For such an apostate king as Ahab and his wife Jezebel, at this time the great prophet Elijah shows up in Scripture (I Kings 17). For their sins, Elijah warns that there will be a drought in the land over the next three years. Then God sends Elijah to the wilderness where ravens bring him bread, hiding out from Ahab’s threats on his life. Later God sends him on to a town called Zarephath where a widow and her son sheltered and fed him while he was in hiding.   When the drough

There is an old movie from 1943 called “Guadalcanal Dairy.” It was just a year after the actual battle for Guadalcanal in the South Pacific, and it was part of Hollywood’s effort to portray us as capable of winning the war  if everyone played their part. I remember one scene where three soldiers in a foxhole were running out of ammunition, so one of them went back to get more. He picks up the ammunition boxes, then notices something boiling on the fire. “Is that coffee, Mac?

That pretty much says it, doesn’t it? Jezebel! That name has become a symbol of evil that begins in the Bible and weaves its way through Jewish and Christian folklore. Jezebel has become a symbol of a woman who is sexually aggressive yet shameless. We will examine that turn at the end of this mini-series about Jezebel.   Who was Jezebel? Does she have a story of her own? Does she deserve the meme that she has become? Let’s start at the beginning and work our way through the m

God, through his prophet Jeremiah, continues to make his accusations against Judah. As I said last week, sometimes it is difficult to separate God’s direct voice from Jeremiah’s lament. However, could that be a false distinction?  Think about it. Jeremiah is not just an inert megaphone through which God speaks to the people. Jeremiah is human, a preacher who must convey the perspective, concerns, and commands of the Lord God to people who do not want to hear the bad news. The

Bathsheba’s son Solomon’s birth name was Jedeiah, ‘beloved by Yahweh’. In some ways he was like his father David, and in other ways he was not like his father. David came from the bottom of society up, Solomon was born royalty. David fought many battles and even had to fend off attempts by his sons to usurp the throne. Solomon was not a warrior but more like a sage, a wise man collecting wise sayings and writing poetry. Of course, David wrote poetry too as he composed many of