Bible reading notes
The way out of playing the victim (1 Samuel 22)
1 Sam 22:1-23 I was working on reception duty at a Christian youth hostel in Haifa, Israel, when three tourists walked in. ‘Don’t tell her we have any money’, muttered one to the other in Hungarian. They missed their cruise…
God’s patient grace (1 Samuel 21)
1 Sam 21:1-15 How is it that when it comes to judging someone’s motivation whom we dislike, we see it in the worst possible light, but when it comes to our own, we attribute the best intentions to ourselves? Motivation…
How to acknowledge our rightful king? (1 Sam 20:1-23)
1 Sam 20:1-23 In my gap year, when I was a volunteer in a youth hostel in Israel, I worked together with a girl my age who had come to faith not long before I arrived. She had a lot…
How God works behind the scenes (1 Samuel 19)
1 Sam 19:1-24 In secondary school, I had a teacher who seemed a bit slow on the uptake. After a particular incident, I made a mocking comment about her in the break, which was overheard by another teacher. He gave…
The deadly effects of jealousy and how to cure it (1 Samuel 18)
1 Sam 18:1-30 My father came from a well-to-do family and before World War II, his parents entertained in the grand style and lacked no luxury. Dad told me once that he was so spoilt as a young boy that…
How to resolve the tension in how David met Saul for the first time? (1 Sam 17:55-58)
1 Sam 17:55-58 Careful readers will note a strange discrepancy at the end of the Goliath incident (1 Sam 17:55-58), where Saul is seemingly unaware of David’s identity, even though the latter was introduced to him in the previous chapter.…
The testimony of God in the world (1 Sam 17:31-58)
1 Sam 17:31-58) When as a teenager I started going to a Bible study group, I was amazed at the stories I heard from others there. At prayer time, many shared personal experiences of what God was doing in their…
How to understand the sign of Jonah (Matt 12:38-42)
Matt 12:38-42 Knowing that I believed in God, a classmate in school challenged me, ‘Tell God to appear to me and I will believe in Him’. God, however, is not at our beck-and-call to come running, as if we were…
The challenge to see God’s perspective (1 Sam 17:1-30)
1 Sam 17:1-30 On the night before the comprehensive exams at the end of my secondary school education, I was terrified. Although I was generally a conscientious student, I was also in the first few years of being a Christian…
How God works out His plans (1 Sam 16:13-23)
1 Sam 16:13-23 Finishing my undergraduate studies in theology in the UK, I was wondering where God was leading me in the future. It occurred to me that lecturing may be a possibility since I had an affinity towards teaching,…