As Joshua comes to the end of his life, much of the Promised Land remains just a promise. The people either avoided the hardship of the battle or decided that it would be more convenient to put the Canaanites to work for them rather than drive them out. We often face the same tension. God promises us the life that could be ours by His Spirit, but it feels like too much work. We’d rather make peace with our sins than put them to death. This is still a prescription for defeat for the people of God.
Joseph is given a dream of greatness and royalty, but he’s rejected and despised. Each time people try to harm him, he ends up closer to the throne. After his enemies presume him dead, he ascends to power and brings salvation and forgiveness to many. Joseph shows what kind of Saviour to look for and helps to identify Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s plan.
Today’s E100 reading looks at the story of Noah’s Ark. Everybody knows this story, right? Children love drawing the zebras and monkeys, and adults endlessly speculate about how everything fit and what it might have been like. But all of those things distract us from the message that Noah’s Ark is intended to convey. Do you know what it teaches? There are several important lessons that we should hear from Noah’s Ark no matter what our age.
When you read the Bible, usually the focus is on function over form. The “what” seems to matter more to God than the “how.” Why do Christians get so particular about how people are baptized then?
How the transgender movement helps us better understand the Bible’s teaching about spiritual growth.
It must have seemed odd. As crowds of people were responding to the preaching of John, they came forward to be baptized by him. But as one person came to do so, John tried to stop him. Is he beyond hope? Is he too sinful to be forgiven by God? Is his heart not in the right place?
It’s easy to put other Christians and other churches who have rejected God’s commands in a different category from ourselves. We say things like, “I can’t believe they did that,” but our surprise says more about us than it does about them.
If you find yourself rushing through your reading, deliberately slow down. The Bible doesn’t TikTok well. Our digital scrolling trains us to skim but God’s Word needs to be stored and hidden deep within us to have its effect.
If you just need some life hacks, maybe a Christian self-help book will do. But if you realize that your problems go deeper than that, you need something more powerful. When you invest in daily Bible reading, you’re taking a blow torch to the impurities in your life and a sledgehammer to the hardhearted attitudes that get in the way of your growth.
Hopefully, you’re not reading this because you want to start a cult. But I think it’s important that we understand the ingredients of Christian cults so that we can recognize them when they come. Here’s how you might start a cult that taught that you have to be baptized to be saved.
