Isaiah: Judgment and Mercy

Job interviews can be tricky. If you’re conducting the interview, you want to get a total picture of the candidate, but if you’re the candidate you might be tempted to present only your best features, even if the portrait you give is a bit one-sided. Our modern-day understanding of God can also be…

Song of Songs: Love Celebrated

Of all emotions, love is the most celebrated in art, literature, and song. There seems to be no end to our appetite for depictions, words or melodies that extol the delights, depths, or devastations of romantic love. Song of Songs describes the love between a man and a woman. In a world that has de…

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes: Wisdom

I serve as president of a small public charity that gives scholarships to undergraduate students. Recently one recipient wrote a letter of thanks, saying: “I am grateful for your investment in my career, and it won’t go to waste.” Then he quoted Proverbs 14:23, “All hard work brings a profit.” Pro…

Psalms: Expressing Emotion

Have you ever wanted to express your feelings to someone but couldn’t find the right words? Maybe you stood in the greeting card aisle hunting for the perfect card to express what was in your heart. When you found the right card, did you feel a sense of thankfulness for the person who wrote it? Pro…

Job: Poise in Pain

Have you ever questioned God? When something terrible happens to us, we may wonder if we can ask God hard questions. The short answer is, yes. But we also don’t want to cross into sinfully accusing God. We must ask, Is my question a real question or an accusation? Has God already given me an answer…

Esther: God’s Mysterious Way

While a large contingent of Jewish people returned to their homeland, many remained in exile where the kings of Babylon and Persia had taken them. Some exiles rose to positions of authority and power and made lives for themselves in foreign lands. Most importantly, they remained committed to the Go…

Nehemiah: Rebuilding the Nation

What kind of work is most valuable in the eyes of God? Some people think that the kind of work God most values is ministry. That assumption can leave many with the sense that the work they do every day has little value beyond a paycheck. Are those in ministry the only ones storing up treasure in he…

Ezra: Back to Basics

In the classic film The Princess Bride, the swashbuckling Inigo Montoya tries to restart his life after the failed kidnapping of Princess Buttercup. “When the job went wrong, you went back to the beginning,” he reminded his leader. Israel went wrong and they ended up in exile. In the book of Ezra, …

1 and 2 Chronicles: God Has a Plan

If you own stock in a company, you are keenly aware of one thing: If the company goes out of business, your dividends disappear. You can’t expect to be paid when the company that is supposed to pay you no longer exists! God made promises of forgiveness to Israel, but at the end of 1 and 2 Kings th…

1 and 2 Kings: Leadership Fails

When experiments go wrong, it can be an opportunity for learning. Thomas Edison famously quipped, “I have not failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” But when a failed experiment doesn’t provoke change, there is no progress. We must learn from our mistakes, or we will repeat them. Israel …