THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

   We have areas in our lives that are so obedient to the Will of God and we have other areas in our lives that are so flagrantly disobedient to God. As I read about Solomon bringing this heathen women back to Jerusalem with him and building her, her own house, I am nauseated. Either in disgust, because God had told him not to marry foreign women because they would turn his heart away or I'm nauseated because it reminds me of my own life, at different seasons, or maybe it's a little of both. And of course, as with you and I, to appease his conscience he does something devoutly religious, after being devoutly rebellious, "Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the Lord on the altar of the Lord".  I wonder if Solomon had read about when Samuel rebuked King Saul with these words, "Obedience is better than sacrifice". I remember as a young Christian going out of town with a foreign woman. We stayed over night in a city, I got a hotel, requested twin beds and ...

   You would think, that by reading Paul's writing today, that he was the worse Christian. The type of Christian you sure don't want in any kind of leadership position in your church. You wouldn't want Paul in any ministry where he is supposed to be an example to anybody else.  "And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is , in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right,  but I can't .   Let's just stop right there! What do you mean you want to do what's right but you can't?! What is that Paul? You're an example here to all these converts you have won over. Paul goes on to write,  "I want to do what is good, but I don't".     Paul, you're the one that has started all these churches, you're the one who wrote, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" and now you're sitting here saying, "you can't do good". Paul continues in his writing, " I don't' want to do what is w...

    I'm always reminded when I read my Bible that "we are made in God's image". How often, I as the authority in my home have been persuaded by the children that I love so much to be persuaded against what I have said. I clearly laid down how things would be, it was set in stone (or maybe not) how things were going to be, what we were going to do or where we were going to go and how long we were going to stay, but yet, as I look back, somehow, these little kids were able to influence me, the great authority in the home, to do otherwise. How does a child, who knows really nothing about nothing, influence an adult who has been living & experiencing life for 50 years? It must be this thing called "love" that allows us to be influenced by a lesser "species" (if I can use that term). Take the example I have just given you and multiply it  to the Nth  Degree  and you have some sort of resemblance of us, a much, much lower species, influencing the Alm...

   As we are reading our text today in the Old Testament, we are reminded of a Solomon that we often forget ever existed. It's hard to imagine a Solomon that was not always wise, powerful and influential, but it is a reality that there is a Solomon that we could never imagine. We've come to know Solomon as the Wisest, Richest most powerful influential King Israel ever had and cannot think of him otherwise. If I sound redundant here it is simply because I am trying to stress the point that we only know of the Solomon that God raised up and did the miraculous in. This is God's work! I stand before a congregation every Sunday and they look at a Pastor, they look at a man that has some wisdom ( I at least would hope), a man with influence, a man that is different from before the miraculous change.  Only a few people will ever know the Richard that once was; the rest, will only, ever know me as Richard, the Christian, the wise Pastor, the steadfast one, etc...etc.....I ca...

        I was just speaking with a brother (a Christian) the other day who has willful sin, but yet seems to continue in it. I wonder if God would find him blameless, I wonder if God would find you blameless? In our text we read,  " 1  LORD, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?    2  The one whose walk is blameless,"  We can try to worm around this if we want, but why would you want to risk eternity on trying to squirm around a clear call from God.  Question you might ask then is "so do we have to be perfect to get in to heaven? No, of course not, but we do have to repent and turn away from "what we know" to be sin in our lives. Paul writes to "the Saints" at Corinth and says, " don't be deceived .....the  ________ will not inherit the Kingdom of God". And he goes on to list a whole plethora of "willful" "knowledgeable" sins that people in the church are indulging in. Be bla...

         In our reading today we are admonished  by God  to be  "kind to the poor".  I believe Christians today are confused on this whole issue of " the poor ". Perhaps it stems from Jesus condoning the breaking of the alabaster jar on himself and when the disciples criticize this act and say, "what a waste, the bottle of perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor", Jesus rebukes them and says, "the poor you will always have with you, what she has done is a good thing".  We almost see a disregard for the poor being reflected in Jesus' statement. Sometimes the Church can project an anti-sympathy for the poor, "the poor are like that because they refuse to serve God, or they deserve it or they are just lazy people that want to collect welfare, they don't want to work....blah...blah..." and what this can create in Christians is a lack of empathy for the poor. Christians may be insensitive to the needs of the poor...

