Category Archives: Bible

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Classic Bible: Favorite Stories & Passages

Classic Bible

I became a Christian October 19, 1980.

That’s a long time.

One of the goals of my Christian life has been to expose myself to every verse of God’s Word at least once every year.

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t always completed this goal every year.

However, I have completed it numerous times. As a result, I’m getting to know God’s Word pretty intimately. And I’ve identified hundreds of passages that have stood out to me, have helped me grow, and have become favorite passages to which I often turn.

My desire is to share those favorites with others. I’m not trying to provide an exhaustive outline of each and every book of the Bible. Many others have done that.

All I’m interested in doing is sharing my favorite stories and passages.

This post will serve as the landing page for a series of posts called Bible Classics. Here you will find the links to each of the individual posts about each of the books, as they are written.

My hope and prayer is that these stories and passages are an encouragement and a help to you, just as they are to me.

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Classic Bible: The Book Of Numbers

This is part of the Classic Bible: Favorite Stories & Passages series. Read more from the series!

I’ve been reading a lot recently from the Old Testament, and most recently in the book of Numbers.

There are a lot of great stories from the book of Numbers.  Much more than most people realize.  Working with teens, I hear variations of “those books in the OT are boring…”, usually in reference to Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Numbers

Nothing could be further from the truth.

True, Numbers contains all the details of not one, but two censuses of the nation of Israel, in all its tedious glory.  Each tribe, clan and family seems to be listed, with the number of fighting men available, and so many details that it gets somewhat difficult to read.

But, mixed into all of this, and hidden in plain sight, are several great stories.  Stories that drop my jaw in wonder, and answer a lot of questions.

Here are a few of my favorites.

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The Battle For A Biblical Worldview

This is the third part of a series on developing a biblical worldview. Make sure you read Part 1: The Need For A Biblical Worldview, and Part 2:  The Worldview Issue.

Do you remember the scene in The Lord Of The Rings:  The Return Of The King where Aragorn and Gandalf, along with the hobbits and the armies stood face to face with the gates of Mordor, ready to face Sauron?

Mordor

It’s an incredible scene, probably one of my favorites from the movies.  The armies are facing each other across the plain.  It’s deathly still.  Aragorn, the King, turns and looks at his friends, his companions, his army, and says “For Frodo.”  And then he turns around and runs into battle alone.

It takes a few moments, but Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took quickly charge after him, followed by Gandalf, Gimli and then the entire army.

The battle scene that follows is epic and almost majestic:  good battles agains evil.  The future of Middle Earth hangs in the balance; in fact the very existence of Middle Earth is at stake.

And, if you’ve seen the movies, or read the books, you know what happens.  You know how it all turns out.  You know the outcome of the battle.

Just like in Middle Earth, there is a major battle for truth in America, and in our world.

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The Worldview Issue

This is the second part of a series on developing a biblical worldview. Make sure you read Part 1: The Need For A Biblical Worldview.

Before we dig into this too much, we need to define the term worldview.  What is a worldview?

A worldview is our governing mindset based upon Biblical presuppositional beliefs that are convictional, which filters, approves or disapproves all matters of life.

Worldview

And the most primary of those presuppositional beliefs are the answers to four questions:

Origin – Where did I come from?
Purpose – Why am I here?
Identity – Who am I?
Destiny – Where am I going?

Biblical worldview development is difficult for us today because there are two competing presuppositional belief systems, both claiming to have the truth, the answers to those four questions.  But both are mutually exclusive, and both were separately designed by the primary spiritual figures, who are battling for our souls:  God and Satan.

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The Need For A Biblical Worldview

This is the beginning of a three part series on the need for a biblical worldview in America today.  In this post, I will address the need for a biblical worldview.  The the next two posts I will take a look at the worldview issue, and the battle for a biblical worldview.

People who have a biblical worldview are rare in America.  I firmly believe that to be the case.  I’ve been in youth ministry for over twenty years, and I’ve watched our society spiral downward in that very short time.

Earth

I believe that this is due, in part, to our humanistic educational system.  I’m not necessarily talking about the local school systems, although they could take a stronger stance on what they do and don’t teach. No, the problem reaches much higher than that, into the higher educational systems, and even the government board of education.

It’s been like this for decades.  And it shows very little indication that it will get better soon.

Our culture has thrown away the Bible.  It no longer has any authority in our lives.

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The Maniac And The Messiah

I ran across something intriguing this week in my Bible reading. It’s a passage I’ve read a hundred times before, but I’ve never noticed this; perhaps because my Bible of choice is a NASB or NIV. This year, I’m reading the NKJV, and this passage jumped out to me.

Breaking Free

The passage is from Mark 5: 1-6. Here it is:

Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him.

The last phrase is the one that stood out to me: “he ran and worshipped him.”

I’ve never noticed that before. In the NIV, it’s phrased “he fell on his knees in front of him.” The NASB translates it as “bowed down before him.” It’s interesting what you can pick up from reading the same passages in a different translation.

This idea fascinated me. Why would this demon-possessed man worship Jesus?

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My Go To Books On Creation

If you don’t already know, one of my passions is Creation. I absolutely love the first few chapters of Genesis, and I feel that they are foundational to understanding the rest of the Bible correctly. You’ll see more about that in the near future.

My Creation Bookshelves

Today, I want to share with you the top books on my shelf in this area. There is a lot of written material available defending a young earth view of Creation, but there are a few books that are must haves.

Here are my top five.