God gave Jonah the prophet a task: “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before Me.”[1] Jonah was a prophet during the early part of the 8th century, B.C. Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, was located Read more…
Parables are stories that teach a lesson. Jesus used parables a lot. But seldom did he explain the meaning of his parables, and when he did it was only to his disciples, not to the general public. Why did he so often use parables? I believe there were several reasons. Read more…
The Samaritans occupied parts of what had previously been the northern kingdom of Israel. The Jews in Jesus’ day refused to have anything to do with them. (See John 4:9.) The feud probably originated as far as 722 B.C. when the Assyrians (from what is now northern Iraq) conquered the Read more…
I want to tell you two stories about forgiveness. 1. Rachelle Friedman, a bride-to-be, attended her bachelorette party a few days before the wedding. Around midnight she and some of her friends went swimming. A friend playfully pushed her into the pool, but the water was too shallow—she struck her Read more…
On January 3, 1993, the Buffalo Bills trailed the Houston Oilers 35-3 early in the 2nd half, and their starting quarterback, Jim Kelly, had been knocked out of the game. Their situation seemed hopeless. But Buffalo mounted a comeback behind backup quarterback Frank Reich and eventually won in overtime, 41-38—the Read more…