Baldhead and the Youths
Read: 2 Kings 2:23-25 Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead! (v. 23) This story definitely was not in my family’s Bible storybook! It’s often seen as an embarrassment, especially when we imagine 42 innocent schoolboys being mauled because Elisha was sensitive about his hair loss. As someone whose hair went into retreat decades […]
A Story about Trust
Read: 1 Samuel 17:1-54 For the battle is the LORD’s. (v. 47) David and Goliath featured prominently in my children’s Bible storybook. David was a boy, after all, and Goliath a giant, a familiar figure in children’s literature. When I was a kid, I expected Goliath to say, “Fee-fi-fo-fum”! This story has a sort of […]
Rahab’s Legacy
Read: Joshua 2:1-12 I know that the LORD has given you the land. (v. 9) Sometimes it takes hundreds of years for a story to pay off. The book of Joshua begins with the peculiar story of the God-fearing prostitute Rahab, who protected spies sent to scout out Jericho. Rahab had heard about the mighty […]
A Snowball Effect
Read: Exodus 3:19-22; 32:1-6 And he received the gold . . . and made a golden calf. (Exodus 32:4) Have you ever wondered where the recently enslaved people of Israel, wandering around in the wilderness, got the gold that Aaron made into the golden calf? How could they have jewelry? There is a clue in […]
Careful What You Wish For
Read: Exodus 3:1-15 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” (v. 14) Mystery abounds here: I don’t know why the bush didn’t burn up or what exactly the burning bush is supposed to mean. God’s “I AM WHO I AM” name is enigmatic yet perfect. And I long for an encounter with God […]
Not Just the Coat
Read: Genesis 37:1-36 And he made him a robe of many colors. (v. 3) I sang songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat almost 50 years ago when I was in junior high. Although I’d seen the coat of many colors in our family’s Bible storybook, I really learned the story of Joseph and […]
Jacob at the Jabbok
Read: Genesis 32:22-32 And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. (v. 24) This is the ultimate inexhaustible story. I’ve read books, commentaries, sermons, and articles about it. It was the text for my ordination sermon years ago. I’ve thought about it for at least four decades. Yet after all of […]
The Con Man Gets Conned
Read: Genesis 29:15-30 Behold, it was Leah! (v. 25) My friend the used car salesman once said to me, “You have to take advantage of your friends because your enemies will never get close enough.” Laban must have been his ancestor. In Jacob’s dealings with Isaac and Esau, Jacob revealed himself as a con man. […]
Stealing the Blessing
Read: Genesis 27:1-45 The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. (v. 22) This story is as iconic as any in the Bible, yet I cannot say that there is any easy-to-apply moral or theological lesson in it. What’s going on when Jacob, with his mother’s help, tricks his father? […]