Do you know what your purpose in life is? Is it to be a good husband, wife, father, mother, or sibling? Perhaps, your goal is to be a good friend.
If you’re a Christian, you need to look no further than Ephesians 2:10 to see your purpose in life.
View full article »The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die'” (emphasis added).
Genesis 3:2-3 (NIV)
One of the many things we can learn from this verse deals with interpreting Scripture in context.
God did not tell Adam and Eve that they couldn’t touch the tree or they would die, but because Eve believed that touching the tree would kill them, it enabled her to doubt God’s word more when she touched it and didn’t die.
View full article »A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops.
Proverbs 28:3 (NIV)
When I read this verse today in the NIV, I checked the footnote as I usually do, and it said, “or ‘A poor person'” which didn’t make any sense. When I checked the King James Version, it reads like so:
A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
Proverbs 28:3 (KJV)
However, I was still hung up on the idea of a poor person being able to oppress other poor people and why the NIV said, “ruler,” so I kept checking other translations.
View full article »The Book of Proverbs contains some of the most profound wisdom in the Bible. However, sometimes I find it difficult to understand what some proverbs mean because they lack the context usually found in other Scripture. For example, what does Proverbs 27:10 mean?
Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family, and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you— better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.
Proverbs 27:10 (NIV)
Why not go to a relative’s house? Why is a neighbor nearby better than a relative far away? These were two of my questions about this verse. After reading through many other translations (~27), I didn’t see any that answered my questions, and the context of Proverbs 27 doesn’t help either. The closest verse that has anything to do with friends is verse 6:
View full article »
Four-Calendar Café 