# Bible Profiles (Page 5)

(Acts 5:1-11) Unsurprisingly, Ananias and Saphira do not appear in sermons on ‘Giving.’ What we modern church folk find distasteful—i.e. talking about a couple being struck dead for reneging on their contribution—is presented as being all-in-a-day’s-work for the apostles.Luke’s summary statement confirms that their sudden demise had the affect desired by the Holy Spirit: “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events” (Acts 5:11).You really can’t appreciate the gravity of the sins committed by Ananias…

(3 John) Until you meet your own personal Diotrephes you may never know the level of loyalty their personalities engender.I met mine in my earliest days of preaching. A man that I doubt is still alive. He was your typical church bully. He divided the church and eventually ran what was left into the ground. To talk to his supporters, you would think that everything was all someone else’s fault, but none of his. But like all those caught in…

(Acts 1:15-26) Anyone who has ever replaced a very popular person in a leadership position knows that feeling of never being able to measure up.Much easier is replacing someone who left a mess behind. In Matthias’ case, Judas’ mess was absolute.What kind of feelings were being felt by Matthias and Barsabbas as they stood waiting to see which of them would be selected as the replacement 12th apostle, we don’t know. We do know that both these men were of…

(Luke 23:6-17) You can see the Headline now: JESUS AWARDED NOBEL PEACE PRIZEYes, it was Jesus who brought reconciliation between Pilate and Herod. Pilate was the ruling Roman Governor and Herod Antipas was the Tetrarch of the province of Galilee. It is believed that Pilate had made an enemy out of Herod when he slaughtered a group of Galileans in Jerusalem during the animal sacrifices. The incident is related by Jesus in Luke 13. Pilate took no regard for Herod’s…

(Joshua 2; 6; Matthew 1:5; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25) The Bible bluntly calls her “Rahab the harlot.” But some have opted to translate “Harlot” as “Hostess” or “Innkeeper.” Nice try, as they say, but that is a deliberate mistranslation of the Hebrew word used (not to mention the Greek words in the New testament).What is their problem? It comes from the fact that Rahab is a direct ancestress of Jesus. In fact, she is the great-great-grandmother of King David (Mt.1:5).…

Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43 In Jesus’ day blindness was not spoken about in polite terms. It was not a ‘challenge,’ it was a ‘curse.’ If a blind man was not born to wealth, he was destined to beggary.Bartimaeus did what poor blind men do. He sat and begged from passers-by. When something happened in his part of Jericho, he simply asked the nearest person what was going on. He saw much of life through the eyes of strangers…

That sense of foreboding that grows inside of you at the news of pending doom can issue forth in irrational behaviour.Balak, King of Moab sent Moabite and Midianite princes to Balaam with letters and money. He invited him to come and curse the Israelites who were on their way from Egypt to the promised land. Balak should have taken Balaam at his word when he told them that he could only do and say that which God commanded. Balaam’s arrival…

Many years ago, I was asked by a Christian couple to come to their home and “pray for their new-born baby.” They had asked the local preacher to pray for their baby in worship, but for reasons unknown to me to this day (I did not ask, and I make no judgement), they were refused. Hannah belongs in the upper echelons of any spiritual rankings. But for her immense faith we would never have known the name Samuel (1 Samuel…

Every man needs a friend who will stay with him to the end. The apostle Paul had Luke and Jeremiah had Baruch. Both wrote more than a little of our Bibles, both appear in the narratives, and both were true believers in the things they wrote.Baruch was Jeremiah’s amanuensis. God spoke to Jeremiah and Baruch wrote it all down.Baruch’s brother, Seraiah, was the officer in charge of King Zedekiah’s household (Jer.51:59). Thus, there may be some credence to the tradition…

A great apostacy of the Lord’s church in New Zealand in the 1950s saw our numbers decimated. It was the work of an old single sister in the Lord that helped bring back the light (others were working elsewhere, also). Simply put, Miss Edie took some young men and raised the church around them. Scratch the surface of most local congregations and you will find stories of dedicated sisters having poured their hearts and resources into the growth of the…