Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
The Old Testament presents true Judaism as tenaciously monotheistic. No god compares to the One God who is in a category by himself. In fact, the gods of other nations are actually no gods at all. Worship of them is absolutely forbidden. Then how could the Jews who first followed Jesus believe he was the …
I have a one-question survey that will reveal with near perfect accuracy whether or not you are an individualist. Set? Here it is: Would you readily consider allowing your parents to arrange a marriage for you? Those of us from a Western culture would never give this the slightest bit of serious consideration. But in …
Sometimes Jesus made statements that sound just plain crazy. Once he was explaining why he taught in parables. The reason he gives in Mark 4:12 is this—so that, “they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!” In quoting here from Isaiah 6, …
The Old Testament has taken a lot of hits in recent years. And it’s understandable when all people see are harsh rules and religious wars. It can seem so unenlightened if not downright wrong. Let’s admit it. The Old Testament is a foreign country. Even when translated it can seem like it’s in a different …
When it comes to the Bible, scholars and non-scholars have something in common. We can both get lost in minutia. Academics can get lost in the details of philology and morphology. The rest of us are prone to proof-texting, ripping verses or phrases out of context as if the Bible were a book of disconnected …
Have you ever been reading the Bible and suddenly thought, “Gee, that’s odd”? I have been going through the book of Numbers. In chapter 11 I read how unhappy God was with Israel for complaining about their troubles in the wilderness (especially about not having meat) even after God had freed them from the Egyptians. …
We often consider unbelief and doubt to be enemies of faith. After all, if we perpetually embrace them, we never embrace God. But a very different response can also be the enemy—certainty. As Tobias Wolf said, “Certainty is one of the greatest spiritual problems of our time.”* When we are absolutely sure of what we …
Fifty years ago next week, a manned spacecraft for the first time entered orbit around another celestial body–the moon. The year 1968 had been a harrowing one for the country and the world. It began with the devastating Tet Offensive in Vietnam and was followed by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and …
In my previous post, I asked, What exactly is meant that people are in the image of God? The answer Psalm 8 offers reinforces these thoughts. As the psalmist reflects on the creation described in Genesis 1 and our place in it, he wonders what makes humans so special. He then responds, “You made them …
What does it mean that we are made in the image of God? Over the centuries many options have been proposed for what Genesis 1:27 means. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Does it mean consciousness or self-consciousness? The …