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A Divine Pause
The Hebrew word selah occurs in the Bible only in the Psalms, and we don’t know exactly what it means. By inference, we’ve come to see it as a pause, a musical interlude, perhaps a time to reflect. God gave Josiah a selah. The last blog post explored the time in Josiah’s reign when the high priest discovered the Book of the Law. Rejoicing quickly turned to mourning when Shaphan read of the coming judgment. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. – 2 Kings 22:11 It’s generally accepted that the words Josiah heard were from Deuteronomy 28 and 29. Deuteronomy 28 goes…
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The Book of the Law
Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan and he read it. – 2 Kings 22:8 Have you ever wondered what the Book of the Law was? All 5 books of the Torah, or just Deuteronomy? Scholars disagree. And just how did it get lost in the first place?! Hilkiah found it during the reign of Josiah. But who lost it? Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, was a wicked king. He didn’t just rebel. He tried to stamp out worship of Yahweh. In Judea in those days, idol worship was…
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Jeremiah, Who Were You?
If you think, “Uggh, the weeping prophet. How depressing,” think again. Jeremiah is fascinating. He’s so much more than a man who needs a box of Kleenex. This blog post is part of a series on the inspiration for my inspirational fantasy series, The Prophet Chronicles. We’ve talked about Josiah – how he was crowned at age eight. EIGHT! His dad was a rotten guy. He probably made disastrous choices when it came to marriage. He started following the Lord around age fifteen. Why? He became a godly king. Who or what influenced him. Who would he have listened to? Jeremiah! What do we know about Jeremiah? The words of Jeremiah…
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Musings on Josiah
In preparation for the release of Daughter of Stone this summer, I’ll be doing a series of blog posts about some of the characters and events that inspired the story. The Prophet Chronicles is a fantastical retelling of the events before and during the Babylonian Exile. In studying the books of 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and Jeremiah, I had so many questions. There are so many things we just don’t know the specifics of. At the same time, there are so many things in their culture that have parallels in our own. We can look into the lives of the people of the Old Testament and…
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On Being Salt and Light
Sean McDowell recently hosted a Jewish guest on his podcast who vehemently denied that Jesus is the Messiah. It’s a great discussion. If you’re a fan of apologetics like me, you’ll enjoy this exercise. Listen to it and pause when he raises an objection. How would you answer these objections? In the words of Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing, “There’s a double meaning in that.” What is a biblical response to his objection? How can we address these objections in a winsome way? As always, Sean is respectful. He seeks to truly understand the position of his guest, and he knows we can’t argue people into the Kingdom. People believe what…
