“Look at the Book” is Bible Gateway’s series of short blog posts and infographics introducing you to the books of the Bible. Moving into the Minor Prophets (so called because of the length of their books, not their importance), Hosea provides a strange yet poignant performance-art prophecy.
Scroll to the bottom if you’d prefer to see (and save) this article as an infographic. You’ll also find a handy 30-day reading guide. Or, for a challenge, you can do it in one week using the 7-day reading guide below.
Summary
Hosea shows God’s loyal love for His covenant people in spite of their idolatry. Hosea’s message contains condemnation, but at the same time, he portrays the love of God toward His people with passionate emotion.
Category: Prophets
Theme: Unfaithfulness
Timeline: Around 753-715 BC
Written: Attributed to Hosea
Key Verse
“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” — Hosea 6:6 (NIV)
The Domestic Prophet
God told Hosea to marry a prostitute, and live a domestic life which was a reenactment of the unfaithfulness of Israel. The marriage of Hosea and Gomer provide a metaphor which clarifies the themes of the book: sin, judgment, and forgiving love.
Hosea had a lengthy period of ministry, prophesying during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in Judah, and Jeroboam II in Israel. His long career spanned the last six kings of Israel from Zechariah to Hoshea.
7 Day Reading Guide
Here is a seven-day guide to the prophets Hosea and Joel.
Hosea is the first of the 12 Minor Prophets. “Minor” refers to the brevity of the prophecies, as compared to the length of the works of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
Access the rest of the series. Browse Bible studies for each book of the Bible. Or right-click on the infographic below to download and save the image for your reference.
For some of us the word “Advent” brings to mind itsy, bitsy chocolates behind teensy, weensy cardboard doors on decorative three-dimensional calendars that count down to Christmas. As a kid, I desperately wanted my mom to buy one of those calendars with all the petite sweets behind the darling doors that were mysteriously associated with Jesus’s birth.
Alas my sweet mama was Baptist to the bone and back in the day the Baptists in our hometown associated Advent with our Catholic neighbors.
Like the Brooks family who lived down the street from us who had a whole bunch of friendly kids to play with. They ate fish on Fridays and their mom bought multiple Advent calendars every holiday season with gobs of diminutive desserts for her brood to enjoy. Which made me guiltily grieve my family’s Protestant DNA. I mean, goodness gracious, not only did the Brooks get to savor crispy fried cod on Fridays while I was gagging down Mom’s regular week’s end fare of liver and onions, but they got all those tiny treats through which to celebrate baby Jesus, too!
As silly as my childhood misunderstandings about Advent were, I’ve met more than a few adults who still don’t quite get what Advent is all about (although none of them seem to be quite as obsessed as I was about those wee cacao confections).
What Is Advent All About?
The word “Advent” comes from the Latin word adventus, which means arrival or coming. The celebration of Advent dates back the 4th and 5th Centuries when it marked the season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of Epiphany.
During that ancient season of preparation, Christ-followers spent forty days in penance, prayer, and fasting prior to Epiphany. In fact, it wasn’t until the Middle Ages, that Advent became solely connected with the birth of Jesus.
And while joy was certainly one facet of those old Advent celebrations, there was also a sobriety to the season as our ancestors of the faith spent much of those forty days marinating in the harsh reality that our Messiah’s incarnation was necessitated by our need for a Savior. That He had to be born in order to die, because His blood was the only thing that could atone for our sins.
Early practitioners of Advent viewed Christmas through the lens of Good Friday. Their posture was one of humility and hope. Loss and longing. Waiting and wonder. It revealed the juxtapositional reality of our existence between two Advents — the first when the Divine came to earth in a suit of skin as Immanuel, God With Us, and the second, when King Jesus will return triumphantly to claim us as His bride!
Adopted Into Advent
Deitrich Bonhoeffer described the poignant posture of humility and hope, loss and longing, waiting and wonder in this keen literary observation: “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”And my daughter Missy modeled that posture in a way I’ll never forget the first Advent season we got to celebrate together, just a few months after I brought her home from Haiti through the miracle of adoption, after her dear first mother’s death.
It happened in December 2014 when I took her for her first photo session with Santa. (I know some of you probably winced when you read that last bit because y’all think only pagans and the backslidden let their children take pictures with Santa Claus. However, I’d like to point out that I didn’t get to become Missy’s second mama until the year I turned fifty, and after trying to keep a stiff upper lip through dozens of “single and childless” holidays I’ll be darned if I wasn’t going to have at least one picture of my precious baby girl with Good Ole St. Nick! Please keep reading though because I can assure you I did my level best to put the whole nostalgic experience in proper Biblical context.)
Evangelizing Santa
Missy was five years old then, spoke very little English, had never really celebrated Christmas in Haiti, and was thoroughly confused about all the hubbub concerning the pudgy dude in the red velvet suit. I didn’t want to confuse her with sentimentalism, but I also didn’t want to snuff out the faint glimmer of innocent anticipation she had regarding her first Christmas. So I did my best to explain that the whole point of Christmas was Jesus’s birthday — that it was when we celebrate Him coming to earth and being born as a baby boy in Bethlehem, who would grow up to become the Savior of the world, and who is now in heaven, sitting at the right hand of our Heavenly Father and “interceding” — or talking to God — about us.
Then I carefully explained how Santa is sort of like a human cartoon (although his character is based on a very old, really nice guy named Saint Nicolas), who helps deliver presents every December, and since he isn’t invisible like Jesus he tends to get a lot of attention even though it isn’t his birthday. I’m sure you can imagine that by the time I finished my merry monologue Missy’s wariness had increased, as was evidenced by her extreme reticence to sit on Santa’s lap!
I was finally able to coax her into posing for a picture with him, but she made it clear that she wasn’t happy about it. She arched her tiny body away from him, gave him some serious stink eye, and then asked with gruff suspicion, “Do you know Jebus?” I could tell that kind, faux Santa was flustered when he cocked his head a smidge to the side and asked gently, “What did you say, honey?” At which point, Missy’s eyebrows furrowed, and she repeated the question more emphatically, “DO. YOU. KNOW. JEBUS?”
