All my life, there have been famines I’ve heard about. But never experienced. Food insecurity is something that can and does exist anywhere—and when we’re willing, we can and (sometimes) do find ways to help. But famine is something else, something beyond, hunger on a massive scale. So horrifying it staggers the imagination.

The longest public speeches of Jesus that we have on record have nicknames: The “Sermon on the Mount” is recorded in Matthew chapters 5 to 7. The “Sermon on the Plain” is in Luke 6:17-49. They are similar enough that on the surface they might seem to be different accounts of the same event.

As they’d agreed, they meet while it’s still dark. A few of them have brought what spices they’ve been able to locate. Quietly, they take the short walk out of the city to the cemetery. The moon is going down as the sunrise begins.

We are likely comfortable with the language of Hebrews 11, describing Abraham—and indeed all the faithful—as foreigners, aliens, unsettled travelers.

There can be no doubt that Psalm 45 is messianic. We would have figured it out anyway, but the use made of it in the New Testament clinches it. How would we have figured it out? Just look at how it begins: “My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king…” Who is the king? It can be none other than Messiah.

“O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Thus begins, and ends, Psalm 8—one of the loveliest passages in scripture. This psalm conveys the awe we all feel when we stop and pay attention to the power and the grace of the Almighty Creator. If we do. Stop, I mean, and pay attention. Something many of us aren’t all that good at.

What do we say when someone asks, “How are you?” Usually we reply, “Fine. You?”

Are we “fine”? Usually not. Something hurts, something is troubling, we have stresses, conflicts, worries.

We don’t want to dump all this on someone else, so…”I’m fine thanks. You?”

Sandwiched between the technical details of completing a Nazirite vow, and the details of the offerings for the consecration of the tabernacle, the Lord charges Aaron and his sons to pronounce a beautiful benediction on the people of Israel.

There is such clamor all around us. Shouting, shooting, looting, lying, demanding, demeaning, denouncing, destroying. Even those who bemoan such clamor are prone to joining it when it’s their issue at stake. There are many who clamor…ironically…for peace!

One of those terms we encounter over and over in scripture is “the arm of the Lord”. Usually it is said to be “outstretched”—active in doing something, not passive. Sometimes we find the Lord’s “right hand” referred to; often enough, in context it’s equivalent to the arm. Here’s a quick look at a small number of passages where it’s used—and some thoughts on what it means to us. I think there’s more to be dug out—go to it!

In the gospel that bears his name, John never actually names himself. He does, however, talk about “the disciple Jesus loved”. Most Bible students conclude he is referring to himself.

How do we know about God, learn what He is like? And not just know about Him, but know Him? We would all respond that He has revealed Himself in the written Word, the Bible. Absolutely true. We might also say He manifested Himself in His Son, who is also referred to as the living Word of God. Also true, however what we know about Jesus comes from what’s written as well.

It’s a long time ago, now. I think I was in my late teens. At a multi-day retreat, I was in conversation with a senior sister, an outstanding Bible student, and she mentioned her love of the Psalms. I confessed to her that I found the Psalms hard to get through, that they seem repetitive. She replied, “Yes, they’re just so psalmy, aren’t they?” And then she smiled at me. She didn’t say it, but clearly she thought that I would change my mind about them once I gained a bit more spiritual maturity.

War. Again. People never cease warring with one another. War is a horrifying thing, as some of you reading this can testify from direct experience. All the suffering, the death, the destruction. Why do people keep doing it?

What’s the greatest commandment? Anyone who has been around the teaching of Jesus, for any time at all, knows the answer. Jesus answers the question with a quote from the Law, from Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

We are accustomed to the idea of the dual Lion/Lamb role of Messiah. At his first coming, Jesus’s work was reconciliation, by sacrificing himself. At his second coming he will be the conquering King. An irony has been noted: Those who were expecting Messiah when he first came were expecting the Lion, but got the Lamb; and it seems that among those expecting Jesus’s return, many are expecting the Lamb again, but will get the Lion.

In the Greek of the New Testament, there are two sorts of servants. One is a bondservant, a slave. More than one Greek word has this connotation, the most commonly used being doulos. We are supposed to be this kind of servant—Paul, Peter, Jude and John each identifies himself as a “servant (bondservant) of Jesus Christ”, and Paul describes us “having been freed from sin and have become servants (slaves) of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). There are lots more examples.

There’s a family of words we come across in scripture: justify, justified, justification. Near as I can tell, both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament words mean just what we would expect from the English words. To “justify” means to show something or someone or some action to be just, right, or reasonable. In some modern translations these meanings are used rather than the “justify” family—in the KJV the verbal links are more apparent.

A few days ago a neighbor gave my wife a gift of wooden kitchen tools. They are made of acacia wood, and the wood is astonishingly beautiful.

Habakkuk is one of those little books—by one of the “minor” prophets—that’s easy to overlook. Even so, you’re almost certainly familiar with several “sound bites” that come from this contemporary of Jeremiah.