“But because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman should have sexual relations with her own husband.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Where we left things this morning was with a question: What do the Scriptures say about sex? As we had said a little earlier, quite a bit. Let’s start broadly and then get a little more detailed from there.
Read the rest…
“And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, ‘How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!’ And David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord —and I will make merry before the Lord.’” (ESV – Read the chapter)
The Scriptures don’t give us a truly inside look at very many of the lives of the various characters who appear in it. We get even fewer inside looks into the marriages it presents. What we see here is a rare thing in the Scriptures. The tension between David and Michal here is thick. Emotions are running high. They both thought they were right and were upset at the other. If you’ve been married longer than, say, a week, this is no doubt a situation you have experienced in kind if not in detail. What should we make of it? Read the rest…
“And sons were born to David at Hebron: his firstborn was Amnon, of Ahinoam of Jezreel; and his second, Chileab, of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; and the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; and the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; and the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital; and the sixth, Ithream, of Eglah, David’s wife. These were born to David in Hebron.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is one of those detail notes that is easy to ignore but which appears fairly often in the history books of the Old Testament. It’s a list of names, half of which you can’t pronounce unless you really stop and think carefully through all the letters. Generally speaking, once we’ve gotten past reading Hop on Pop, we don’t like having to sound out unfamiliar words, so we skip them and don’t think about it any further. And while, to be honest, we can do this with many of the genealogy lists we find, this one is worth giving a bit more of our attention. Rest the rest…
“After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Sometimes God works through our strengths. Sometimes our weaknesses. In Samson’s case, the latter was most definitely the case. Samson has many weaknesses, but his near total inability to choose wisely when it came to women was very near the top of the list. Read the rest…
“And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, ‘Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Manoah didn’t believe his wife. The text doesn’t come right out and say this, but I suspect that’s what was really going on here. And think about why: In that culture a childless couple was considered cursed by God. It was a step worse than a couple who couldn’t have a son. This was the life of Manoah and his wife. Then she comes to him out of the blue and announces that God told her she’s going to get pregnant and have a son and that the son is going to save Israel from the Philistines who had been oppressing them for a generation. This would be a little like someone coming and telling you he had a dream that you were going to get that big promotion at work and a big raise and you won the lottery as well. Naturally, he was suspicious. Read the rest…
The Nexus 