When people read the Bible, they may be surprised to find shocking stories of wickedness mixed with stories of great faith, sometimes in the very same people. In other words, it contains stories of people like us. Judges reports on the chaotic situation in Israel after the death of Joshua during which a series of deliverers rescued God’s people time and time again from self-inflicted problems. At the end of the book, things spiraled out of control, but this failure reveals the main point of the book. In the end, the judges could not have lasting success but were signposts pointing forward to the answer to their failures and ours.
In I Peter 4:1-19, Peter continued the call for us to follow Christ by living exemplary lives according to God’s will. Above all, we...
God grows his church usually by ordinary and sometimes extraordinary means.
This first parable from Matthew provides the key to understanding all the parables and to entering the kingdom of God.