Have you ever felt a small curl of melancholy, or maybe a tendril of fear, or a root of bitterness, or a little flame of anger, asking “Why me?” What does it mean to persevere, to be patient in affliction, to have joy and contentment in every circumstance?
2 Peter 2: Righteous? Really?
It complicates things, does it not? When scripture specifically describes Lot and Noah as righteous, then carefully records their drunkenness and sexual deviance.
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2 Peter 2: Sodom and Gomorrah
Now, Peter would present his second and third examples, God’s cleansing the whole earth of abject wickedness, yet rescuing the tiny remnant of righteous ones.
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Table of Nations: Japheth and Shem
Last week, I covered the migration of Ham's descendents across the Middle East and through to the continents of Africa to the west and south. This week I'll follow Japheth into Eurasia, over the top of the world and across to the other side of the globe, the Americas. Shem will settle largely in the Levant.
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Table of Nations: the Sons of Ham
Genesis chapter 10 acts as both an expansion and illustration of what Noah was prophesying
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Noah’s Prophecy
When Noah awoke and learned what had happened to him, what Ham had done to him, it isn’t Ham he curses, it’s Canaan, the youngest of Ham's four sons. I missed the significance of that the first time I read through this passage. Some commentators say this is the most remarkable prophecy in all of the Bible, showing three streams of humanity and the direction they would go, thousands of years before it happened.
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Shem, Ham, and Japheth
the motivations of the heart, when filled with love for God and others, is moved with a noble compassion. When filled with selfishness and self-centeredness, it seems there is a warping effect which contorts the heart to darkness.
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His Nakedness Uncovered
What began as a perfectly worthy work, growing a vineyard, degenerated into a complete dishonoring of his body, made in the image of God.
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Wine, Rich and Red
And so, sipping their wine, glowing from within from its warmth, warming themselves by the fire, telling stories, singing songs, the family must have felt as though life itself was, after all, quite beautiful.
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The Sign of the Rainbow
God knows life is filled with tragedy. Sin is ugly, but God is the God of beauty, and in Him you and I can overcome these things. At the end of the Bible, in Revelation, God is sitting on His throne and all around is a perfect rainbow, not half an arc, but a whole circle, heaven and earth finally made one.
Grace and Peace, Joanne 