Musings of a Snickerdoodle

  Jesus, Divorce and Remarriage  by  Gordon Wenham  is a nice very summarized look at this controversial topic.  A concise, examination at what God's Word teaches us about how we Christians are to look on divorce, remarriage, and of course, marriage itself. It doesn't really deal with modern Christian views on divorce, as the goal of this little book is to focus on what Jesus taught about divorce and remarriage and what the popular views were at that time.   Now, though  informative background information regarding the contemporary views of the people Jesus is talking to is interesting, the most interesting parts to me were where the Biblical texts are focused on.  Jesus' teachings in particular (In Matthew 5, 19, and in the other Gospels).Wenham makes you really look at what Jesus is saying, getting past the clutter of our preconceived notions of what He must, in our view, be saying.  We see that Jesus goes after terms like "murder" and...

So Close to Home by Michael J. Tougias and Alison O'Leary is a riveting account of the amazing, providential survival and reunion of a family after the ship they are travelling on was torpedoed by a German submarine.  In 1942, the Downs Family, consisting of Ray and Ina Downs and two of their children, Lucille and Sonny Downs (their oldest son Terry was already in the U.S.), were making their way back to the United States from an eleven month stay in Columbia where Ray had taken a job with the United Fruit Company.  They began their journey home on a ship called the Heredia. Their trip home was drastically interrupted. The night before they were to land at New Orleans, two torpedoes hit the ship.  The Downs' almost make it out onto the deck of this ship together but are separated by a lurch of the ship causing a surge of water to engulf them.  Ray is washed back inside the ship, while Ina, Lucille and Sonny are swept to various places on the decks and in t...

The NLT GuysSlimline Holy Bible is nicely bound, very slim and lightweight. The cover has some of the 'leather-touch' material that feels very nice (not that boys will care that much), and the bright blue lines intermixed with the black should make it very easy to spot if misplaced and also catches the attention which would hopefully be a reminder for young guys to read it each day.   The letter font on the inside is small but not too small, I found it quite easy to read.  At the back of the book, Bible includes a dictionary/concordance, a list of suggested memory verses on various topics, a Bible reading plan and of course the usual maps of the Holy land and Europe. The translation itself is very readable, the translation notes say that they were trying for a mix of formal equivalence and dynamic, I think this translation leans a bit more to the latter, a 'thought for thought' type of translation which then necessarily has some heavily imposed biased interpreta...

When first received my copy of the NIV Zondervan Study Bible in the mail, my first impression was amazement over its size and weight, it is HUGE!   It is quite impressive on the inside as well, the text of the   NIV is laid out in a one column format instead of the usual 2 columns.   The cross references are placed on the side of the column and study notes on the bottom.   I loved the charts throughout, especially in the OT which included charts summing up what was in certain sacrifices and offerings, and charts on the Lord's appointed festivals, census results, Levite Numbers and responsibilities…etc.   Very helpful.   There were many photographs of Biblical areas throughout, and also pictures of various archeological finds having to do with many biblical events and people.   Those are quite fascinating and interesting.    Many of the study notes seem quite intricate and useful and exegetical.   Several of the pages are quite pac...