Delve Blog
Delve into the bible through our informal, easy to read Delve Blog articles. A new article is posted regularly.
Monday, 21 June 2010 12:33 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
One of the most exciting things about being a Christian is love. We have access to a God who loves us deeply and unconditionally. God is love. And his love is absolutely crazy – it’s what led Jesus, the Son of God, to lay down his life and die for people who rejected him, hated him and put him on the cross. We are called to this same radical love – not to love only ‘nice’ people who are nice back to us – but to keep loving even when we are rejected – or when it requires sacrifice.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010 17:20 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
I had a moment. I was fixing my hair and I smiled because I liked what I saw in the mirror. A beautiful women, happy and at ease with herself stared back at me. I am celebrating this moment because in it I realised how much God has been restoring me.
For large sections of my 30 years of life I have hated the way I look. I believed I was ugly and unattractive and when I looked in the mirror I was unhappy with what I saw. I destroyed or deleted any photo of myself I remotely didn’t like – I didn’t leave many!
Tuesday, 16 March 2010 14:06 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
Girl meets boy; she gives up her dreams to be with him, while the boy keeps doing and going the same as before she arrived on the scene.
Does this sound familiar? I see or hear of this kind of thing regularly. The girl nearly always seems to lay down her dreams first and make the biggest sacrifices in order to make the relationship work. Why is this?
I think it’s a form of submission. A weird, twisted, holyfied vision of how women should submit to men.*
Thursday, 11 February 2010 17:26 | 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 15:58 | 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 02:00 | 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 12:27 | 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 18:51 | 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 21:02 | 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 02:00 | 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.