The story in Judges 13–16 is intended to both warn and encourage. If we wish honestly to understand what God did and taught through Samson, we must ask ourselves not what any fanciful mind can now, in the light of the New Testament, bring out of the narrative, but what good did the contemporaries […]
Deborah was no feminist; but her private ministry made a huge impact. [dropcap] I [/dropcap]srael’s third fall into gross idolatry recorded in the book of Judges occurred during the eighty years of rest and quiet following the judgeship of Ehud (3:30). This was followed by a third servitude, longer than either of the two preceding, […]
“He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not” (Ps. 15:4). In a Bournemouth art gallery there is a series of paintings by Edwin Long depicting the story of Jephthah. The largest of them pictures the return from battle, with the daughter coming out to welcome her father. The last of the series […]
Singular men of God in a pluralistic society. It is the sad record of ecclesiastical history that the Church has generally been unfaithful to the call of God. It is obvious, because of this, that restoration collectively is no longer possible. Christians are sometimes misled, even as they think of the revivals effected by God, […]
A helpful present application to a story from the distant past. The variety of gifts in the Church is in itself a forcible reminder of the indispensability of any member. All are essential to the well-being of the whole. Since all are unique, it also follows that the work given to one cannot be […]
What an eloquent “Moreover”! “Moreover I want her to be my wife.” Nothing but Christ and a definite personal link with Him will avail for us in our need. We have to learn under divine teaching the utter inadequacy of the legal principle, and this is brought out typically in Ruth chapter 4. Man […]
We know where the field is, too! Boaz was a “mighty man of wealth.” This expression is not found in Scripture anywhere else, but you know that Boaz is a picture of the Lord Jesus, our Kinsman. There is no reason why God’s people should live as paupers; everything our “mighty man of wealth” […]
The land called India, with the immensity of its need, cries out for our hearts. As of May 11, 2000 the population of India officially reached one billion—not one billion statistics but one billion souls for whom Christ died. I cannot take it in. It doesn’t compute. I read the numbers but what do they […]
Wrapped up in dirty clothes lay a piece of everlasting. When I went to southern India in 1946, there was an orphanage, a school, and a hospital on a mission station in Karnataka state, 100 miles south of Bangalore. At first, I worked as a nurse in the hospital and lived in the orphanage with […]