Archives: Pastors' Corner

  If you’ve ever driven in thick fog you know that the fog hides things that are real and in front of you. You strain to see them but the fog is just too thick. Circumstances, especially negative ones, can do the same thing. Bad circumstances can be like a fog which keeps us from seeing the good things and/or the possibilities around us. In the book of Ruth we are introduced to a woman named Naomi, an Israelite who moved with her husband to the land of Moab.   While there, her husband and both her sons die, leaving Naomi […]

As a child growing up in Sunday school I always thought of Samson as a “good guy”. I seem to remember him being portrayed as a man who followed God but made a mistake in allowing his hair to be cut but who redeemed himself in the end by killing the Philistines. But I think the traditional Sunday school portrayal of Samson leaves out many, many things. Samson was a mess from day one. He had little to no respect for his parents. He married a non-Israelite woman. He went after a prostitute. He was vengeful and prone to fits […]

In the book of Judges we have the story of a man named Gideon. Gideon is chosen by God to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites. Gideon is not a warrior. He is not a powerful man. But God chooses him anyway. Gideon reluctantly agrees and then God reduces his army from over 30,000 to 300 people. Why does God do this? In chapter 7 we read that God does this so that everyone will know that God was the one who did the miraculous deliverance, not the people themselves. But this must have caused incredible stress on Gideon, don’t […]

The book of Judges covers a period of approximately 400 years after the death of Joshua. It is a period of time where God records His people in periods of obedience and disobedience. God warned His people not to follow the gods of the original inhabitants of the promised land. God had defeated those gods and shown them to be powerless, nevertheless, God’s people began to follow them. This got me to think about the following question: “What is the “power” of false gods?” I understand the power of the real God. If God exists then we would expect Him […]

I often speak about “cross-stitch” verses, sentences from the Bible that are often found cross-stitched and hanging on a wall, or engraved on a plaque and sitting on a desk. In Joshua 24 we have one of the most “famous” verses of the Old Testament. Joshua is speaking to the children of Israel after most of the promised land has been conquered. He is encouraging them to follow the Lord and he says this: 15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers […]

Joshua chapters 13-18 are not the most riveting or interesting chapters in the Bible. These chapters primarily contain the boundaries of the promised land for each of the tribes of Israel. But in chapter 14 we are introduced to a man that we last met in Numbers chapter 13. His name is Caleb. Caleb and Joshua were the two spies who came through the promised land and said that God would give them the land. Joshua and Caleb were the ONLY men over the age of 20 who were allowed to enter the promised land. Every other male over 20 […]

  In chapters 7-12 of Joshua we read of the Israelites capturing the people in the promised land. God was pretty specific in His instructions that the Israelites should kill all of the people in the boundary of the promised land. As you might imagine, this wouldn’t go over well with all of those people. A people named the Gibeonites decide that since they can’t defeat Israel, perhaps they can trick Israel. They pretend to be travellers from far away, using moldy, dry bread and sandals and clothing that are worn out. When presented with these people, we read that […]

Today we begin the book of Joshua. Joshua was selected by God to lead the people of Israel after the death of Moses. Joshua opens with God’s people poised to enter the promised land. After a miraculous crossing of the Jordan River, Joshua and the men of Israel stand firmly in enemy territory and their first move is to circumcise each other….that’s right…I said they circumcise each other. You see these men were not circumcised as they wandered in the wilderness. Circumcision was important because this act identified the men as belonging to God and the inheritors of God’s covenantal […]

I have to admit that I have not given any thought to what I’d like written on my tombstone. Here are a couple of funny ones that I recently read: “Here lies the body of our Anna, Done to death by a banana, It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low, But the skin of the thing that made her go.”    “Here lies the father of 29. He would have had more, But he didn’t have time.” In Deuteronomy chapter 34 we read these words about Moses as he dies, “10 But since then there has not arisen in Israel […]

We have a very interesting situation in Numbers chapter 32. Remember that God had established the eastern boundary of the promised land, the land that He was giving to Israel, as the Jordan River. But as the Israelites are poised to cross over, two and one half tribes of the 12 tribes come to Moses and propose that they would like to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan, not crossing the river, because they had lots of livestock and the grazing and pasture land was very good there. At first, Moses gets upset because he thinks that these […]