Posts by John Staiger (Page 92)

(Gen.3:20; 4:1; 1Tim.2:13; 2 Cor. 11:3) Eve, the mother of us all, is the only person created who permeates our every thought and plagues the regrets of our hearts. And all this without her name ever needing to be spoken. Her beginnings were perfection, her end desolation. Her duty a simple command, her rebellion a world of confusion. In the Hebrews Eleven Hall of Faith we do not find her. Rather, Paul holds her forth to illustrate the grave concern…

(John 1:43-51; 21:2; Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14). Philip had found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. News he was not going to keep from his friend, Nathanael.Nathanael would have been familiar with the small and insignificant town of Nazareth. So, asking: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn.1:46), was probably said more out of surprise than anything else. As Nathanael approached Jesus, the first thing that Jesus did was to expose the pure thoughts and intentions of his…

(Genesis 19; Luke 17:32) Lot’s family lost a lot in a very short time. Their house and livelihood were burned up, Lot’s wife was turned to a pillar of salt (leaving him a widower and his daughters without their mother), and Lot’s daughters also lost the men to whom they were betrothed. The prospective sons-in-law dismissed the panic as a joke, and thus stayed behind and faced the consequences of their disbelief. ‘Evacuate or perish’ had been the order of…

(1 Samuel 15) Agag was attacked by King Saul. Saul’s army slaughtered everyone and everything except Agag and the best of the livestock.Agag was an Amalekite. Though relatives to Israel, through the line of Esau, they did evil to Israel during the exodus from Egypt (Numbers 24:20). Here God ordered Saul to wipe them from the face of the earth. But Saul did not complete the task assigned, and even beyond this date, they continued to plague Israel.Samuel confronted Saul…

(Genesis 39) Joseph was in a unique group of men in scripture. Joseph, King David (1 Samuel 16:12), and Absalom (2 Samuel 14:25), were the only men specifically described as good looking.It was because Joseph was “well-built and handsome” (Genesis 39:6), that the wife of Joseph’s owner, Potiphar, took an unhealthy interest in him. She quickly and directly made her desires known. Leaving nothing to the imagination she said, “Come to bed with me!” (Genesis 39:7).His flatly refused and stated…

(Luke 10:38-42) Jesus visited Mary and Martha. The thought of Martha working while Mary sat, conjures up images of unequal work distribution. We imagine Martha clad with apron, peeling potatoes and putting a roast in the oven. All the while imagining Mary sitting serenely in comfort, taking in every word that Jesus spoke.I would say that the second image is accurate. But the first? far from it. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were rich. Remember Judas’ bulging eyes when Mary poured…

(2 Samuel 11-12) Uriah the Hittite died oblivious to the mess that King David had made of his life. He would surely be horrified that his name is remembered only for the sins done against him by the greatest of the kings of Israel. Uriah was a Hittite. A foreigner who distinguished himself in Israel’s army. He rose in fame to be counted as one of ‘The Thirty.’ The elite of the king’s troops.It was while he was gallantly and…

(Mark 12:41–44; Luke 21:1–4) Giving in the temple courts was a public affair. The prideful rich fronted up with large quantities of coins and let the sound of the metal on metal ring out their righteousness. The poor just slinked by.Jesus drew the attention of his disciples to a woman who would have spent so little time at the contribution receptacle that the event could just as easily have been missed. Her two small copper coins were Leptas. Their combined…

(Luke 19:1-10) Jesus did not shy away from controversy. He refused to allow anyone to dictate his standards or set the parameters of his kingdom. To the ‘good’ folk of Jesus’ day, tax collectors were lumped in with sex workers and other ‘sinners.’ It was their conclusion that expecting a tax collector to be righteous was like expecting the town drunk to be sober. After all, tax collectors collected money for the Roman government. They were helping the occupiers to…