Recent Commentaries

This passage is about Balaam, his donkey and the angel. Balaam was a man ready to obey God’s command as long as he could profit from doing so. Although he realized the awesome power of Israel’s God, his heart was occupied with the wealth he could gain in Moab. God let Balaam go w …

John explains how you cannot rely upon everyone who claims to preach a message from God (v. 1). Just because a man says he is presenting the Word of God from the Bible is no reason to believe that what he is saying is necessarily true. Each thing that you hear needs to be tested. …

Pilate wanted to release Jesus, but the crowd continued to demand His death; so he sentenced Him to die (vv. 13-25). Today we might say that he did what was politically correct. No doubt Pilate did not want to risk losing his job, and as we have indicated previously, it w …

This passage predicts the fall of Israel and Syria to Assyria, which fell in 732 BC and 722 BC (vv. 1-4). On a large scroll Isaiah recorded the name of his son to be born. His name, Maher-Shadol-Hash-Baz, is the longest personal name in the Bible (v. 1). This name meant swift to spoil, which …

In the opening statement of this chapter there is the yearning, affectionate tenderness of a pastor for people whom he has known for a long time. Even in all their wayward foolishness he still loves them. ("My little children”). John says two things about sin. First, he …

Revelation 14 graphically declares some of the terrible judgments that will be placed on the world. These are especially for those that reject Christ and follows the beast, the false prophet and Satan. However, taken as a whole, this chapter seems to refer to the preservation of the 144,000 during the …

Leaving Shiloh, the armies of the eastern tribes headed excitedly for home. On the way a bright idea occurred to them. Why not construct a large monument or altar by the Jordan River, on its western side, to symbolize the unity between the people on both sides of the river. So, an altar was …

Even the dead would not escape God’s judgment. Jeremiah describes how the enemy will desecrate the graves which was a common practice in the warfare of that day. The bones of those who had died before the fall of Jerusalem would be removed from their graves and exposed to t …

Kenneth Gangel in his book Thus Spoke Oskeleth (professor) says that the writer of Ecclesiastes in this first chapter is saying, “Stop the world-I want to get off!” He begins by pointing out the vanity of man’s existence in this world without God. In fact, vanity is on …

A civilian defense official, drawing up plans for billeting space in his city in case of a bomb attack, asked the pastor of a large church how many people could sleep in the church building. “I don’t know,” replied the pastor, “but we sleep 1400 every Sunday …