Tag: Through the Bible
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Day 284: How Many Times Did a Woman Anoint Jesus? (Luke 7:36-50)
All four Gospels record a woman anointing Jesus with costly perfume. Are they describing the same event, or more than one? This reflection traces the differences between Luke’s “woman of the city,” Mary of Bethany, and the unnamed woman in Matthew and Mark—and what their stories reveal about grace that multiplies.
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Day 280: Whose Faith Did Jesus See? (Mark 2:3-12)
When Jesus healed the paralytic, He saw their faith—the faith of the friends who carried, climbed, and refused to give up. Maybe your faith can carry someone to Jesus, too.
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Day 273: The Last Word, Not the Final Word (Malachi 4:6)
Malachi closes the Old Testament with the word “curse.” But that isn’t the end of the story. The so-called 400 silent years weren’t silence at all—God was setting the stage for Christ, the true final Word.
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Day 272: Tobiah in the Temple (Nehemiah 13:6-8)
When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem, he found that his old enemy Tobiah had been given a room in the temple. What does that story teach us about the dangers of compromise in our own hearts?
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Day 267: Esther, Alcohol, and the Holiday Baptists Wouldn’t Invent (Esther 9:17-20)
Purim celebrates one of Scripture’s great reversals: mourning turned to gladness and threatened destruction turned to feasting. But some Purim traditions—especially the ones involving alcohol—might make a few Baptists clutch their pearls.
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Day 266: How Not to Read Esther (Esther 2:8)
Esther isn’t a fairy tale or a tragedy—it’s both more complex and more hopeful. Avoid these five pitfalls to read Esther with theological depth.