Channel surfing while on the elliptical machine in the gym yesterday I ran across a panel discussion from David Axelrod’s University of Chicago Institute of Politics. One of the panelists was columnist David Brooks and he was saying that, in his opinion, what we have lost over the past fifty years or so is what […]
Author: Darryl Williams
Reading the Old Testament Story
(Note: This is another in a series of postings of material used in a Confirmation class) Attempts to read through the Bible, beginning with the creation stories in Genesis and proceeding through the inspirational and perhaps comforting accounts of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph, and Moses often […]
Division, Civil War, Defeat, Exile, and Return
After the death of King Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel divided and engaged in civil war, Northern Israel against Southern Judah. The warnings of Samuel about kingship were validated as both were led by a series of mostly bad kings. But the Bible story depicts the continuing “steadfast love” of God throughout their trials […]
Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon
Everybody who grew up going to Sunday School in a Christian church knows the stories of the boy Samuel being called by God three times but thinking the calls were from the priest Eli, of Saul being anointed by Samuel as the first king of Israel, of David slaying Goliath, and of Solomon solving a […]
Israel’s Judges
There is that old Bible trivia question: Who in the Bible (besides Adam and Eve, of course) had no parents? Why, Joshua, the son of Nun, of course. Joshua took over from Moses and led the people in some degree of conquest of the Promised Land. Then Joshua died, and things got pretty messy with […]
Moses, Miriam, Aaron, and Joshua
Moses, his prophetess sister Miriam, his spokesman Aaron, and his successor Joshua are the dominant characters of the Old Testament books of Exodus through Joshua. Abraham had just gotten up and gone when God told him to do so, but Moses started a new tradition by explaining why God had made a bad choice and […]
Three Patriarchs, Three Matriarchs, and a Favorite Son
Once Abraham shows up at the end of Genesis 11, the rest of the 50 chapters cover his life and the lives of the other patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people including his wife Sarah, their son Isaac and his wife Rebecca, and their troublesome twins, Jacob and Esau. Jacob, with minimal and non-exclusive […]
Primeval History in the Bible
Here is a brief and possibly helpful outline of the four major Biblical events in primeval or ancient or prehistorical times covered in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Whether these stories are taken as literal truth as some fundamentalist Christians do or as revelation of eternal truths told and eventually written in the genre […]
Prophets Prophets Prophets
In the fall of 2003 I took Dr. Lamontte Luker’s course in Old Testament Theology at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. A good portion of that course was on the thread of prophecy that runs from the first hint of messengers as prophets in Genesis 32 and first use of the Hebrew word for prophet, […]
Old Testament Timeline – Abraham to Jesus
In Genesis 12:1, God told Abram to get up and go, and Abram, setting an example for us all, got up and went, taking his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all their possessions, and headed for the land of Canaan. Abram, later to become Abraham, lived under a promise that God would bless him […]