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All the World’s a Stage–and Life its Cosmic Drama
Having just gone over the presentation of the Bible as a story, the program guide for that story, and the process by which that story will be presented to us—and, since we are rapidly approaching the first stage of the fourteen upon which our story will be presented—let’s use the few minutes we have before we arrive there to try and solidify in our minds the overall concept behind the production that we are about to witness. The best way I know to do that is to draw upon what may seem like a rather unusual resource for instruction in Bible study, and that is the works of William Shakespeare. It…
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Of Trees and Tapestries
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the…
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Redemption, a Story Told by Trees
I don’t know why but I have always had a special fondness for trees; and, since most of my life has been spent living in Virginia, there has seldom been a time when I did not have a beautiful one to behold. That being said, try to imagine the shock that I experienced shortly after my husband and I were married, when we moved to West Texas, a place where trees are a rare and very precious commodity. At first, the fact that we would actually be moving to a place where trees would be so scarce didn’t really sink in; but, as we were driving across country to…
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Loose Threads Require Redemption…
If I had to choose a favorite book in the New Testament, it would be a tough choice between the books of Romans and Ephesians but, in the end, I think I would have to go with Ephesians. That’s because, in its six short chapters, Paul lays out for us God’s grand plan for all humanity and in case you haven’t picked up on this yet, I am all about understanding His “grand plan.” In fact, I am so eager and determined to learn as much as I can about it that I have become very much like the little kid who tags along after her father, nagging him…
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…And More Loose Threads
Loose threads…we all have them in our lives, you know. Some of them may be hopes, dreams, or aspirations that have never been fulfilled or, as in the case of my mother, they may have been the result of decisions that were made which didn’t turn out quite the way we had intended. But just because they show up in our lives, that doesn’t mean that they are always bad things. As we saw last time, the loose threads in my mother’s life were the results of a decision that she had made and even though that decision didn’t bring the results that she had hoped for, in the…
