It has been a while since I’ve done a newsletter and round-up of what’s been going on and we have covered a lot of ground over the last few months. Recently we’ve talked about honoring imperfect parents, even those who...
Why is believing every word of the Bible so important? Could it be that the gospel and our salvation depend on every word being true?
And as we look at the book of Job, we’ll talk about how God reveals Himself in the beauty of creation, the power of storms and volcanoes, and the intricacies of the human body. Yet, we’ll see that as Job said, all we know and see are “the mere edges of His ways.”
Job also knew some things that scientists didn’t understand until thousands of years later.
Why a fresh start through the Bible? And why “through” the Bible? Why not just read here and there, perhaps finding a subject that interests you? Or how about a short devotional? As long as you read something every day, isn’t that good enough? Today’s reading from the book of Psalms gives us a very good illustration of why it’s so important to read God’s Word in context.
The psalmist in Psalm 1 talks about a man who is like a tree planted on a riverbank where it gets plenty of water and is always fruitful. The psalmist goes on to say that God prospers whatever this man does.
I don’t know about you, but I want my life to be like that. But despite some who teach that God wants to make every believer prosperous, there are requirements for this prosperity. There are things we must do and other things we are to avoid. We also need to understand what the psalmist meant when he wrote about prosperity. If we don’t, we may find ourselves disillusioned, even angry, with God.
But this is just one example of the importance of understanding God’s Word in context, in its entirety. One of the biggest problems I find among believers is a failure to know God, to know His character, and to know how He works through our tests and trials. As a result, far too many lead faithless defeated lives.