   " Some men were set apart for the ministry of prophesying " That's interesting....the text goes on to say  "t he sons of Asaph were under the supervision of Asaph, who prophesied under the king " Imagine your ministry is always to prophecy? I wonder if they ever just prophesied something, for the king, that really was more them, then it was, actually God speaking?  Do we ever do that? Have we ever prophesied, "thus saith The Lord" but it really is " thus saith me ". It's not necessarily evil, neither is it a blatant lie like the false prophets during Jeremiah's time, but yet, they are not really words from God. God actually speaks on this issue, The Lord says, "they prophecy out of the premonitions of their own heart"  It's not "necessarily evil", they hear a sermon, are moved by it, think of a few scriptures that could attach to that sermon and they are really in agreement with the sermon and next thing you...

  Some might be surprised, in the reading today, at the scope and enormity of The Temple duties. "The duties of the Levites was to help..."  So I guess now that we are all New Testament believers, we know that Old Testament ministry has fallen by the wayside...or has it? Hundreds or perhaps even thousands, (depending on the size of your church) just show up each Sunday and everything seems to just be functioning fine.  I remember as a child I put a tooth under my pillow at night and in the morning, "shazam" the tooth was gone and money was in its place.  How did that happen? To be honest, I really didn't care, as long as I got the money.  Many believers show up to church every week-end and "shazam" everything is working and in its place.  How did that happen?  Like, me, as a child, they probably have the same sentiment, "who cares".  The fact is, the care and functioning of the Temple takes a lot of hands.  For the Temple to function man...

    I remember sometime before either my sister or myself, came to know Christ, my sister had changed her Dog Tags (we were both in the Marine Corps) to read “Jewish” as her religion. I was dumbfounded by this. My Dog Tags had “Roman Catholic” in scripted on them. My sister was always eccentric, but this was odder than ever to me and to a family that grew up in the French Province of Quebec , we were Caucasian French Catholics, where did Jew fit in with that? And who would want to be a Jew anyway? In my eyes, Jews were strange people. I grew up around many Jews in Montreal . We had a whole Community in Outremont , of Orthodox Jews, with their side locks or side curls, black hats and long black trench coats. They seemed to be the most religious people in the City. Who would want to be religious, who would want to be a Jew? What was wrong with my sister? In our text today Paul makes this profound statement, “For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish paren...

  Mark this day in your bible, this is the establishment of “The Church” as we know it today. David has the best of intentions, but the best of intentions from the best of people does not always produce the best of results. We can begin to view certain people, especially of “the clergy” as people that can do no wrong and say no wrong. Nathan himself is caught up in this and is so quick to tell David, “do whatever you have in mind, for God is with you”, but Nathan is completely wrong.   The  Temple  is built, this we know, by David’s son and we are still recovering from the effects of this decision to put God in a building. In the middle ages, also known as the Dark Ages, the structure, the edifice, the building became man’s sole connection with God. It was a cold existence; man’s relationship with God became the structure, stained glass windows, cathedral ceilings, sacraments, and ceremony. All this was introduced   to substitute  the inner relationshi...

 IN our reading today we get some insight about what happened in the past,...that didn't work! Wouldn't we all like to get insight into why our efforts have failed in the past! Today, we get insight as to why they failed to bring in "The Ark of The Covenant". The insight is that they didn't do it "the right way" and because they didn't, they fell flat on their faces and failed. We, in our super-spirituality say, "well, let's just do it and God is God, it will all work out". However it doesn't all work out, they fail and God never says a thing! Are we catching this! There's Grace, God will cover.......not this time! People actually died! God says, "you didn't seek me about "the right way" to do this; and you didn't even seek me after you failed, so I will just sit here and watch you fall flat on your faces". The confession/admittance in our text today is that "we didn't do it the right way and...

Sometimes the most joyous of occasions are met with disappointment and grief, so much so, that I'm often to get too excited about anything. David makes a decision to bring back the Arc of the Covenant, to Jerusalem. This is a festive celebration with great fanfare and David is in high spirits, until the Arc wobbles, Uzzah reaches out to stabilize it and gets killed. The Bible tells us, "And David became angry that day". Was he angry or was he festive? Was he in a good mood or a foul mood? Was this a good day or a bad day? I remember some years ago, my neighborhood and I did I festive Christmas Trailer Caroling around our block. Many of us were on the trailer, sitting on the hay, drinking hot cocoa and singing Carols and others were alongside, walking with us. It was quite a festive occasion, everyone was in high spirits, until one of the kids got his leg under the moving trailer and the trailer went right over it. The kid screamed his head off, the driver pulling the trai...

