Lovin' Tellin' The Story

Over the past month or so my Thursday morning Bible reading has taken me through the book of Jeremiah. As I read the indicting words that He penned for God in this prophetic book I can't help but see more than a little bit of America in them. For instance, just today I was reading in chapter 35 and ran across the story of the Sons of Jonadab. Here was a family, or tribe, or clan that had been given a directive by their forefather not to drink wine; "But they answered, 'We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, 'You shall drink no wine, neither you nor your sons forever." Now, before you think I'm getting ready to go off on an anti-alcohol tangent let me explain. What we discover later in the chapter is that it was not because they abstained from wine that they received blessings from God, it was because they were faithful to the command of their father. God tells Jeremiah that He is going to unleash His wrath on Israel be...

Quenched but not satisfied. Anyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:13-14 I have come to realize lately that once one tastes of the water that Jesus is speaking of in this passage there may in fact no longer be a thirst for salvation or eternal life but the thirst takes on a different tone. In the 42nd Psalm the author relates to us how they thirst for the presence of God, the living God. I do not believe this to be the contradiction that it appears to be. It would be very easy to look at these two verses and come to the conclusion that the Psalmist was not saved or otherwise secure, eternally speaking. However, I think we are dealing with two different kinds of thirst or at the least, two different needs being met. Jesus is clearly speaking of salvation when He addresses the woman at the...