Mike Blogs

I asked last week whether or not God’s condemnation of Israel and Judah was his last word? Yes, in the short run, for some of the people, it was. Yet, no, not in the long run, for some people survived and became refugees, exiles in Babylon. Those refugees become the second audience for Jeremiah’s prophecies, and Oh, how the times have changed the message.      These are the days of Jeremiah, and we are reading summaries of his early prophecies that his scribe Baruch has writt

Hannah (Grace) and her husband Elkanah are making their annual visit to Shiloh to worship YHWH, the Lord God Almighty, and to make sacrifices. Shiloh was a major religious site during the time of the judges and before the time of the kings. For a while, it was the home of the Tabernacle (the tent that Moses used during the Wilderness Wanderings) and the Ark of the Covenant. Later, King David conquered the remaining Canaanites (Jebusites, actually) who held Jerusalem. Then Dav

Where are we in the story? The scribe Baruch wrote down on a scroll the prophecies of Jeremiah for the king and people of Judah in the...

Turn the page on the Book of Ruth and you will find yourself on page one of the Book of I Samuel. That book begins with an...

The cross-examination of the defendant, Israel and Judah, continues. God asks questions that make Judah think about why they are doing...

And so, Ruth and Boaz were married and lived happily ever after. Hah! Like that’s ever gonna happen!  We can presume that they were...

We are in a courtroom, and God is conducting a cross-examination. His questions are more rhetorical than real. God does not expect an...

Boaz was an honorable man, a God-fearing man. From a lifetime of devotion to God and through following the practices prescribed by the...

In God’s view, Israel had been like God’s bride, well taken care of. Israel was at first appreciative of God’s steadfast love and...

The next event in the Naomi and Ruth story reveals again just how far removed their time is from ours. Some people think that we can just...

This lament by God over the unfaithfulness of Israel goes on for several chapters. God uses several different metaphors to express his...

Ruth went to work, and “as it happened” she joined the gleaners in the field of a rich relative of Naomi’s husband. The man’s name was...

In our text, God is in the middle of a sustained charge against Israel, that is, the refugees from the now defunct Kingdom of Israel as...

“ As it happened,” that’s what the text says (Ruth 2:3). Ruth went out to glean barley in order to provide some food and income for her...

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the prophet Jeremiah and the beginning of his long conversation with God about the times that Jeremiah...

If the Book of Judges was written to show how ruthless life in Israel could be without a king, then the sinful Israelites certainly...

There is abundant evidence in the Book of Jeremiah that he had a lifetime secretary, a scribe who wrote down the words that Jeremiah...

The Book of Judges ends with a terrible story about a village within the tribal allotment of the Benjamin where the men demanded that a...

Notice the contrasting phrases in the first paragraph of the first chapter, verses 1-3, and the second paragraph below, verses 4-5. This...

After Jephthah was given a victory by God, he rashly made a promise to offer as a sacrifice to God the first thing to come out of his...