I Chronicles 15:1-16:6 Dear RTB’ers, I posted a few days ago that the Chronicles books cover much of the same history as the Samuel and Kings books. Many passages are identical, but the Chronicler often goes beyond the other books in telling Israel’s history. Today’s reading is one of those passages where the Chronicler adds …
Author Archives: Fred
August 14 / I Chronicles 13-14
I Chronicles 13-14 Dear RTB’ers, The incident of Uzzah and the Ark offers a timely lesson for us. As the Ark is being transported on a cart, the oxen stumble and Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady the Ark. Sounds like a reasonable reaction – except that his action violated God’s rules concerning these …
August 13/ I Chronicles 12
I Chronicles 12 Dear RTB’ers, Another list, this time the numbers and some names of men who came to support David at Ziklag. We read the setting of this story in the final chapters of I Samuel. Ziklag was a small city (exact location unknown) probably some 40-50 miles southwest of Jerusalem and relatively close …
August 12/ I Chronicles 10-11
I Chronicles 10-11 Dear RTB’ers, The Chronicler now moves on to history (albeit an abbreviated and edited history), with a focus on Judah and the Southern Kingdom, almost to the exclusion of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. But the author continues to build lists (much of today’s second chapter), mostly of people and who they are …
August 11/ I Chronicles 6-9
I Chronicles 6-9 Dear RTB’ers, After listing David’s and Solomon’s sons yesterday, we saw the author of Chronicles covering Jacob’s sons geographically. He began in the fourth chapter with Judah (wherein Jerusalem is located) and Simeon, with its cities inside Judah’s borders. Then in the fifth chapter he covered the land of Gilead, those tribes …
August 10 / I Chronicles 1-5
I Chronicles 1-5 Dear RTB’ers, For today and tomorrow we have two very long readings – at least in terms of the number of verses covered (nearly seven times our daily average of verses read). Our companion book, Search the Scriptures does a very good job introducing these nine chapters, so I suggest that you …
August 9 / James 5
James 5 Dear RTB’ers, James takes on the rich again. (Go back to James 1:9–11 and James 2:1–7.) But here he is challenging them for their wrongdoings. I make that distinction because all of us are “rich” in comparison to the rest of the world. But I daresay that we are not withholding wages or …
August 8 / James 4
James 4 Dear RTB’ers, Two sentences, one right after the other: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. (vv. 7b-8a) Resist and draw near. James suggests that simply resisting the devil is not enough. Fighting him without the Lord’s help is ill-advised; …
August 7 / James 3
James 3 Dear RTB’ers, The tongue. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. (v. 10a) Years ago I was working with my dad, a concrete contractor. I recall my dad calling out a truck driver who was delivering a load of concrete to us and who was speaking a mouthful of profanity. My dad asked …
August 6 / James 2:14-26
James 2:14-26 Dear RTB’ers, Today we are reading that section in James which many people either embrace or shun – faith and works. You can often hear it said that Martin Luther wanted the book of James eliminated from Scripture. With a quick Internet search I found that he did not want it eliminated, but …