The poor guy glanced over at me with a Please help me out here, Lady! expression because she had such a thick Creole accent that he couldn’t understand her. So I quickly explained how I’d told her that he was simply one of Jesus’s friends here on earth who helps with all the birthday festivities. At which point that dear man turned to Missy and exclaimed joyfully, “Ho, ho, ho, I sure do know Jesus honey…He’s my very best friend!”
The Real Hero of Christmas
I still find myself smiling when I think about my daughter’s innocent boldness with Mr. Claus and her insistence about Jesus. Even at five, Missy knew who the real hero of Christmas is and her preoccupation with the Prince of Peace is the very essence of Advent.
Join me and my friend Christine Caine as we (like Missy) seek Jesus in the Marvel and Miracle of the Advent season. Advent isn’t just about waiting… let’s get ready for Christmas with a fresh sense of anticipation! Sign up for this short 4-week study and get access to 4 study videos with Christine and Lisa and other Advent resources — all free when you sign up!
At age sixteen, Peter could never have guessed what his life would become.
He grew up in Galilee, fished in the Sea of Galilee, and knew dozens in his family’s circle. As a young adult he was called to drop the fishing to follow Jesus with his brother. He became the “first among equals” among the twelve disciples. They were all “sent” out by Jesus, which is why we know them today as apostles (sent ones). He accompanied Jesus, listened to Jesus, observed Jesus, and did his best to do what Jesus did.
His failures became a matter of public record: he sunk in the water when trying to walk on water, and he failed miserably to own up to being a close follower of Jesus during Jesus’ trials. But Jesus forgave him, restored him, and commissioned him all over again.
So much for the story of Peter in the Gospels.
Peter After the Resurrection
Peter was at Pentecost. He preached the first Pentecost Day sermon. He was for a short while the go-to apostle in Jerusalem for the suddenly growing church. The authorities learned about him and ordered him to stop publicly claiming Jesus as the Messiah. He didn’t; he suffered for it; he was pushed from Jerusalem.
In a famous vision of unclean foods and animals and then in a just-as-famous incident in Caesarea (by the sea) he proclaimed the gospel to a gentile named Cornelius. Not long after he was in Jerusalem where he was queried by the “circumcised believers” (Acts 11:2) about how kosher his gospel and practices were. He witnessed to what happened; they could not deny the mighty acts of God.
Back in Jerusalem, Peter was arrested once again, and he was liberated from prison by a miracle. Jerusalem’s Christian leaders held a conference about how much of the law of Moses these new gentile converts were to observe. Peter gave a short summary of watching God’s movement among the gentiles, and the leaders sent out a letter requiring a gentile minimum when it came to observing the laws of Moses. They ferreted out the four laws specifically given for gentiles in the Land. Those laws are found listed in Acts 15:16–18 and they derive from Leviticus 17–18.
What we know from this point on about Peter is not much. What we do know is that Peter, like his parallel but sometimes contentious friend (Paul), became a missionary in Asia Minor. He seemed to have planted churches throughout Asia Minor. We also know he was in Rome, from where (presumably) two letters in the New Testament were written.
Intro to 2 Peter
Second Peter strikes the reader as far less pastoral in tone than 1 Peter and more strident in expression. Some false teachers are in view, and Peter describes them in strong, even loathsome terms. These false teachers deny the second coming (1:16–18; 3:4–10) and break down common Christian moral practices (2:2,10,13,18–22).
Another tone emerges because Peter appears to be on the verge of dying, making 2 Peter a bit of a farewell letter (1:14). In fact, many think 2 Peter not only borrows from Jude, but that this letter may not have been written by Peter but by one who followed his teachings carefully. Jude bears many similarities to 2 Peter, both in tone and content. But each letter has its own distinctives.
The Transformative Power of Redemption
Peter, pastors, and parents long for those they love to be transformed into a Christlike life. We all do. We want it for ourselves.
The Second Letter of Peter taps the keys of transformation from beginning to end. The origin of Christian transformation is the work of God in Jesus Christ, so Peter’s opening to his letter, like most letters in the early church, frames redemption as a transforming power available to each of us. Like those other letters, too, Peter scratches onto the papyrus words with considerable weight.
Salvation is knowledge, the kind of knowledge that leads to transformation in Christian virtues. Peter’s fresh developments in his understanding of salvation emphasizes (1) Jesus as Savior (1:1,11; 2:20; 3:2,18) and (2) the transformative power of knowledge. What he says in this letter supplements what is taught in 1 Peter.
Whose We Are
It begins with where we are and who (or whose) we are. Peter is a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ (1:1). The word slave ironically exalts Peter in the Jewish and Christian traditions (cf. Deuteronomy 34:5; 2 Samuel 3:18).
He envisions his audience in theological categories: “To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours” (1:1, NIV). These terms for his audience are piled on top of one another, and I have translated them as follows: “To the ones designated with an equally-honorable-for [or with]-us allegiance in the rightness of our God and Deliverer, Yēsous Christos” (Second Testament).
The term “allegiance” corresponds to the NIV’s “faith,” which is the beginning of redemptive knowledge, not unlike Proverbs‘ sketch of wisdom originating in the fear of God. That Peter connects “God” with “Savior” as he does, and Savior to “Jesus Christ,” indicates Peter believes Jesus is God (see John 1:1; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8–9).
Peter’s audience has an “equally honorable allegiance” to Jesus, which the NIV translates a “faith as precious as ours” (1:1). “Precious” helps but as a translation more needs to be evident. The Greek word is isotimos, coming from “equal” (iso) and “honor” (timos). Their faith and Peter’s faith, and the faith of each who was to receive this letter, are equally honorable.
