by Mason Puckett

The prophet Obadiah has some harsh words for the nation of Edom, an ancient people we may not be familiar with, although they are actually mentioned a great deal throughout the Old Testament. Israel and Edom both have their roots in the same family, the twin brothers Jacob and Esau. These brothers’ relationship to each other is wrought from the beginning (literally before they’re even born!) with conflict, deception and resentment. Their mother, Rebekah, is told by God in her…

“Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” (1 Kings 17:1) If you work your way through Israel’s story in the Old Testament, you eventually get to know Elijah. He’s impossible to miss. So important to Israel is Elijah that the prophet Malachi sees him returning in the future to prepare Israel…

Amos, the third of the Minor Prophets, not only speaks a word from God to the people of Israel, but also gives us a glimpse into the mind of a prophet and into the kind of reception the prophet receives. The word from God through Amos is harsh, leading many in Israel to respond with skepticism that the chosen people of God should be subject to such judgment. But Amos assures them that they do indeed need to hear a…

The prophecy and poetry of Joel is sparked by a devastating event in Judah’s recent memory – a plague of locusts that utterly destroyed Judah’s agriculture, and therefore Judah’s economy, all at once. “What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten. What the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.” (Joel 1:4) It was like being invaded by foreign army with the teeth of…

The book of Hosea contains one of the strangest love stories in all of literature. God tells his prophet to marry a promiscuous woman, named Gomer, who will make no effort to be faithful to him in their marriage. And when they have children, they give them names that are codewords for things like “punishment” and “no mercy” and “you don’t belong to me.” God directs Hosea into this marriage so that, as Hosea speaks to Israel on God’s behalf,…

Paul doesn’t write his letters just because it’s a nice hobby. His letters always come in response to questions, updates, and crises. And he waits until the close of his letter to the Philippian church to finally address the concrete reason for writing the letter. The church in Philippi has commissioned one of their own, a man named Epaphroditus, to find Paul and deliver to him a monetary gift (churches have been sending money to missionaries since the beginning). In…

The peace of God will guard your hearts (Philippians 4:7), and the God of peace will be with you. (4:9). Paul repeatedly calls the Philippian church to experience joy because it is a church in need of joy. And we see here in chapter 4 that it is also a church in need of peace. This gospel of the peace of God and God of peace is exactly what would have drawn the Philippians away from their pagan roots and…

The Paul we meet in Philippians 3 is happy to experience loss, happy to relinquish all the things, all the titles and accomplishments that he once thought made him so important. Paul is happy even to die, because he knows that on the other side of death is resurrection. He knows that in death God is still moving him forward. The whole, long journey of life, for Paul, is the forgetting of what came before and the straining forward to…

How should Paul begin his letter to a confused and stressed-out church in Philippi? He immediately jumps into the deep end of his feelings for them, speaking of gratitude, joy, compassion and fellowship (Philippians 1:3-11). This fellowship comes from the Greek word koinonia, which on one level means, “we’re here together and I’ve got your back.” And on an even deeper level it means true oneness within the church, or as he’ll go on to say in chapter 2: “be…

In Philippians 3, Paul gives us a resumé of sorts, all the reasons he could have “confidence in the flesh.” (Philippians 3:3) “Flesh” is Paul’s word for the ego and all its desires, insecurities, and ambitions. He “boasts” of his treasured membership in Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, as well as his career accomplishments – becoming a Pharisee, being Israel’s greatest crusader against the Church, and being faultless in his obedience to Jewish law. And yet, he considers…

“Work out your own salvation.” This is an interesting thing to hear from the apostle Paul (Philippians 2:12). We usually keep work and salvation in separate arenas. Isn’t Paul the same guy who said that justification comes not through works but through faith? (Galatians 2:16) But here in Philippians 2, “work out” is exactly what it sounds like – hit the gym! Yes, salvation is an event, the event of Christ inserting himself into history in order to remove the…

As Paul uses his letter to the Philippian church to describe the joy he feels at being in prison, a joy the church is struggling to share with him, he seems to perceive their will to find out how to help him. But Paul doesn’t need help getting out of prison; he’s overjoyed at the opportunity to share the gospel with the people he’s meeting there. But the Philippians can help him in a different way. The best thing the…