Joel Johnson | Biblical History & Theology

Today I would like to turn our minds to a unique example we have in the Scriptures of servanthood. It may not be among the first examples which come to mind when you are thinking of examples of God’s servants. But it certainly is a prime example - perhaps among the most important examples we have been given in the Bible.  I am talking about Mary - the mother of Jesus - and her special call to surprise service. Background We are not given a great deal of information about Mary. The first time we encounter her in the gospels, we learn that she was from Nazareth (Lk 1:26) and was betrothed to Joseph (Lk 1:27).  I think we all know that Nazareth was a small country village, but what surprised me when I first found out was how small it actually was. Archaeological excavations have shown that during the 1st century AD, Nazareth comprised of around 50 houses, with an estimated total population of 200 to 400 people.(1) It’s the kind of village where everyone would have known everyone ...

This is just a quick post outlining how I added automatic Bible verse hyperlinks to my Blogger website. The idea behind this is that it will automatically pick up any text which appears as a reference to a passage of Scripture (e.g. Eph 1:5) and will show a pop-up box displaying the full verse text.  There are a number of free plugins which are specifically designed for this. A few that I found when I went looking were BibleLink , BLB ScriptTagger by Blue Letter Bible, and Bible Gateway's Ref Tag Tool .  In the end, I went with the Blue Letter Bible plugin because it looked the simplest to add to my website and it was the first one that I tried that worked. I also like how the Blue Letter Bible site incorporates a bunch of other features (e.g. lexicons) which makes it very convenient for the reader if they want to dive deep into specific words in the verse.  If you also want to add automatic Bible verse hyperlinks to your Blogger website, here are the steps to follow:...

King Josiah stamping out idolatry by burning the bones of the false priests Today I’d like to take you back to the year 640 BC, to the city of Jerusalem - the royal city of King David. But by this time David had been dead for 330 years, and things had changed dramatically. A lot can happen in three centuries. If you want to compare it to Australia’s history, consider that the First Fleet arrived here in 1788, only 237 years ago. Think of how much has changed since then - both for good and for bad.  So it has been three centuries since the heyday of the combined kingdom under David and then under Solomon. The northern kingdom of Israel has been scattered and in captivity since the Assyrians invaded there 80 years prior. The largely desolate land to the north - where the nation of Israel used to be - stands as a stark reminder of God’s judgement. And yet the people living in Judah haven’t paid attention to this message; in fact, by this time they were living even more wicked lives th...

An ivory plaque of Mark the evangelist Mark 1:1-8 reads (my translation): 1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.  2 Just as it was written in Isaiah the prophet,  “Look! I send my messenger before your face, Who will clear the road for you;  3 A voice shouting in the desert, Prepare the road of the Lord, Make his paths straight.”  4 John the Baptiser appeared in the desert, announcing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  5 And all from the region of Judea and all the Jerusalemites were coming out to him, and they were being baptised by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.  6 And John was clothed in camel hair and a leather belt around his waist and he was eating locusts and bush honey.  7 And he was announcing, “One more powerful than me is coming after me, who I am not fit to bend down and loosen his sandal strap.  8 I baptise you with water, but he will baptise you in the Holy Spirit.  ...