The NIV’s “as precious as” is not as precise or social as Peter’s language. This is about equality in faith, and this equal faith gives such persons honor before God and with one another. Thus, their social status in the family of Jesus has nothing to do with what the world thinks of them. They are honored by God because they are connected to Jesus Christ.
Formed Into Righteousness
Such a faith-connection with Jesus forms us into righteousness, a righteousness that comes to us in and through Jesus Christ. Righteousness describes someone or something that corresponds consistently with the character and will of God. We speak of it as:
Practice (we grow in righteousness as we follow Jesus).
Character trait or attribute of God and the Lord Jesus (Jesus is the Righteous One).
Status (in Christ we are righteous because he is righteous).
Righteousness then is fundamentally relational: we acquire it only in relation to Christ.
Flourishing in Grace and Peace
Peter prays they will flourish in both “grace and peace” (1:2). Grace in the New Testament comes to us by an act of the God who loves us, and grace draws us into a relationship of mutual exchange. Our exchange is gratitude, thanksgiving, love, and obedience. Peace points at the inner tranquility that can lead to mutual good relations among one another in the fellowship.
Noticeably their flourishing in both grace and peace occurs “through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Perception of the truth about God as the agent of flourishing is quite the claim. I have to say that, as a theologian myself, an emphasis on the power of knowing God and Christ plucks strings of resonance.
Redemptive Knowledge
Too many today pooh-pooh theology and knowledge and study and intellectual distinctions. Yes, we are to give practice a noticeable priority. After all, we experience some who know but don’t do, who think but don’t love.
But those sorts do not replace the importance of knowledge. Instead, we are to prioritize a discipleship that is gospel-informed in such a way that the knowledge yields its God-shaped goal: transformation of character. Redemptive knowledge is so important that I want to record primary instances in this letter of the term “knowledge” to set the tone for what is to come in the rest of this letter. (Greek terms for knowledge in 2 Peter: *Gnōsis; +Gnōrizō; #Ginōskō; Epiginōskō unmarked. NIV throughout.)
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord (1:2).
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (1:3).
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge*; and to knowledge*, self-control . . . (1:5-6).
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:8).
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you+ about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty (1:16).
Above all, you must understand# that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things (1:20).
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning (2:20).
Above all, you must understand# that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires (3:3).
But grow in the grace and knowledge* of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen (3:18).
This letter will work out line after line what redemptive knowledge looks like. As a taste of what it is to come, redemptive knowledge is about Jesus Christ, it is about transformation in virtue, and it is about perceiving false teachings.
Each of these become vital themes in 2 Peter, but the larger theme is knowledge of God. Sister Athanasius, a leading character in Lil Copan’s precious novel, Little Hours, opens a window to let in the sun’s light on how knowledge and life work best, writing to her friend Miriam, “Knowing God in each moment simply raises that moment” (Copan, Little Hours, 34).
Questions for Reflection and Application
What does “righteousness” mean to Peter?
How does Peter flesh out ideas of understanding and knowledge in this letter?
How can knowledge help accomplish transformation of character?
What can knowledge do to help believers perceive false teachings?
What has helped you gain useful and transformative knowledge in your Christian life?
Adapted from 1 & 2 Peter and Jude: Staying Faithful to the Gospel, a Bible commentary by Scot McKnight, in which he explores how the most demanding challenge for early believers in Jesus Christ was how to live as a Christian in the Roman empire — how a household was to live, how to respond to suffering, how to live a holy life, and how to maintain faithfulness to the truths of the gospel.
“Look at the Book” is Bible Gateway’s series of short blog posts and infographics introducing you to the books of the Bible. The shortest of the Major Prophets, most recent, and only one to contain major portions in Aramaic (rather than Hebrew), Daniel also stands out for some of the Old Testament’s most memorable short stories.
Scroll to the bottom if you’d prefer to see (and save) this article as an infographic. You’ll also find a handy 30-day reading guide. Or, for a challenge, you can do it in one week using the 7-day reading guide below.
Summary
Daniel was a young man of Judah who was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. From the first pages of the book, he stands out as a leader — both spiritually and politically.
Category: Prophets
Theme: Sovereignty
Timeline: Roughly 593-573 BC
Written: Traditionally attributed to Daniel
Key Verse
“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.” — Daniel 2:20 (NIV)
Daniel was written to encourage the exiled Jews by revealing God’s program for them, both during and after the time of Gentile power in the world.
Access the rest of the series. Browse Bible studies for each book of the Bible. Or right-click on the infographic below to download and save the image for your reference.
Most people think of the King James Version as the original Bible in English, and when I first thought about writing my book on Bible translations, I assumed I would start “in the beginning” with the legendary KJV.
But when I started doing my research, I learned there is a long and fascinating list of Bibles in English that not only came before the KJV but also played a significant role in its development.
John Wycliffe (ca. 1331–1384)
The first English translation of the entire Bible was the work of Oxford scholar John Wycliffe and his students, which was completed in the late 1300s. Wycliffe’s Bible was based on the Vulgate, a late fourth-century translation of the Bible in Latin that was the official Bible of the Catholic Church at that time. This means Wycliffe did not translate from the original languages but from Latin into English.
Wycliffe was a vocal critic of the church. His writings challenged many church practices he believed to be unbiblical and undermined the very authority of Catholic bishops and the political power of the pope. Because of this, Wycliffe and his followers (the Lollards) were accused of heresy.
The translation of the Bible that Wycliffe developed was, of course, not authorized by the church, yet it became quite popular during the Middle Ages. This created even more tension with church leaders, who had concerns about the Bible being available for everyone to read without leadership’s approval or ability to control how it was produced and distributed.
This tension between Bible translators and the established religious authorities would become a recurring theme in the history of early translations of the Bible.
William Tyndale (ca. 1494–1536)
John Wycliffe gets credit for producing the first complete English translation of the Bible, but the person historians widely recognize as the most important figure in the history of the English Bible is William Tyndale. Tyndale was a leading figure of the Protestant Reformation, and he was the first person to create an English translation of the Bible using Hebrew and Greek manuscripts as the textual basis.
