Tag: JOHN D. BARRY

  • HONESTLY QUESTIONING GOD

    Connect The TestamentsHabakkuk 1:1–2:5; Acts 17:1–34; Job 25:1–6 Many people are afraid to be honest with God—which is odd, considering that He already knows what we’re thinking. The biblical authors certainly told God how they felt, and they did so eloquently and often. The prophet Habakkuk remarked, “O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for…

  • WHAT SHALL BE DONE?

    Connect The TestamentsMicah 7:1–20; Acts 15:22–16:5; Job 24:1–11 How should we respond when those around us seem to be not only falling short of the glory of God, but actually abandoning God’s work? What should we do when we witness neighbors or friends tolerating or even justifying acts of injustice, oppression, greed, or idolatry? We…

  • THE PAIN OF IDOLATRY

    Connect The TestamentsMicah 1:1–3:12; Acts 13:13–14:7; Job 22:14–30 Idolatry causes pain. If this truth were present in our minds each time we placed something before God, we would make different decisions. Micah’s account of the sins of Samaria makes this fact painfully and dramatically clear: “So I [Yahweh] will make Samaria as a heap of…

  • WHO CAN BRING ME DOWN?

    Connect The TestamentsObadiah 1:1–21; Acts 11:19–12:25; Job 21:17–34 “The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of a rock, the heights of its dwelling, you who say in your heart: ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ ” (Obad 3). Pride is an especially dangerous sin because it deludes…

  • BAD THINGS, GOOD PEOPLE AND GRACE

    Connect The TestamentsAmos 6:1–7:17; Acts 10:1–33; Job 20:12–29 We often wonder why God allows bad things to happen. We’re not unique in this; people have asked this same question since the beginning of time. Job struggled with this question after he lost everything. Job’s friends strove to answer it as they sought to prove that…

  • AS THE LION ROARS

    Connect The TestamentsAmos 1:1–4:5; Acts 8:26–9:19; Job 19:13–29 “Surely my Lord does not do anything unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who is not afraid? My Lord Yahweh has spoken, who will not prophesy? Proclaim to the citadel fortresses in Ashdod and the citadel fortresses in…

  • GOD RIDES TO BATTLE

    Connect The TestamentsJoel 1:1–2:21; Acts 7:1–53; Job 18:1–21 God is good, but in the words of C.S. Lewis, “He is not tame.” When it comes time for evil to be purged from the world, He is not timid, and when He acts, He rarely holds back. We see such a scene prophesied concerning the Day…

  • I LOVED YOU, I LOVE YOU NOW

    Connect The TestamentsHosea 11:1–12:14; Acts 5:1–42; Job 16:10–22 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11:1). This line is beautiful if read alone, but it is sad when read in context: “When I called them, they went from my face. They sacrificed to the Baals,…

  • THE DISCOMFORT OF SCRIPTURE

    Connect The TestamentsHosea 6:1–7:16; Acts 2:42–3:26; Job 15:21–35 Most of the Western world operates in the spirit of individualism. Christianity does not, though we often attempt to adapt it and make it more comfortable. It’s much easier to think about “God’s role in my life” than to reflect on “my role in God’s plan” to…

  • AN UNUSUAL PORTRAIT

    Connect The TestamentsHosea 1:1–2:23; Acts 1:1–26; Job 15:1–9 “At the beginning when Yahweh spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife and children of whoredom, because the land commits great whoredom forsaking Yahweh.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son”…