Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

The gate of a city or town was where the civic elders or leaders would meet and make decisions about important matters. Individuals with an issue would go there for the matter to be settled. So that is where Boaz went to find out if the individual who was a closer relation to Naomi would purchase her property so that it would remain within the family. If Naomi the aged widow was alone, it would have been a straightforward situation for the relative because she could not bear children and the man would have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by purchasing her field. Eventually she would die, and her inheritance would belong to his family. But in this case purchasing the field also meant having to take Ruth as his wife to continue the family line. The man was unable to do this because it would cause problems regarding his inheritance. He was perhaps a widower who already had children who would get his inheritance on his death, but they would lose out if he married Ruth because her childre...

  There are two usual ways of making comparisons. We either can compare ourselves with someone who is better than us or with someone who is inferior to us. I can imagine correctly that I understand the economy better than a child, but I imagine incorrectly if I think I understand it as well as the government. It is similar when thinking about angels and comparing them with others. If we compare them with humans, then we conclude that they are more powerful than all humans. Yet if we compare them with God, we see that they are only creatures who are infinitely inferior to him. Yet how do they relate to Jesus who is both God and man? That might not be a problem for us, but it was a problem for converted Jews in the first century, which is why the writer of Hebrews takes two chapters in his letter to deal with the matter. Why did the Jews give angels a high position? Several answers can be given to that question. One is mentioned in Hebrews 2:2 where the writer says that the angels we...

​Different societies have their customs. They also have parents who may take steps for each of their children to have a suitable spouse. That search in ancient societies would have involved practices that seem unusual to us, and such are present in this story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz. The narrator of this Old Testament book records how Naomi was concerned about her responsibility for Ruth’s future and of the suggestion she made to find out if Boaz was indeed the man for Ruth. Of course, Naomi took those steps because she was aware of the Old Testament requirement of the role of a redeemer in Israel regarding family concerns. Reading biographies about people in the past can cause us to think about practices and traditions that no longer take place. It may be of interest to know how John Knox discovered his second wife or perhaps how she was found for him. A female friend who belonged to the aristocracy noticed his need and suggested to him that he should remarry. He replied that he would...

  Psalm 148 focuses on the reality of worship, that it is taking place at different levels of creation, some of which we cannot understand such as how the planets or the animals take part in it. The psalm also gives reasons for worshipping the true God – the obvious reason in the psalm is his providence, his control of all things. And it reminds us of our responsibility to get involved in worship because all ages and both genders are included in the list of worshippers.   The references to the creatures are based on the creation account in Genesis 1, apart from when the angels were created. We are not told when they were created, or if their creation occurred early in the creation week. God reminded Job that the sons of God engaged in joyful praise as the foundations of the earth were laid. After the mention of the angels, then we have the heavenly bodies, then the seas, then the earth, then the animals, then humankind.   The psalm divides into four sections: worship ...