It is hard to overstate the importance of Tyndale’s work, not only because he was focused on translating directly from the Hebrew and Greek but also because of his passion for creating a Bible that could be read by everyday people. This approach became the archetype for many future translations, and Tyndale’s work was so significant that much of what we find in the King James Bible is a direct result of his efforts.
Much like Wycliffe, William Tyndale was met with opposition by the church, and he lived in exile for years in various locations throughout Europe. The first complete copies of his translation of the New Testament were produced in 1526 in the German city of Worms, but only after an earlier printing in Cologne had to be abandoned when authorities raided the printer’s shop.
Tyndale also found himself on the wrong side of King Henry VIII when he publicly opposed the king’s decision to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. While working to complete his translation of the Old Testament in Belgium in 1535, Tyndale was betrayed by a so-called friend and arrested on charges of heresy. He was executed before he could complete his translation of the entire Bible. Despite his untimely death, William Tyndale’s work carried on.
Myles Coverdale (ca. 1488–1569)
Enter Myles Coverdale, Tyndale’s friend and fellow translator who completed and revised the work begun by Tyndale. The resulting translation was known as the Coverdale Bible, which became the first complete printed Bible into English when it was published in 1535. Coverdale dedicated his Bible to King Henry VIII even though it wasn’t an authorized version. Perhaps he hoped for a different fate than his friend Tyndale.
Two years later, in 1537, a man named John Rogers revised Coverdale’s work under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew and published it as the Matthew Bible. By this time, the position of the king and leaders of the Church of England had softened, or perhaps they had simply come to the realization that they were not going to be able to stop the Bible from being translated into English.
Either way, they decided to get in on the game, but the Matthew Bible was still too closely connected to Tyndale for their liking. So in 1538, they commissioned none other than Myles Coverdale to produce a revision of the Matthew Bible. The result was the Great Bible of 1539, so named for its size. It was approved by King Henry VIII and included a preface from the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, making it the first officially sanctioned Bible in English.
Henry VIII and the English Reformation
Having mentioned Henry VIII several times now, I suppose it is important to note that all of this took place during the English Reformation (approximately 1527–1590), which — as you may remember from history class — was sparked when England’s most notorious king had his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. It was a big mess, and in the process, the Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church.
Henry VIII died in 1547, succeeded briefly by his son, Edward VI, who died six years later in 1553. That’s when Henry’s daughter, Mary I (a.k.a. “Bloody Mary”), became queen. Mary was a devout Catholic, and she aimed to undo the reforms of her father by any means necessary. And that is what led to the Geneva Bible.
The Geneva Bible
Under Bloody Mary’s rule, Protestant scholars began to be imprisoned on charges of heresy (Mary executed two of the men mentioned previously, John Rogers and Thomas Cranmer, as heretics). Many of those not locked away fled from England and relocated to Switzerland.
One of the results of this new hub of Protestant scholars was the development of a collaborative new English Bible translation called the Geneva Bible, published in 1560. Even though it wasn’t authorized for use in England, the Geneva Bible was immensely popular among laypeople and clergy, and it remained so for the better part of a century.
I am convinced that the Geneva Bible was so successful because it presented the text of Scripture in a way that was unheard of at that time. It was the first English Bible to use verse numbers, and it featured a more modern and legible “Roman” typeface. It was made available in a variety of editions that were affordable for everyday people.
The Geneva Bible was also the first mass-produced Bible to include annotations, cross-references, book introductions, maps, and other study tools. You can imagine why people loved this Bible so much. It was, quite literally, the most reader-friendly Bible that had ever been produced.
The Bishops’ Bible
Back in England, after the death of Bloody Mary in 1558, her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth I, became queen. As officials from the Church of England watched the success of the Geneva Bible, they realized that the Great Bible of 1539 needed an update, and this effort was led by the new archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker.
The result was published in 1568 as the Bishops’ Bible, but it failed to include many of the innovative features that made the Geneva Bible so popular, and it wasn’t made available in affordable editions. So even though the Bishops’ Bible was the new authorized Bible of the Church of England, it was unable to match the popularity of the Geneva Bible.
The Douay-Rheims Bible
The flourish of new English Bible translations from the Protestant world demanded a response from the Catholic Church, and this task was assigned to members of the English College in Douay, France, which had become the home of many exiled English Catholics during the English Reformation.
Translated from the Latin Vulgate (the authoritative text of the Bible for the Catholic Church), the New Testament was published in 1582 in Rheims, France, and was originally known as the Rheims New Testament. Twenty-seven years later, an English translation of the Old Testament was published in two volumes from 1609 to 1610 in Douay. The combined work later became known as the Douay-Rheims Bible, the first complete Catholic translation of the Bible in English.
The primary purpose of the Douay-Rheims Bible, as stated on its title page and in its preface, wasn’t to provide English-speaking Catholics a Bible in their own language, but to enable Catholic clergy to better oppose what they saw as inadequacies in the ever-growing number of Protestant translations. The Old Testament arrived too late to make any significant impact on the King James Bible, but the publication of the Rheims New Testament and subsequent criticism of early English Protestant translations certainly had an influence on the King James translators.
Conclusion
The period spanning the Middle Ages to the Reformation era saw a flurry of activity in the realm of Bible translations. Numerous individuals and groups, often risking their lives, committed themselves to the monumental task of editing and improving upon the initial work of William Tyndale.
It cannot be overstated how important these remarkable contributions were to the ongoing development of the Bible in English. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the unauthorized Geneva Bible had gained widespread popularity, vastly outpacing the Church of England’s officially recognized Bishops’ Bible.
However, with the ascension of King James to the throne in 1603, a new directive was issued. The king sought to outdo all previous translations by commissioning a superior version of the Bible. This new iteration, simply called the Authorized Version, would eventually become known as the King James Bible.
