I love quotes. Sometimes I will Google a book and read through the quotes and excerpts and think I have read the book. That’s part of the challenge in our study of Isaiah.  It’s one of the most quoted books in the Bible and, in fact, is quoted over 100 times in the New Testament. So, we feel like we have read and understood it just by the quotes we’ve seen and read. Or, we take familiar sections and study them out of context and believe we have understood the whole message of the prophet.  It’s not possible. Not even now. It is such a complex book but we only…

For many of us the image of an Old Testament prophet looks like a scraggly homeless person weaving along the street mumbling to himself with no one listening. For others it may be a wild and austere figure like John the Baptist from the desert eating locusts and honey while dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt shouting about repentance. For some it may be a stomach-acid-washed Jonah kicking and screaming his way to Nineveh or the weeping prophet Jeremiah crying from the pit For others it may be the clearly deranged Ezekiel baking bread over cow manure or laying on his side in the dust for 80 days.…

Love that is as strong as death. Unquenchable love. Burning love.  Love that cannot be bought at any price. That is our text this morning. There are so many definitions of love! We use the word to describe food (I love BBQ) to styles (I love that dress on you) to patriotism (I love America). After time, it loses its meaning. A few years ago I took Carol to my old elementary school in Cincinnati and had her sit on the stone bench in the playground where in the fourth grade Tina Lewis gave me my first kiss.  I remembered that kiss for a week. We call that puppy love.…

Tradition has it this text is the romance between Solomon and his second wife, Naamah. His first wife from Egypt was basically a political maneuver when he was a young man and the only wife mentioned by name is his second who was an Ammonite, a foreigner and dark-skinned. As well, as he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, I find it hard to believe he would have had the energy or creativity to compose such a letter to each of them. This was his first love and the mother of his son, Rehoboam, who became his successor.  This is Solomon before his great success, his wandering from the faith,…

So, here we are at the end and King Lemuel’s mother has given him some wise advice. “Do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings.” If you have read the news or watched television any time in the last forty years then I don’t need to say much about this one.  There are women who are attracted to powerful men. There are powerful men who are distracted and seduced by certain kinds of women and they always seem to find each other. How many leaders have been brought down by lingering when they should have left? How many have wasted themselves and their missions…

It was Karl Marx who said capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction. The very thing that makes it effective – the creation of wealth – will cause it to implode on itself. Systems often do and individuals as well.  As Oswald Chambers said, it is not our weaknesses that cause us to sin because we know them and guard against them. It is the overuse and overconfidence in our strengths. “Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.” As you know, I do not…

This morning I want to look at two themes in Proverbs 16: Where do you want to go and who do you want to become on your way there? First, planning where you want to go.  If you are a serious Calvinist or a devout Muslim you might say, “God willing or Inshallah” as you make plans because you believe whatever plans we make are completely dependent on whatever God wills so we don’t really make plans as much as we make informed guesses. If you are a New Age thinker then you might say, “I can be whatever I will myself to be and go to any destination I…

The picture of women in the Old Testament is not a simple one. It is more like Jackson Pollock’s style than a black and white photograph. They are virgins, wives, prostitutes, adulteresses, and widows.  They are heroes and villains. They are naive and wise.  They are seducers and seduced. They are sinners and saints. In other words, they are just like men. The wife of Job says, “Curse God and die.” Sarah convinces Abraham to have a child with Hagar Rebecca makes Jacob fool Isaac. Jezebel is the wicked wife of Ahab. Delilah betrays Samson But… Deborah defeats the Philistines Rahab hides the spies Ruth is a model of loyalty…

Is Proverbs just for the young? I don’t think so. This passage reminds me of Psalm 1 because it is asking us to consider the same questions about our lives – even now when we are older. In what direction are we walking and with whom? The Road Less Travelled is not just for the young looking forward but for us looking back at our choices: “I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” But at any age we are constantly making choices…

We need to remind ourselves every week of two important things in the study of Proverbs: First, these are the instructions from a father to a son about the son’s eventual role in leadership.  They are not simply rules for a happy life.  They are part of his training for responsibility and we should not read them without our own increased responsibility in mind.  Again, all of this life is an apprenticeship for what is to come.  We are being prepared. Second, these are principles and not promises. The author is not a prosperity preacher telling us how to avoid hardship or the normal circumstances of life.  They will not…