Samuel understood that sacrifices aren’t always sacrificial. He confronted Saul with the sin of going through the motions of sacrifice to avoid doing what God commanded. Saul was like the spoiled child who was ordered to leave the cookies in the jar. Instead, he cleaned out the jar but left one cookie behind, saying, “Well, I didn’t take them all!”
Continue reading WHAT’S THE MEANING OF SAMUEL’S PROVER, “OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE”?
The state of being a Nazirite is the result of a vow taken by someone who will thereafter be “separated” or “dedicated” to the Lord in a special way.
Continue reading WHAT IS A NAZIRITE?
Cattle were primarily a measure or symbol of wealth in biblical times. They were both familiar and significant, good characteristics for symbolic use. Among his livestock, the wealthy Job had a thousand oxen (Job 1:3). Cattle not only provided meat, milk, leather, and other by-products, they were the main animal workforce in ancient agricultural societies. Oxen (castrated bulls) pulled plows as well as wagons. Continue reading SIGNS AND SYMBOLS OF THE BIBLE (BULL/CALF)
Jael is the Bible character who sparks one-liners about “splitting headaches.” She’s the woman who jokesters like to refer to as “as expert at helping men ‘get things through their thick skulls!” But we are getting ahead of ourselves. A bit of context in needed.
Following the Israelites’ crossing of the Jordan River, Israel’s campaign to conquer and settle the promised land got off to a spectacular start. But over time, for multiple reasons, the effort sputtered and lost stem. Taking over a country is trying, not to mention tiring.
By Joshua’s final days, the people of God had pretty much given up attempting to squash the pockets of Canaanite resistance that were popping up left and right. After Joshua went to glory, the nation went off the rails. Continue reading WOMAN OF THBE BIBLE (JAEL:THE HOSTESS WITH THE HAMMER)
Birth is our universal means of arrival in life. We can’t begin to experience all that life has to offer until we have passed through the moment of birth. Life has a formative phase in the womb that the psalmist describes beautifully: Continue reading SINGS AND SYMBOLS (BIRTH)