Bible Translations for Everyone is a fun and engaging guide through the complex world of Bible translations. It will help you understand the histories, advantages, and shortcomings of the most popular Bible versions, so you can choose the best version for each purpose. Get your copy today!
In the New Testament the Gospels record the story of a woman with an “issue of blood” (Luke 8:43–48 KJV). Scholars believe she had a hemorrhage, and what that meant for this woman was isolation. According to Jewish law, she would have been considered “unclean,” and, furthermore, anyone who came in contact with her would have become unclean as well. Scripture tells us she had been bleeding for twelve years.
One day Jesus passed near her in a crowd, and if you know the story, you know that she reached out and touched Jesus and was immediately healed.
What happened next is easy to miss because it seems like the miracle should get the most attention, right? But Jesus made a point of stopping when everyone else would have kept on walking through the crowded street, and he asked, “Who touched me?” (Luke 8:45).
You can almost hear his disciples’ tone when they referred to the bustling crowds pressing in on all sides, but Jesus insisted. Jesus stopped.
Who touched me?
The Courage to Confess
This woman now had a choice — she’d already gotten her miracle.
She could walk away healed.
But instead, she confessed.
This woman did the unthinkable — she touched Jesus in an unclean state and now, likely for the first time in twelve years, she was in the middle of an enormous crowd of people . . . and she confessed.
Don’t miss what Jesus told her: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34 ESV).
Confession, and honest and open communication, earned her the title of “daughter.” She was seen in that moment — vulnerable and known. Instead of being condemned, she was praised. Instead of receiving judgment, she received freedom, but it took the courage to confess.
Being seen can be scary, but it’s the only way to be known. Until we are willing to be honest in relationships, especially with God and with our spouse, we can’t expect to be seen. We can’t expect to be fully known.
What Does It Have to Do With Me?
You might be thinking, How does this relate to me? Some random, unnamed woman in Scripture who was healed of a physical, internal, uncommon hemorrhage — what does that have to do with my story? Maybe you’re a man and you’re thinking, She’s not even married. How does this connect to me?
The answer, frankly, is everything.
Let’s put it like this: in war zones, injuries from shrapnel are common. These shards of metal can be flung from a bomb or a land mine, and unfortunately most victims are innocent civilians.
What you may not realize is that the actual injury, the torn flesh or damage from this debris, is not usually the cause of death. The most common way that shrapnel kills is sepsis — an infection that manifests only later, after the shard has lingered in the body. It won’t be a visible bleeding or a wound that is clearly identified — it’s an internal injury that grows when left untreated.
We all have wounds. We all have caught some metaphorical shrapnel in our lifetime that left us internally scarred. It may not be obvious to everyone, but I’m willing to bet your wound is bleeding into other areas of your life. Maybe it manifests as anger in your home, or a deafening silence where there used to be open communication.
We all have issues, things that, as in the case of the woman with the issue of blood, we are ashamed of. Things that we hide from others, but those things don’t go away just because we aren’t willing to deal with them.
What Is Your Shrapnel?
I want you to pause here.
Consider what your shrapnel may be.
What caused the invisible wound you so carefully conceal?
Consider why you might be stuffing the pain rather than speaking it.
Consider that if you’re hiding something, you may be hurting someone.
Maybe you’ve been told that you just need to have more faith — that you’re the reason you’re suffering. I’ve heard that one a time or two! And the woman in this story was probably told the same thing. She was probably also told that her disease was a result of sin: as punishment for her own or the result of someone else’s wrongdoing. Sound familiar? Sometimes we let others diagnose us, and it leads us down a path of pain managing rather than healing. The person we let diagnose us may have caused the injury in the first place.
Now, I’m not saying that we never deal with consequences that are of our own making — I’ve certainly done my share of wrong! But whatever the cause of the wound, hiding it only allows the sepsis to take hold. And, my friend, that kind of infection doesn’t just kill your marriage — it can take you out altogether.
The Transformative Power of Confession
So how do we treat these invisible injuries? In a word: confession.
Jesus made a point of asking “Who touched me?” not because he didn’t know but because he wanted to diagnose her. You see, up until this point, she had been known only by her issue. She’s literally known throughout the Gospels only as “the woman with the issue of blood.”
But this was not how Jesus referred to her.
No one in that crowd knew her as anything other than her disease. They didn’t know her as “daughter.” Her affliction had interfered with every relationship in her life — isolating her to the point that no one even saw her that day. Only Jesus, and only when she confessed.
That day her trauma became her testimony. That day, through having the courage to confess, she laid claim to a new identity. Her identity had already changed — she was healed. But she had to claim it in order to be known. Known as “daughter.”
This is how love works: something must die for God’s love to live. In this case it was her old identity. For some, it might be an expectation that needs to die, or a want that you keep placing over the needs of your spouse.
Claim Your Testimony
Loving everything that’s different about your spouse is a different kind of love — we have to be willing to let the old version of love die in order to claim the kind of love God demonstrates!
Friend, I want you to know that you are a child of God. God loves you too much to leave you wounded. But you have to receive your new identity, and the only way to do so is to come out of hiding — out of isolation. We can’t self-diagnose this — we can’t WebMD our symptoms and fix ourselves.
Scripture tells us the woman in our story spent everything she had and that she was still in tremendous pain.
God wants so much more for you!
If it’s not good, God is not done.
But you have to be willing to claim the testimony on the other side of your trauma.
Adapted from Two Equals Oneby Irene Rollins and Jimmy Rollins.
Uncover the secrets to a thriving marriage. Focusing on reconciling differences and forging true intimacy, Two Equals One emphasizes the crucial roles of communication, understanding, and concerted team effort.
Two Equals One presents the case to stay rather than leave. To lean in rather than let go. To give you a framework and path to discover a marriage equation of love, laughter, and longevity. From tackling tough topics such as addiction and resentment to addressing the impact of neglecting spousal roles, Two Equals One is a comprehensive guide to strengthening and salvaging relationships, while offering practical challenges, prayers, and resources to actively engage couples.
Two Equals One is published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the parent company of Bible Gateway.
