Award-Winning, Bestselling Christian Author
People who lived in Galilee, where Jesus grew up in what is now northern Israel, had an accent. That’s how people waiting outside the high priest’s home during Jesus’ trial recognized Peter as one of his disciples. “You must be one of them; we can …
“Joshua captured the whole land—the mountains, the Negev, the foothills, and the slopes” (Joshua 10:40). JOSHUA HAD 40 YEARS in the wilderness to perfect his strategy for conquering the Promised Land. Forty years before the invasion, Moses …
I CRIED IN GRATITUDE last weekend. Once for my son. Once for my daughter. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t blubbery, though I’ve done that before. It was just a pair of watery eyeballs, dripping a bit. My daughter doesn’t know it, but the tears came …
The Bible only hints at how Isaiah died. Hebrews 11:37 says of Old Testament heroes, “Some were sawed in half.” That’s what one ancient Jewish book said happened to Isaiah. The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah reports that Judah’s King Manasseh …
JEWS ARE GETTING KNIFED in their homeland. It’s all over the news. But I remember reading old news from Bible times, when Jews were doing the stabbings – for much the same reason the Palestinians are doing it today. They felt disenfranchised, …
SMOKED ARMPITS is one way people in ancient times used incense to make the world smell a little better. They did pretty much what I did to some rainbow trout I caught recently. I got a cedar board, soaked it in water, then cooked fillets of trout …
Jews needing to make a decision sometimes left it to the roll of the dice, figuring God controlled the dice. They used “lots,” possibly marked rocks that scholars guess was a bit like throwing dice. When the disciples needed to replace Judas, who had …
THE BIBLE WON’T HELP ME in my role as the Best Man in a wedding on Saturday. I won’t let it. I refuse to do what Samson’s Best Man did. It’s illegal. My wife would divorce me. My kids would stop letting me watch their dogs. My Christian publishers …
IT’S HARD TO WARM UP TO GOD in the Old Testament, many Christians admit. He doesn’t seem like a Jesus sort of a God. Jesus forgives a woman caught committing adultery even though Bible writers say God ordered people like her stoned to a bloody pulp. …
Did Moses really spend 40 years in the Sinai Badlands with 603,511 men—not counting women and children, which would punch the numbers up to about 2.5 million (roughly Chicago’s population)? One theory: Moses took all the Jews, however many there …
THE WORST DAY IN JEWISH HISTORY, some Jews say, is the day Jerusalem died – July 17, 586 BC. Babylonian invaders from what is now Iraq slaughtered most of the defenders. Then they ripped Jerusalem apart, stone by stone. Israel’s Holy City became Rock …
God’s top angel Gabriel shows up by name four times in the Bible, spanning almost 600 years. First he helps the prophet Daniel understand some visions, including one about “the Anointed One,” (Daniel 9:25). Later, he tells a young Mary that she will …
