Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

Ruth was surprised at the kindness of Boaz to her on her first meeting with him. She recognised that she was an outsider in the community, without any rights to special treatment. Yet she was also aware that she was receiving from Boaz far more than would usually be given to a needy person. Moreover, he had spoken warmly to her and assured that there were many benefits for her in coming to know the God of Israel, under whose protection she had come (Boaz had used the illustration of a mother bird with her young to describe God). No doubt, there are many ways of discovering those benefits, but here we can see that one method involves those who know something of what these blessings are mentioning them to those who might not. Boaz, the long-term believer in the God of Israel, spoke appropriately to Ruth, the new believer in that God, and his words brought comfort to her, as she testified to him in verse 13: ‘I have found favour in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken ...

  A parallel account of this story is found in 2 Samuel 24. It was clearly a problematic time in which God judged his people for their sins. The account in 2 Samuel 24 begins by saying that ‘Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”’ Perhaps we wonder what Israel had done to displease the Lord. One suggestion is that they were punished for rebelling against David during the rebellion of Absalom. But there could have been other behaviour problems.   How did God bring about his judgement on them? He allowed the devil to incite David to find out the numerical strength of his armed forces. At one level, there is nothing obviously wrong with a leader knowing how many soldiers are available in case he has to make plans. Yet it depends on the motive, and David’s motive here was wrong and even Joab objected to his proposal. Perhaps David was tempted to trust in his military might rather than on G...

The incident on Mount Carmel when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and put them to death is often regarded as a great experience because the Lord revealed his acceptance of Elijah’s offering. It can be described as a mountain-top experience, although the problem with such experiences is that they are often followed by a valley experience. In Elijah’s case, he did descend into a spiritual valley because he was informed by Jezebel that the Carmel appearance of God’s power did not make much impression on her. Indeed, she warned him that if he remained in the area, she would do to him what he had done to her prophets. Therefore, he went from being very brave to being very afraid, and he literally ran for his life away from her presence. Indeed, he did not even stay in Judah (where Beersheba was) because her daughter was the wife of the king of Judah.   The strong prophet had become weak, and maybe the problem began when he misinterpreted what had happened at Carmel. What was sa...

  We can see from verse 1 that the Israelites had been in bondage to the Philistines for forty years because of their sins. Nevertheless, there were devout people in Israel, and we meet a couple of them in this story – Manoah and his wife. They had not realised it, but God had been preparing them to play a prominent role in the restoration of his people. His plan was revealed when the angel of the Lord appeared suddenly to the wife of Manoah. He revealed to her that their role was to the parents of the next deliverer of the Israelites, Samson.   The first visit (vv. 2-7) The message of the angel is in two parts. First, he informs the woman of what is needed from her and, second, he informs her about a son she is to bear. There is a link between each detail, which can be summarised as saying that to bear and rear a Nazarite you need to live like one yourself. The demands placed on her in verse 4 are similar to the requirements of a Nazarite.   Three interesting detail...