I remember when I finally admitted to myself that I was a drug addict.
It wasn’t one of the many times I’d downed a speed pill and spent hours drawing in a dopamine-saturated fugue. It wasn’t when, as newlyweds, my husband and I spent a thousand dollars on a sheet of LSD when we were barely surviving paycheck to paycheck. It wasn’t even the time I pilfered a few opioid painkillers from my mother’s prescription when she’d fallen and broken her wrist and elbow walking my dog while I was in an inpatient psychiatric program after warping my mind for months on psychedelic drugs. (I didn’t even like opioid painkillers; it’s just that something was better than nothing.)
But no, even that shameful interlude didn’t jar me from my bottomless rationalizing and justifying of my drug use.
Instead, it was the night of my final psychedelic trip, when I finally realized I would never be able to chase God hard enough to catch him.
My Psychedelic Idolatry
Drugs had become my primary dependency by then, but the idolatry ran much deeper. I was a psychonaut, I told myself, a spiritual vagrant, an explorer of worlds uncharted. I was going where workaday squares feared to tread, a bold new frontier where ego and dualism went to die and where peace and love would surely prevail.
Never mind that I was content to leave “peace” and “love” as nebulous, ill-defined terms floating in the stratosphere with little connection to how I treated people. Never mind that this “frontier” had been stormed by so many before me and found wanting.
I was different, I was golden, I was invincible, a being of pure light behind the layers of putrefaction the world had placed on me and which LSD would surely, with enough time and devotion, lay bare. Heaven was ripe for the storming.
Yes, I threw around words like “heaven” and “God” back then — but it was nothing more than lip service, a peremptory nod to some kind of higher being or supraintelligence I believed I’d encountered while high. It was the high, and the high became my object of devotion.
The Irony of Spiritual Openness
“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV). And it was indeed foolishness to me for many years — an impenetrable mystery of blood and sacrifice and atonement, of sin and salvation — whatever that meant, if it could even be found.
It was the great irony of “spiritual openness”: I was willing to listen to nearly anything except the gospel and the word of God. Over the years I’d explored astrology, chakra cleansing, kundalini yoga, energy healing and sound baths. I’d “om”-ed until I was hoarse at yogic kirtans (lengthy Sanskrit chanting sessions) and paid for a velvet-voiced hack in a dim, incense-choked room hung with mandala tapestries to tell me what my moon in Aquarius meant.
As time went on, my inflated pride and DIY spirituality were increasingly mingled with a profound spiritual confusion. My years of psychedelic use and embrace of motley new age spiritualities — which, despite their wild variance, shared the common theme of a kind of salvation-by-works cloaked in different flavors of Western hippie-fied Eastern mysticism and esotericism — no longer seemed to be progressing me toward some grand vista of enlightenment.
“God” receded to the vanishing point of the dimming horizon as the bad trips multiplied. I couldn’t get high anymore, and therefore, I concluded, I couldn’t “get” to God, because God was the high and the high was God. If my god existed only in the schizoid, lightning-dashed mountaintop of an acid high, the failure of the drugs called into question God’s very existence.
One Final Chase
I remember my final psychedelic trip more vividly than I wish I did, but the memory is also a grace and mercy of God — the true God.
I’d grown my own mushrooms worshipfully, with religious reverence, spreading my hands over them and offering “blessings,” desperately straining to retain my dimming credulity in the new age belief that the vibrations and energy I transmitted into them would, by some spooky process of hippie osmosis, yield a kaleidoscopic harvest.
I had such high hopes, and was crushed even more than usual when the tenor of the trip plummeted almost immediately after the walls started respirating and the colors of the room took on a day-glo saturation and faces and tessellating geometries flew out of the whorls in the hardwood floor.
It was a bad trip already, within minutes of its reception, and I was so tired, so weary. I lay down on the rug, so gutted by the utter meaninglessness and vacuity of the universe that I found it impossible to even cry, to even mourn.
Later, when I was, by some miracle, finally able to pick myself up, I imagined I was chasing God around our little rental house — yet I kept missing him as he robes whisked around the corner just as I entered a room. I oscillated between hope and despair, finally ending the night on a note of the latter.
The Power of the Cross
“But to us who are being saved it is the power of God,” Paul concludes the verse above. And it is indeed — were it not for the ferocity of grace and mercy, and the love that compelled Christ’s sacrifice, the shocking revelation that I was a drug addict, no better than the alcoholic who tips a nip of liquor into his coffee every morning, nor the junkie who sells all she has for one more hit, would have crushed me.
But the wretchedness of my sin — as soon as I faced it fully — was overwhelmed by the power of the cross.
Paul goes on to quote the prophet Isaiah: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
The power of the cross is subversive in the sense that it upends human wisdom; the cross compelled me at last precisely because I knew it was nothing a human system of wisdom would ever produce. It was counterintuitive, countercultural, counter to all the ways I’d been trained and trained myself to think of God and righteousness over the years, yet it made perfect sense in articulating the central dilemma of human existence — and of my existence — and its only possible cure. No other story was adequate. No other story was big enough. No other solution comforted, no other solution satisfied.
It was immensely and beautifully humbling to realize that the years I’d spent — so I’d believed — exploring the farthest reaches of consciousness amounted to nothing.
I’d spent years straining after God, or what I thought God was, culminating in that futile and pathetic chase on mushrooms.
Yet here, in Jesus Christ, was God come to me. No amount of chanting, contorting myself in yoga postures, or hijacking my serotonergic system with drugs could’ve breached the chasm. But here, in the impenetrable mystery of sacrifice and atonement, in the very flesh of God himself — Jesus Christ — it had been done for me.
The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever tells my story of psychedelic devastation and spiritual rescue. It chronicles my trajectory from acid enthusiast to soul-weary druggie to psychedelic refugee. I finally found The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever — in the last place I thought to look.
