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Even Leviticus

By |2024-02-29T01:33:26-05:00February 29th, 2024|

The topic was Leviticus, and I had a confession to make. “I skipped a lot of the reading,” I told my Bible study group. “I’m not reading about skin diseases again.”

That’s when my friend Dave spoke up. “I know a guy who believed in Jesus because of that passage,” he said. Dave explained that his friend—a doctor—had been an atheist. He decided that before he completely rejected the Bible, he’d better read it for himself. The section on skin diseases in Leviticus fascinated him. It contained surprising details about contagious and noncontagious sores (13:3–44) and how to treat them (14:8–9). He knew this far surpassed the medical knowledge of that day—yet there it was in Leviticus. There’s no way Moses could have known all this, he thought. The doctor began to consider that Moses really did receive his information from God. Eventually he put his faith in Jesus.  

If parts of the Bible bore you, well, I’m with you. But everything it says is there for a reason. Leviticus was written so the Israelites would know how to live for Him. As we learn more about this relationship between God and His people, we learn about God Himself.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, wrote the apostle Paul (2 Timothy 3:16). Let’s read on. Even Leviticus.

Beating as One

By |2022-12-27T01:33:03-05:00December 27th, 2022|

Stories have captivated humans since the dawn of creation—functioning as a way to pass down knowledge long before written language existed. We’ve all known the delight of hearing or reading a story and being immediately engaged by such opening lines as “once upon a time.” The power of a story appears to extend beyond merely enjoyment: when we listen to a story together, our heartbeats seem to synchronize! Though our individual heartbeats vary over the course of a day, and might only match another’s coincidentally, new research indicates our hearts may all fall into the same rhythm when we hear the same story at the same time.

God begins telling us His story with the words, “In the beginning” (Genesis 1:1). From the moment Adam and Eve first drew breath (v. 27), God has used that unfolding story to shape and influence not just our individual lives but also—and perhaps more importantly—our collective life as His children. Through the Bible—the most magnificent nonfiction story ever recorded—our hearts as believers in Jesus are joined together as people set apart for His purposes (1 Peter 2:9).

In response to that story, may our hearts beat in shared rhythm, delighted by the Author’s creative works. And may we share His story with others, declaring “his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples” (Psalm 96:3), inviting them to become part of it too.

When God Speaks

By |2020-11-13T12:01:31-05:00November 13th, 2020|

Lily, a Bible translator, was flying home to her country when she was detained at the airport. Her mobile phone was searched, and when the officials found an audio copy of the New Testament on it, they confiscated the phone and questioned her for two hours. At one point they asked her to play the Scripture app, which happened to be set at Matthew 7:1–2: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Hearing these words in his own language, one of the officers turned pale. Later, she was released and no further action was taken.

We don’t know what happened in that official’s heart at the airport, but we know that God’s word accomplishes what He desires (see Isaiah 55:11). Isaiah prophesied these words of hope to God’s people in exile, assuring them that even as the rain and snow make the earth bud and grow, so too does God’s word achieve His purposes (vv. 10–11).   

As those who follow Christ, we can read this passage to bolster our confidence in God. We may feel that we’re facing unyielding circumstances, such as Lily with the airport officials, but we can trust that God is working through His word, even when we don’t see the final outcome.

The Forecaster’s Mistake

By |2020-04-16T12:10:43-04:00April 19th, 2020|

At noon on September 21, 1938, a young meteorologist warned the U.S. Weather Bureau of two fronts forcing a hurricane northward toward New England. But the chief of forecasting scoffed at Charles Pierce’s prediction. Surely a tropical storm wouldn’t strike so far north. Two hours later, the 1938 New England Hurricane made landfall on Long Island...

Hungry for God

By |2020-04-15T16:51:15-04:00April 16th, 2020|

A new believer in Jesus was desperate to read the Bible. However, he’d lost his eyesight and both hands in an explosion. When he heard about a woman who read Braille with her lips, he tried to do the same—only to discover that the nerve endings of his lips had also been destroyed. Later, he was filled with joy when he discovered that he could feel the Braille characters with his tongue...

Healing Words

By |2020-04-09T16:54:33-04:00April 14th, 2020|

A recent study has shown that encouraging words from a health-care provider can help patients recuperate faster from their ailments. A simple experiment exposed volunteer study participants to a skin allergen to make them itch and then compared the reactions between those who received assurance from their physician and those who didn’t...

Truth: Bitter or Sweet?

By |2019-10-10T07:45:20-04:00October 17th, 2019|

I’d had the spot on my nose for the better part of a year when I went to the doctor. The biopsy results came back days later with words I didn’t want to hear: skin cancer. Though the cancer was operable and not life-threatening, it was a bitter pill to swallow. God commanded Ezekiel to swallow a bitter pill—a scroll containing words of lament and woe (Ezekiel 2:10; 3:1–2)...

Do What It Says

By |2019-09-25T12:16:50-04:00October 6th, 2019|

Brian was scheduled to be an usher at his brother’s wedding, but he was a no-show. Understandably, family members were disappointed, including his sister Jasmine who was the Scripture reader for the occasion. At the ceremony she flawlessly read from the well-known Scripture passage about love in 1 Corinthians 13. But after the wedding when her father asked her to deliver a birthday gift to Brian, she hesitated...

Blue Lines

By |2019-09-09T12:15:24-04:00September 8th, 2019|

Downhill skiing racecourses are often marked by swaths of blue paint sprayed across the white, snowy surface. The crude arcs might be a visual distraction for spectators but prove to be vital to both the success and safety of the competitors. The paint serves as a guide for the racers to visualize the fastest line to the bottom of the hill...

More Than Hacks

By |2019-08-12T17:17:08-04:00August 22nd, 2019|

I recently found a “hack” (a clever solution to a tricky problem) when one of my grandchildren warmed her toy rabbit on our fireplace glass. The resulting globs of fake bunny fur weren’t pretty, but a fireplace expert provided a great hack—a tip for how to make the glass look like new. It worked, and now we no longer allow stuffed animals near the fireplace...

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