Our Lighted Path

  I could think of no other heading for this post, than "Oh. My. ... !" Oh, my word. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. John 12:24  puzzled me, but I left it in God's court and didn't try to understand. For years, I've wanted to garden well. And for years, I've dug into God's word. So it puzzled me that our heavenly maker, creator of the universe, the one who waited billions of years and counted it all as only a "day" to birth mankind and supply us with everything needed for living (including millions of years in dinosaur fuel) — that He would just up and say a seed dies in order to produce. But that is not what He has said. Of course, seeds do not completely die before taking root. Seeds only sleep. Seeds hibernate, so to speak. And when temperature and moisture are right, they awaken and set down their roots. Yet, that's not all seeds. All seeds are not blessed to cosily nestle beneath the cover of good soil and optimal weather. All seeds don...

"While it was still night, a messenger of the Lord opened the jail, brought them out, and called them to tell of the new life." (Acts 5:19) Tomorrow, many people will celebrate not God's love, not love from Heaven, not everlasting goodness, but a kind of affection that can sometimes be not godly at all. When we were young, many of us understood differences between brotherly/friendship love, healthy spousal love, and agape/church love - all covered by Jesus. But we didn't know there were gray areas that seem like love but aren't. And that's something many of our young people are witnessing now. Globally, there is a push right now to define love in what the Bible describes as "reprobate" terms. And that just shouldn't be. If the woman at the well tells us no other lesson, we should at least see from her story, that living together sinfully, for example, isn't God's will. Nor is being intrusive any kind of love. ... How many times does Jesus...

  It's the one scripture I raised an eyebrow at, bewildered, but didn't ask God to clarify. It's the one scripture I didn't ponder. I didn't put a question mark in my Bible's margin. I didn't think twice about it. I didn't pray about it. I think I just felt, "Well, God has that verse there, and He must have a reason." But I did not go any further than that. The passage says this: And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. 1 Timothy 2:14-15 That's according to the Bible's King James translation. And glancing at all of 1 Timothy 2:11-15, more verses than those two are puzzling in Paul's note to a young preacher named Timothy. But one thing that immediately made sense to me about it, is that this note had to have been written on one of those rare days when Paul was outlining some ...