“Look at the Book” is Bible Gateway’s series of short blog posts and infographics introducing you to the books of the Bible. The book of the prophet Ezekiel is one of the strangest and at times disturbing books of the Bible — but all that wild imagery has a very serious message.
Scroll to the bottom if you’d prefer to see (and save) this article as an infographic. You’ll also find a handy 30-day reading guide. Or, for a challenge, you can do it in one week using the 7-day reading guide below.
Summary
The book of Ezekiel contains some of the strangest imagery in the Bible. However, though parts of it can be difficult to understand, the constant theme is that God is sovereign over nations, people, history, and all creation.
Category: Prophets
Theme: Glory
Timeline: Roughly 593-573 BC
Written: Traditionally attributed to Ezekiel
Key Verse
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” — Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV)
Soli Deo Gloria
Chief among the theological themes in the book of Ezekiel are God’s holiness and sovereignty. These are conveyed by frequent contrast of His bright glory against the despicable backdrop of Judah’s sins.
Like other prophets, Ezekiel sounded a message of hope to accompany his warnings of judgment. Ezekiel concludes his prophesy with the news of a coming day when God would restore proper worship in a new temple.
The messages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel are quite similar, though they spoke to people hundreds of miles away from one another, who were facing different stages of God’s judgment.
Access the rest of the series. Browse Bible studies for each book of the Bible. Or right-click on the infographic below to download and save the image for your reference.
Angels today, more often than not, are depicted as sweet, gentle, benign, humanlike figures with illustrious wings, white robes, golden halos, and a soft glow. They offer comfort, soothe our worries, and sometimes provide protection from various troubles.
While there’s nothing in the Bible that says that image of angels is wrong, it isn’t how they are typically described in Scripture. Biblically accurate angels are often strange and fearsome beings, and while they do bring comfort and protection, they can also be cryptic and even disturbing.
Above all, angels are God’s messengers, sent as intermediaries to communicate with human beings on his behalf. The English word angel is in fact borrowed from the Greekangelos, which literally means “messenger,” and translated the Hebrew word mal’ak (also meaning “messenger”).
These “messengers” can take many forms, though, and serve many purposes beyond divine couriering. Their appearances vary — seemingly at their will — from visions of grandeur to simpler forms that humans can comprehend.
Here is a look at the different types or “classes” of angels mentioned in the Bible.
Types of Angels Mentioned in the Bible
Angels are described in a variety of ways throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Early Christians were fascinated with cataloguing and ranking these types of angels into different classes. Though the Bible provides no such specific ordering, it does give them distinct titles and purposes.
Archangels
Despite their title, which means “first angels” or “leader angels” in Greek, archangels traditionally ranked low on the angelic hierarchy in medieval Christianity (perhaps because of their relatively plain, humanistic features). But they receive a more exalted place in Jewish angelology (yes, that’s a real word) thanks to their names and their designation as “princes” in several passages.
The only angels in the Bible with individual names are all archangels. Three are commonly accepted, though Orthodox Christians have a much longer list:
Gabriel (Dan. 8:15-16, 9:20-22; Luke 1:19, 1:26-27) — Interprets Daniel’s visions and announces to Zechariah and Mary the advent of their children.
Raphael (Tobit 5:4 and throughout) — Accompanies Tobit on his journey and helps him expel demons and heal blindness. Sometimes also associated with John 5:1-4.
Other archangels: Uriel, Selaphiel, Jegudiel, Barachiel, and Jeremiel all come from 2 Esdras, Enoch, and other extrabiblical tradition, and are venerated in Eastern Orthodoxy. Metatron is also sometimes classified as an archangel.
Cherubim
Cherubim in the Bible are radically different from the chubby little guys with arrows they are commonly depicted as today. In fact, they are quite terrifying, fearsome protectors — though more often against humankind than of us.
They first appear in Genesis 3:24 alongside a flaming, turning sword to guard the garden of Eden against anyone who might want to try getting back in after Adam and Eve’s expulsion.
They also adorn the cover of the ark of the covenant in Exodus 25, the curtains of the tabernacle in Ex. 36, and much later, Solomon’s temple (1Kg. 6) — always guarding against people trespassing where they do not belong. When Moses speaks to God in the “tent of meeting,” God’s voice comes from between the two cherubim (Num. 7:89).
The cherubim take center stage in Ezekiel 10. Here’s how Ezekiel describes them:
They’re hovering between burning, whirling wheels below and a sapphire “form resembling a throne” above (v. 1-2)
Their wings are as loud as God’s voice (v. 5)
Their entire bodies are covered with eyes (v. 12)
They have four faces: a cherub (it’s unclear what this means, but it’s often depicted as an ox), a human, a lion, and an eagle (v. 14)
Seraphim
Seraphim are described as fiery, six-winged beings that stand in the presence of God. One pair of wings covers their eyes, one covers their feet, and with another they fly around the throne of the Lord. Their primary role is to worship and exalt God’s holiness, constantly singing “holy, holy, holy” to one another.
Though they appear explicitly only once in Scripture, in Isaiah 6, their proximity to God earned them top billing in most Medieval hierarchies.
‘Living Creatures’
The English phrase “living creatures” translates two different Hebrew words: nephesh and hayyot. The former means literally any sentient creature — human or animal (see Gen. 1:20, Lev. 11:10).
The hayyot, though, are a particular angelic being described in Ezekiel 1. He sees four of them, human-shaped and surrounding “burning coals of fire” that shoot forth lightning, while the living creatures dash around, also like lightning.
Ezekiel later identifies these “living creatures” as cherubim, but they nevertheless remained a separate class of angels in some later Jewish and Christian hierarchies.
The only other appearance of the “living creatures” in the Bible is in Revelation, where they seem to more closely resemble seraphim, with six wings, covered with eyes, chanting “holy, holy, holy” (Rev. 4:8).
Thrones
Thrones are the name later given to the ophanim (“wheels”) seen by Ezekiel together with — and indeed closely accompanying — the living creatures/cherubim. The prophet describes them in Ez. 1:15-21 as a “wheel within a wheel,” burning and “gleaming like beryl,” and “full of eyes all around.” Though totally inhuman in appearance, they are moved by a “living spirit.”
