crucifixion of our Lord. I covered Judas Betrayed. The chief priests plotted to have Jesus killed. First we must understand who the chief priests were. Rome took over Judea in 63 B.C. They were more concerned about controlling the area near their rival world power Persia than they were about the Jewish people and what they thought was a strange religion. They permitted, at first, at least until Jesus' t

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

We don't mention the four letter "h" word too often these days. I'm talking about the word holy. We often act as if it is an outdated word, an outdated idea. My women's group is presently taking an online theology class and the professor spoke about God's holy-love. Being holy and being loving are attributes of God. In going over the Doctrine of God the professor was stressing what is a communicable attribute of God - qualities of God that have a parallel in ourselves. And th

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: “

There will be a future time of judgment and blessing by God that will bring about the end of the present heaven and earth as we know it. This will happen on the Day of the LORD. It is mentioned many times in the Old Testament prophetical books and described in Revelation 6-20. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:1,2 that as to the times and the epochs, we have no need of anything to be written to us. The day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. We should be expe

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