Content related to Old Testament

Home » Old Testament » Page 88

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Epiphany 4C

Scott-Hoezee
Scott Hoezee

My wife mentions this semi-often. For her, it’s a combination of envy and consternation. The issue is vocation, “calling,” and it crops up in conversation between the two of us whenever someone asks me once again to tell my “call story” to be a minister or in case some other preacher—in the course of a…

Read More

Genesis 4:1-14

HDJ
Heidi De Jonge

This is a story about the other side of Eden, a story about life and death, a story about brothers, a story about God. An introduction to this text could highlight current stories of life and death – stories that make it clear that we are for life and against death.  When I preached on…

Read More

Genesis 45

HDJ
Heidi De Jonge

The Joseph narrative comes to a climax in Genesis 45.  In reflecting on Joseph’s story up to this point, one can see that Joseph was both a wounded man and a broken man.  He was wounded, certainly, by the loss of his mother, by the mistreatment of his brothers, by the mischaracterization by Potiphar’s wife,…

Read More

Numbers 13

HDJ
Heidi De Jonge

Here in Numbers 13, the Israelites have arrived at the southern border of the Promised Land.  Ever since the days that they left Egypt, this is where they were heading.  The land was the gift that God had promised them.  This was “the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (13:1, emphasis…

Read More

Judges 13:1-16

HDJ
Heidi De Jonge

In its introduction to the book of Judges, my NIV Study Bible summarizes Samson’s life this way: “a lone hero from the tribe of Dan who delivers Israel from oppression from the west” (p. 324).  The book of Judges is sometimes seen as a book of heroes, with Samson in all of his strength, standing…

Read More

Hosea 4

HDJ
Heidi De Jonge

When I first learned to preach, I was told that each text has one theme, and one theme only.  A few years later, another teacher of preaching told me that each text has many possible legitimate themes.  One must choose a theme and run that theme like a magnet over the surface of the text. …

Read More

Genesis 13:1-18

Chelsey Harmon
Chelsey Harmon

Have you ever returned to a special place from your past? The place you got engaged, for instance, your old dorm room, your first job. What about a place where you distinctly heard the voice of the Lord? Even sadder places seems to pull us back or make us speed up as we pass them:…

Read More

Genesis 38

Chelsey Harmon
Chelsey Harmon

Genesis 38 has to be near the top of the list of least-preached texts in Scripture. There’s death (by the hand of God no less), sex—both in marriage and outside of it, and lots of things that parents might not be ready to have their kids understand (i.e. parents are too embarrassed to have to…

Read More

Genesis 48:1-22

Chelsey Harmon
Chelsey Harmon

The scene: The whole crew is in Egypt: Jacob, their patriarch, his twelve sons and all their families, servants, possessions. Jacob is at the end of his life. As is the custom, all male heirs went to his deathbed to receive their blessing. Joseph, Jacob’s long lost son, the one he believed he would never…

Read More

Exodus 15:22-27

Chelsey Harmon
Chelsey Harmon

Exodus 15:22-27 is one of numerous stories driven by Israel complaining, grumbling, or murmuring because of the conditions of the exodus. Like God does in the other stories, God provides for the Israelites even though they are rebellious against him. But what stands out in this particular narrative is God’s self-proclaimed title in verse 26:…

Read More