Jeremiah 16:1-18:23, 35:1-19 There are times when it feels like our country and our world are doomed. Our culture has not only turned from God’s word but has completely gone against it. I often ask my sisters how difficult it is to raise their kids in this environment. From my perspective it seems like there is no hope for the younger generations. To me this problem also seems like a relatively ne...  Read More

Jeremiah 12:1-15:21 Honesty is the best policy. Though we may believe this idea, I wonder whether we embrace it in our relationship with God. Sometimes we may find ourselves filtering what we tell God, even though he already knows everything. If we are going to be brutally honest with anyone, it should be easiest to do so with God. Notice the way Jeremiah speaks to God in chapter 12: "I bring a ca...  Read More

Jeremiah 8:4-11:23 Every baseball season I had to re-earn my calluses. As I swung the bat thousands of times, the skin on my palms would slowly toughen. That is great for sports but terrible when our hearts become callused. When we no longer feel guilt, shame, or embarrassment, then something is very wrong. Three times Jeremiah speaks of Judah reaching this condition and being unable to blush. The...  Read More

Daniel 2:1-3:30; Jeremiah 7:1-8:3 People are fickle. I see this in my kids where their favorite food one day becomes something they refuse to eat the next. We can see it in the divorce rate of our country. Sadly, we can also see it in people’s relationship with Christ. Those who are passionate about Jesus one day can become those who are apathetic or verbally reject him in the next. We see this fi...  Read More

Jeremiah 19:1-20:18; Daniel 1:1-21 Obedience can be hard. It often means choosing the harder path in the moment, rejecting instant gratification, and dying to ourselves. This was the calling of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a faithful prophet of God but the response from Judah was apathy at best, and often outright rejection. His obedience in speaking for God in Jeremiah 19 led to imprisonment and beatin...  Read More

Jeremiah 25:15-38, 36:1-32, 45:1-46:28 When starting a puzzle, you typically start with the border and then move into the center. The border helps to provide a framework for understanding where the rest of the pieces go. When we read the Bible, we similarly need a framework from the whole Bible to understand individual pieces. Part of constructing this framework is to utilize clear verses to help ...  Read More

2 Chronicles 36:1-4; 2 Kings 23:31-37; 2 Chronicles 36:5; Jeremiah 22:1-23, 26:1-24; 2 Kings 24:1-4; Jeremiah 25:1-14 In a courtroom, evidence is critical to prove the guilt or innocence of the person on trial. Similarly, God desires that we would have evidence in front of a watching world to show we are his children. Jeremiah 22:15-16 speaks of Josiah and says, "‘He did what was right and just, s...  Read More

Zephaniah 2:8-3:20; 2 Chronicles 35:20-27; 2 Kings 23:29-30; Jeremiah 47:1-48:47 We have a God who cries. We see this most clearly in Jesus who weeps at the grave of Lazarus and over the unrepentant city of Jerusalem. Yet God is seen to cry repeatedly in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 48 we see God wailing over Moab, moaning over the people of Kir Hareseth, and weeping over others. This crying com...  Read More

Habakkuk 1:1-3:19; Zephaniah 1:1-2:7 All of us probably have a series of questions that we cannot wait to ask God. They may be theological, Biblical, or life situations we find hard to reconcile with God's grace, mercy, and love. This is the situation in which Habakkuk found himself. He asks God a series of questions beginning with: how God could remain silent in the face of injustice. He wants to...  Read More

2 Kings 23:1-20; 2 Chronicles 34:29-33; 2 Kings 23:21-28; 2 Chronicles 35:1-19; Nahum 1:1-3:19 One of the beautiful works of the Reformation was the emphasis on the fact that salvation comes through personal faith in Christ alone (sola fide). This is not something that reformers like Luther, Calvin and others fabricated but is found throughout the pages of Scripture. Israel has modeled for us king...  Read More

Jeremiah 5:20-6:30; 2 Kings 22:3-20; 2 Chronicles 34:8-28 We hear so many different sounds and words every day but many of them simply go in one ear and out the other. Today, we encounter three different ways we might respond to God's words when we hear them. The first possible response is to have “ears but do not hear” (Jeremiah 5:21) This is a common refrain throughout the Bible for those who he...  Read More

Jeremiah 2:23-5:19 When high schoolers apply to colleges, they often have a safety school. This is a college where they feel confident they will be accepted if all other options come to nothing. Judah began to treat God as a safety god. They had turned to a myriad of idols and only when those other options failed, they actually turn to God. Unlike a safety school that may be happy to still have th...  Read More