 The only thing we've heard about this movement is………”  Are you ready for the answer? Obviously the answer is going to be, “it’s the best thing that has ever happened! People are healed, lives are restored, demoniacs are set free, the poor are being fed and taken care of…”  Unfortunately, to our surprise, or maybe not to our surprise, we read, “… only thing we know about this movement is that it is denounced everywhere ”.  That’s impossible. How could something so good be “denounced everywhere”. How could something that leaves a trail behind, of such good, not be embraced enthusiastically by every community? This is a movement that carries around it, all the evidence of a remarkable and benevolent ministry.  Paul is bit by a poisonous snake on the island and suffers no sickness. Paul prays for Publius’s father who has dysentery and he is healed. Paul prays for many others on the island and they are healed too. Paul is speaking before this crowd, as a prisoner wi...

 A little disobedience can’t hurt, right? Well then, let’s remove that scripture in Proverbs that God put in there that says, “ a little fly spoils all the ointment”. As we are busy reading about all the good things Solomon is doing “for the Lord”, …..the building of the Temple, the making of all the Holy Artifacts that will be used for worship and sacrifices for generations to come; there, mixed in the middle of all that, we read “he also built similar living quarters for Pharaoh’s daughter… whom he had married ”.  In the middle of all that good, surely there is room for a little faux-pas? Surely the Lord will overlook my one little transgression in the midst of all this good I’m doing.  Solomon was not the last person to ever think like that.  Many of God’s people think like that, not just Solomon. If Solomon was waiting for a sign, a bad omen to convince him he had done wrong, he didn’t get one. He didn’t’ get struck with lightning, the ground did not open up and ...

You were probably were skipping through the lineage in today's reading and probably missed what was penned about two of Ephraim's sons. Ezer and Elead, "these two were killed trying to steal livestock from the local farmers". If we continue to read out, this incident is described as a "tragedy". Ephraim mourned a long time for his boys, it was a senseless death. No doubt, Ephraim did not need his boys to steal cattle for him. It was a senseless act, a daring act, a stupid act, that cost these boys their lives. Their stupidity and this tragedy is penned in God's eternal Word. In recent months, we have had a number of senseless and stupid deaths in our city, mostly by young teens and twenty year olds. Maybe our prayer for our families should be "Lord, don't let their be stupid and senseless deaths in our family". The prayer that would have to follow that would be, "Lord, let the communication lines flourish in my home among our family...

THERE is a lot of stats about sons and tribes that might just cause you to doze off in our text today, but you can miss a great nugget of truth and revy (revelation) in the midst of it. Verse 10 "Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, " oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory!” I  would say that request is a number of things ....#1, it's pretty gutsy, #2, it's pretty self-serving, #3 it's pretty honest, maybe too honest or maybe not! Because surprisingly, God doesn't rebuke him for being so self centered and audacious to ask that God bless him and his family. What about the rest of the world, there's people starving all over the world and all your concerned about is that God bless you and your family, c'mon! So what is God's response...."And God granted his request!" What are you serious?! God granted him his request......well why don't I pray that then, why can he ask that and I can't? Who said you couldn't??? Why ...

 Paul's main problem is not that he believes in God, most people do.  Paul's main problem is that he is attached to a  certain group  of people that believes in God, " followers of The Way " he calls it and then goes on to say that is is also known as " a cult" .  Who in the world, who in their right mind, wants to be associated with a cult?! People who are enticed into cults are more often than not, people with issues, people who are mentally & emotionally weak, naive and in short..., stupid. The hardest thing in the world for a person who is none of the above, ..is to   "admit"  that they are in a group of religious people that are known as a cult. Many will not  "admit"  to this, many are not willing to die a  social death  and end up walking away. I never wanted to be perceived as a individual that was mentally and emotionally weak, naive, vulnerable and stupid, but when I  "admitted"  that I was a  ...