Delve Blog
Delve into the bible through our informal, easy to read Delve Blog articles. A new article is posted once a fortnight.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010 13:06 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
This time last year a friend shared with me how God was confirming to her that she should go to Bible College, but how she had then met a guy. They started dating and, because he too wanted to go to Bible College, he asked her if she’d wait until they could go together. Seven years on they were still dating, but he was in his first year of Bible College and she still hadn’t gone…
I had this thought while I was listening to my friend: a man in her situation would have gone regardless of the girl!
I see or hear of this kind of thing regularly. The girl gives up her dreams to be with a boy while the boy keeps doing and going the same as before she arrived on the scene.
It’s a form of submission. A weird, twisted, holyfied vision of how women should submit to men.*
Thursday, 11 February 2010 16:26 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
After re-entry to the Garden of Eden becomes impossible, the first thing Adam and Eve do is to have sex.* Since that day sex has been used and abused to selfishly try and grasp at the connection that has been lost with our creator or to simply gratify a need in us.
But this is not the way sex was created to be.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010 14:58 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
The NIV Bible translation has a very subtle way of talking about two people having sex: they use the word 'lay'.* Adam lay with his wife Eve... Cain lay with his wife... Adam lay with his wife again... (and just so you know it wasn't just the first humans doing this) Elkannah lay with Hannah his wife.**
Each time, perhaps in case you're confused about what is really happening, a child results from this "lay" activity.
Thursday, 24 December 2009 01:00 | and posted in Jesus & the Gospels
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, The everlasting Light...* The theme of “light” is found right through the Christmas story. From the glorious light of the angels appearing to shepherds; to the small piercing light of the star guiding the Wise Men; to the fantastic words that the old prophet Simeon spoke over Jesus, just a few weeks old: He is a light to reveal God to the nations (Luke 2:30-32).
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 11:27 | and posted in Jesus & the Gospels
After the Samaritan woman in John 4:15 asks Jesus to give her living water I’d expect Jesus to say “Fantastic, here you are!” or perhaps even, “You have chosen well, woman.” But no! Jesus starts talking about the woman's husband. In fact John never says that Jesus give this woman living water.
Strange hey?
Why offer something you’re not going to give? That doesn’t sound like Jesus to me…
But then I had a recent revelation. What if the rest of Jesus’ conversation with this Samaritan woman is about the process of Jesus’ giving and the woman’s receiving of this living water?*
Monday, 30 November 2009 17:51 | and posted in Jesus & the Gospels
Oh, just imagine... a huge gulp of Glasgow tap water, bottled three days before and left in a hot car continuously since then and drunk by no less than three different people... absolute heaven...
Hang on! That's not quite the dream is it!? Yet, in our lives we so often settle for the bottle of Glasgow tap water, rather than the chilled bottle of pure Evian. We put up with counterfeits rather than the real deal. In John 4 the Samaritan woman has done exactly that. Her hurt and pain and shame causes her to walk to the well and draw water at the hottest time of the day in order to avoid meeting or conversing with anyone else along the way.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009 20:02 | and posted in Jesus & the Gospels
When was the last time you went to a well to get water?
What about your parents? Or your brother or sister?
In our Western society we do not need to visit wells to meet our basic need of water. We simply visit the kitchen or the bathroom or our second bathroom or the water closet… We turn on a tap and instantly water flows out - as much or as little as we desire!
What this observation highlights is how far removed we are from the world of the Samaritan woman in John 4:7. To get to grips with what God may want to communicate through this story, we will need to come up with some contemporary equivalents...
Monday, 03 August 2009 01:00 | and posted in New Testament Letters
Revelation is a tragic example of how Christians can completely misinterpret the Bible. Popularised as a “road-map” of the end-times, traditional interpretations of Revelation have missed the politically subversive and damning critique of empire contained within its pages. One of the most obvious examples of this misinterpretation is that of the Beast’s mark* and number (666) found in Rev 13:16-18.
Monday, 27 July 2009 12:25 | and posted in New Testament Letters
Revelation is a tricksy little book to read. It’s full of singing, strange beasts, weird language, angels, trumpets and scrolls. It’s also over 1,900 years old, most of us have little knowledge of the first-century Asian context or of the Roman Empire and the genre Revelation is written in has never had its own section in Waterstones. All in all things don’t look easy for us!
However, there are two things that will help get us started: (1) understanding Revelation’s genre and (2) the book’s purpose.
Monday, 06 July 2009 00:00 | and posted in Prayer & Guidance
The book of Acts in the New Testament contains a couple of fascinating stories about God guiding the early church that give us insight into how we too can receive guidance from God for our lives today. The story I want to look at with you is from Acts 15: 1-35. Here the apostles and elders of the early church meet together to discuss whether Gentile converts to Jesus needed to be circumcised.
So what can we learn from how they made this decision?