Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

Funny, disturbing, or a blessing?

In 2nd Kings, Elisha appears to be teased by a large group of young boys simply because he is bald.  So he curses them and then sends bears to maul them to death.  Is the prophet that petty and that cruel?  Or is something very different actually happening?  What is the real story?  And what is the allegory behind the story?

A future and a hope

There is a very popular Old Testament verse, from Jeremiah: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  We see it on coffee cups and on social media.  It seems to make an individual promise to each of us, affirming that God is always there to take care of us.  But in truth, this phrase is sometimes greatly misunderstood.  We look at its biblical context - and the true message behind this verse.

Praying for the chaplain

In 1st Peter, we are told:10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.  We often do not think that we have anything that we can offer to serve others.  As a chaplain, I once walked into a patient's room, a woman who was homeless, dying of cancer, and who owned nothing more than what she could carry on her back. But after she asked if the two of us could pray, I discovered that she had a great gift to offer me...

All the earth is the Lord’s

Hannah, a childless wife in a male-dominated world, found herself with no value in the eyes of her fellow Israelites.  She prayed to God, asking God to give her a child.  She told God that if he gave her a son, she would give that son back to God.  He granted her prayer - and she kept her promise.  Hannah shows us that God does not make one-way contracts...

The day is coming

On Christmas Eve, we look at the prophesy of Jeremiah, that there will be a "new covenant with the people of Judah".  He wrote this to the exiled Israelites in Babylon, to give them hope that they would one day regain the Promised Land.  When Jesus came into this world, this prophesy took on a far bigger and everlasting meaning...

Seeking

In Acts, Chapter 8, we meet the ultimate outsider: the Ethiopian euncuh.  God commands Philip to go find him.  The Ethiopian has traveled all the way to Jerusalem to learn about the Israelite God.  On his way home, he is trying to study the words of the Prophet Isaiah.  Philip teaches him the true meaning of these words - and baptizes him.  The seeker will now take his faith home.  We are all seekers - and all people are welcomed to the faith.

- wives to your own husbands

One of the most significant misinterpretations in the Bible, due to the difference between Greek and English as well as a deliberate modern insertion into ancient scripture, is the passage from Ephesians that seems to be focused specifically on ordering every woman to always subject herself to her husband's will.  We take a look at this passage and see what the Greek of Paul's original letter actually says.  We might be surprised...

But a step

Depending on the translation that one reads, David, in his desperation, with Saul wanting him dead either says, "But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death," or "But truly, as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death."  It turns out that the first translation is right: he says "soul", not "yourself live", and indeed, as Christians we know that the death of our soul should be more important than the death of our body.  But yes, God nonetheless created us to be afraid of death.  There happens to be a very good and very spiritually important reason for this fear ...

Our bones can live

Perhaps the most colorful prophetic vision in the Old Testament is Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dead bones rising up and forming a great army.  I happened to have recently talked to a homeless man who lived in a tunnel.  In many ways, he was like the people of Old Testament times, depending on prophets to lead them to God, depending on God to rescue them in this life.  We, as Christians, do not live in a tunnel.  We have great peripheral vision.  We have an individual relationship with God and can see far beyond this life.  We know that spiritually, not physically, and with God's forgiveness, we can rise over and over, like dry bones.

Let your light shine

Over and over in the New Testament, we are told to serve others, to let our light shine.  But the reason isn't simply so that we can help other people, which is, of course a blessed thing in itself.  We have been ordained to bring others to faith, to guide other people into the Kingdom of God. When we are told by Jesus: In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heave, we are being instructed to motivate others to give glory to God.
 

Be filled with the Holy Spirit

In Ephesians, Paul tells us to celebrate our faith by singing hymns and other Christian songs.  The New Testament does contain fragments of what appear to be early Christian hymns.  We celebrate the worship and evangelical impact of music on the Christian church.  In particular, hymns like Amazing Grace have hugely influenced converts over the last couple of centuries.

Lost in the wilderness

When the People of God were wandering in the desert, in what the Bible calls "the wilderness", God was directing an entire people toward its earthly home.  But as Christians, we have a personal relationship with God.  We don't have a covenant, like the Old Covenant, between God and all believers; rather, each of us has a personal covenant with God - we are individually led to our spiritual and our eternal home by God.  That is the heart of the New Covenant and the heart of our faith.
 

The woman with one thumb

In the Book of James, the author - possibly written by the kid brother of Jesus - tells us that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above".  A woman who had lost all her fingers and toes, except for one thumb, gave me a coloring that now hangs on the wall of my home office.  It is without doubt a perfect gift, and one that came from above.

The famous talking donkey

Only twice in the Bible does an animal talk - the voice of Satan coming from the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the  voice of God coming from the talking donkey in Numbers.  The great Gentile Prophet Balaam proves less godly than his donkey when Balaam proves blind to the angel in his path but the donkey sees the angel.  The angel is there to stop Balaam from doing a great evil.  Later, Balaam reverses course and speaks of his faith in God.  But even later, he waffles again, turning away from his faith.  That is how we live, our faith gaining and waning throughout our lives - and we must always be prepared to spot the angel standing in our path, warning us.

Orthodox faith

In 1st John, we learn much of the basics of orthodox Christianity: to accept Jesus as God as well as a human, to love God, to love people, and to understand that Jesus is our "lawyer" before God.  We also learn that we have been given a life in the Kingdom of God, as well as an eternal life.