March 2024

The Bible is no stranger to sibling rivalry. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Arguably the fiercest one of all though, has to be Rachel and Leah. The reason for their animosity is sheer jealousy. Rachel — the loved one, according to Genesis 29 — grows jealous of Leah, the unloved one.  Why? Even though […]

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I really feel for Leah in this chapter. By all accounts, she seems like a decent enough lady. Sure, she’s competitive with her sister as to who can have the most children, but Genesis 29, at least, paints her as a woman that is continually unloved.

I’ll admit, there are a lot of Bible customs that I just don’t get. I don’t have the time to go into all of them here, but marriage customs in particular can be a little bit of a head scratcher.  For instance, in Genesis 29:25, why is it that Jacob doesn’t realize that the woman

Albert Einstein has an amazing quote: “Put a hand on a hot stove for a few seconds and it feels like an hour. Spend an hour with a pretty girl and it feels like a few seconds. That’s relativity.” This is exactly how Jacob felt when he worked 7…er, 14…years for the right to marry

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If that’s so, then Leah wasn’t anywhere near Jacob’s radar. From the beginning of this story in Genesis 29, Jacob’s affection for Rachel is intense. He meets her by the well, kisses her (probably in a non-romantic way since her father does the same), then

If you’ve ever read Psalm 23, you know that being a shepherd is a tough job. Sure, the psalm itself is beautiful. The pictures of green pastures and still waters have created great imagery for paintings and needlework through the years. But beyond the cross stitch, there’s the rod that strikes the sheep to get

One of the reasons I wanted to blog through the Bible in 2024 (and beyond) is because I wanted to slow down and pick up on the “smaller things” I usually overlook. One of those, surprisingly, has been how often wells enter the picture. In retrospect, I probably should’ve seen this coming. Of course a

As Christians, we are not under a “tithing” process anymore. Under the Old Law, the Jews were mandated to give a tenth of everything that they owned. This involved a few different types of tithes, but the general idea comes from Leviticus 27:30 that says a tenth of these things “is the Lord’s; it is

Dreams are weird. I don’t remember many of my dreams anymore (although with three kids under eight, there’s hardly any time to sleep anyway). The ones that I do remember, though, are random, interlaced with Taco Bell, and usually intense. I don’t know what that says about me, but…there it is. Jacob’s dream in Genesis

Even as a kid, the idea of Jacob using a rock for a pillow made me hurt. As someone who now greatly values their shut eye, I can’t imagine grabbing a rock to lay your head down on. It’s stiff, probably sharp, and will most likely give you a raging headache when you wake up.