Earth Is Crammed With Heaven-Live Barefoot!

  Abstract This article argues that the Book of Ruth intentionally echoes the ritual logic and symbolic vocabulary of the Sotah ordeal in Numbers 5. Through motifs of straying, bitterness, barrenness, testing, and public vindication, Naomi’s narrative functions as a literary transformation of the Sotah pattern. The move to Moab becomes a narrative analogue to satah (“to go astray”), Naomi’s self‑designation as Mara (“bitter”) parallels the “bitter water” of the ordeal, and the birth of Obed functions as a communal declaration of innocence and restored fertility. This intertextual reading illuminates the theological architecture of Ruth and reframes Naomi’s suffering as a ritual‑shaped journey from suspected deviation to covenantal restoration. 1. Introduction The Book of Ruth is often read as a pastoral narrative of loyalty and redemption. Yet beneath its gentle surface lies a sophisticated engagement with Israel’s legal and ritual traditions. This study proposes that Ruth delibe...

 Today's Thankful in All Things   verse is Psalm 119:71  "It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes." ESV Earlier today as I scrolled Facebook while waiting for my doctor to log onto my Telehealth appointment, there was a post that caught my attention by Ben Bennet  that used several slides to point out the different types of people often mentioned in Proverbs, and how by categorizing people by these three characteristics, we will know how to engage.  But what if we also took a look at ourselves and assessed how often we fall into these same categories.  The three descriptors he used are: the wise, the foolish and the wicked. It was the verse from his slide on the foolish person that I thought of alongside my verse in Psalm 119 today.   This led me to go back to the book of Proverbs and look at some definitions I had written in the margins for the three different people listed in the beginning of the 1:21 says,...

  Today's "Thankful in all things" (pinned on my page) verse is Job 1:20-22 "Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing." This is what Job proclaimed right after losing all the things he had spent his life working to achieve. The culmination of his life's ambition, goals, and even his future legacy, in the death of all his children. All that remained was his home, his unbelieving wife, and a handful of servants. Job is one of my favorite books. I comprehend it best whenever reading it in the NLT or even the NiRV. After losing all of that, then his health is attacked. He has to endure all this internal suffering, (because even whenever our faith is great, even whenever we view God as supreme and sovereign, ...

 An online Bible study/marking group that I'm in has been giving us prayer prompts lately stemming from a word thread post we used earlier on the word darkness . Each day the moderator will post a verse from that thread to prompt us to use in order to pray Scripture. Today the verse was Luke 11:35, "Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness."  I have meditated on this verse most of the day. I even took a nap and dusted a few trinkets I keep in my windowsill, before the Spirit brought to mind something I had learned earlier this year and that is the idea of Satan in the ancient near east mindset, as the Shining One. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, wrote in 2 Corinthians 11:14, "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light".  What's interesting is the verses surrounding my prompt verse in Luke 11 speak of vision, and the importance of having a "good eye" vs a "bad eye" or that your vision be "healthy" vs ...

 Back in mid-April , during my Bible study time, the Spirit impressed upon my heart, that in my reluctance to accept and be content with my new dietary restrictions because of my intestinal dysmotility and gastropareses, I was essentially being like the Israelites in Num 11 & 21.  Not only does this medical issue cause me a limited diet, or else face painful consequences. It also requires new habits, like walking. A lot. Like 4-5 miles a day to help food move through my system. My walking pad that I purchased in January bit the dust, so it's back to walking outside, in this oppressive heat. Much like the desert the Israelites wandered, I'm sure.  I've recently began listening to Billy Graham sermons as I walk and today one of his sermons was on accountability and what transpired in Genesis 3. As I listened, the Spirit again impressed on my heart that Eve's sin was discontentment. She was in paradise. She could eat of any tree but that of the tree of the knowledge of...

 Sunday, June 15, 2025 Prayer - "Call to me and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." Jeremiah 33:3 The word for "call" used here in Hebrew is Strong's 7121, qara' (קָרָא), and carries the idea of reflecting on His name. In Hebrew a name (shem) is a one-word summation of the totality of a person. Qara' is first used in Gen Chapter One where we see God "called" the light day, the darkness night, the expanse heaven and the dry land earth. He brings the animals before Adam to see what he might "qara'" them. To qara' serves as a declaration of purpose or function, of identity.  I find it interesting that the preceding verse here in Jeremiah also directs us back to God's role in creation. "Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it --the LORD is His name (shem)." There are two places in Exodus where God reveals His name to us. In Exodus...