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Taste and See “Out of the frying pan and into the fire” describes the experience of getting out of one difficult situation only to land in another. In 1 Samuel 21, David was on the run from King Saul. He went to the last place anyone would expect to find him, the Philistine city of Gath. However, officials there identified him as David, the...

Be Not Proud In his masterpiece, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote perceptively about pride. He said, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” In a similar way, the wicked have a skewed...

God Promises Deliverance Despite a discouraging start, the Israelites would be liberated exactly as God had said. And even though he initially wavered, Moses would end up in Hebrew 11’s Faith Hall of Fame: “By faith . . .[he] chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded...

Locusts and Darkness Nearly every book in the Old Testament refers to the dramatic moment of the Exodus, especially the Psalms. Psalm 78, for example, looks back to “the day he [God] redeemed them [the people of Israel] from the oppressor, the day he displayed his signs in Egypt . . .He brought his people out like a flock; he led them like...

The First Passover The Last Supper, celebrated by us today as communion or the Lord’s Table, was actually Jesus’ last Passover. This special meal commemorating freedom from slavery in Egypt has endured through the centuries as a celebration of God’s redemption. In the Last Supper, Jesus established a new symbolism—the bread for His body,...

Firstborn Sons and Blood on Doorposts When the Law was given on Mount Sinai, the Israelites learned to make various sacrifices for atonement and worship. The blood of animals symbolized a ceremonial or outward cleanness that became spiritually real thanks to Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on the cross for sin (see Heb. 9:11–22). But even before...

The Ten Commandments “A time will come in human history,” wrote Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy, “when human beings will follow the Ten Commandments . . . as regularly as they fall to the ground when they step off a roof. They will then be more astonished that someone would lie or steal or covet than they now are when someone will...

Sleep and Celebration Recent studies have revealed that the consequences of sleep deprivation are severe, including increased risk of infections, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, and certain kinds of cancer, as well as irritability, mental distress, and depression. Children and youth are especially...

Worshiping God Why do we worship? In You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, James K. A. Smith explained: “In worship we don’t just come to show God our devotion and give him our praise; we are called to worship because in this encounter God (re)makes and molds us top-down. Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts,...

A Sacred Space Many commentators see a connection between God’s instructions for the tabernacle and the Genesis creation narrative. Bryan D. Estelle explained in Echoes of Exodus: “Why is this important? Because it indicates that the creation at the beginning of time is a sacred space, just as the tabernacle and the temple were later recognized...