Some Christians later interpreted these wheels to be like casters supporting God’s throne, which is why they came collectively to be called “thrones.” Though Ezekiel doesn’t say so specifically, he does describe a throne the color of sapphire directly above their heads, and says that whenever one wheel moved, all the other wheels and cherubim moved with it.
Angels
By far the majority of angels in the Bible are not named or even described beyond the simple phrase “the angel of the Lord.” These angels act on behalf of God, communicating messages on his behalf and acting as “ministering spirits” to “those who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14).
Angels speak to dozens of people in the Bible, from Hagar, Abraham, and Jacob, to the prophets of the divided kingdom, to Mary, Joseph, Peter, and Paul. Often angels deliver messages as quotes from God with the phrase, “says the Lord.” Occasionally they even speak for God directly, using first-person pronouns to explain God’s actions, such as “I brought you up out of Egypt” (Judg. 2:1). Sometimes it’s ambiguous whether God is speaking, or an angel is speaking on his behalf.
But angels do far more than speak: they rescue Lot and his family (Gen. 19), oppose Balaam and his donkey (Num. 22), nearly destroy Jerusalem for David’s sin (2Sam. 24), and perhaps most dramatically, slaughter 185,000 Assyrian soldiers overnight (2Kg. 19:35). Frequently, they appear holding a sword (Num. 22:31, 2Sam. 24:16).
Biblically Accurate Angels in the New Testament
The world of the New Testament is chock full of both angels and demons. It’s easy to literally lose sight of this fact in our modern age, where objects out of sight are also out of mind. But to first-century Judaeans, they were everywhere.
The word “angel” appears about 180 times in the New Testament — compared to just over 100 in the Old Testament. (“Demons” appears about 80 times in the New Testament, and scarcely at all in the Old.)
Aside from Revelation, angels in the New Testament are as a whole much tamer than in the Old Testament. But not all of them are benign.
Here’s what we know about angels as Jesus and his followers describe them:
Angels feature prominently in Revelation — in fact, the term appears 75 times in that book alone! Entire volumes have been written trying to evaluate and interpret the detailed symbolism and prophetic meaning of Revelation, so we certainly can’t do it justice here. But here’s a quick snapshot.
The angels described in Revelation are unlike most other angels in the Bible (outside of Ezekiel, anyway), especially in the New Testament. They are fearsome. They are massive, fiery and shining, wielding swords and scythes and controlling the elements. They bring pestilence and destruction, killing a third of humankind.
There are good angels led by Michael and evil angels led by Satan — but it’s not always clear which are which: Christians have long debated whether Abaddon (Rev. 9:11) is Satan himself, or an avenging angel acting on the Lord’s behalf.
Are Guardian Angels in the Bible?
The Bible does not explicitly mention “guardian angels” as they are popularly understood, as individual protectors each assigned to watch over a single person. This idea goes back several centuries, but it was absent from the earliest Christian understanding of angels. That said, there are some verses that suggest it is possible.
Most angels in the Bible act in a mediatory or revelatory capacity, bringing messages to God’s people or appearing in prophetic visions. Those angels which do explicitly guard something are usually not guarding individuals: cherubim guard the gates of Eden, Michael guards the nation of Israel in exile, and so on.
Psalm 91:11 comes closest to describing a guardian angel, saying that God will command his angels to guard you “in all your ways.” Some traditional readers interpreted this to specifically refer to guarding Jesus, based on its later use in Matt. 4:6 and Luke 4:10. But others have asserted that it could as well apply to any holy person.
Matt. 18:10 indicates that special angels may be designated to watch over little children, though it’s not entirely clear what Jesus means by “their” angels.
What Are Fallen Angels?
Fallen angels are angels who fell from heaven due to immoral behavior or rebellion and now live either on earth or in hell. They figure prominently in Christian thought, but their level of threat varies.
By the time of Jesus a strong extrabiblical tradition had developed in Jewish culture around fallen angels based on a few allusions in Genesis and Daniel — but the Jewish authorities were in general wary of this strain of thought, as it mostly drew on noncanonical books, especially Enoch.
Genesis 6:1-4 allude to the Nephilim, giants or “sons of God” who procreated with human women. Daniel 4 mentions “holy watchers” coming (not falling) down from heaven. The book of Enoch picked up on these suggestions and helped to build a popular tradition of the “Watchers” lusting after human women. (Some believe Paul alludes to this belief in 1Cor. 11:10 when he says a woman must cover her head “because of the angels.”) Early Christians also understood Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:14-16 to refer to fallen angels.
The New Testament is much more explicit, especially in Revelation but also in Luke 10:18 and Matt. 25:41.
In the Middle Ages, fallen angels became associated with demons, though the Bible never makes such a connection explicit.
Was Satan an Angel?
Most Christians believe Satan to have been an angel (perhaps a cherub or seraph) who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven along with many who followed him. This understanding comes from piecing together clues throughout the Bible.
The word satan is simply a Hebrew term for “adversary/accuser.” Like the word “god,” it’s sometimes used as a generic noun (e.g., 1Kg 5:4) and other times as a proper name (e.g., Matt. 4:10 and throughout the New Testament). In most of the Old Testament, it’s debatable whether any given mention refers to Satan himself or to a less specific “adversary.”
Complicating matters further is how “the satan” in the Old Testament often appears to act with God’s approval or even direct instruction, as in Numbers 22:22 and Job 1:6-12.
By the time of the New Testament, though, Satan was clearly understood as a proper noun for a particular figure, as is obvious by the use of the Hebrew word satan in otherwise Greek texts. It is also clear from Luke 10:18, 2 Peter 2:4, and Rev.12:7–9 that he fell from heaven.
At least as early as the church father Origen (ca. 185-253 AD), Christians have interpreted Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:14-16 to refer not to any fallen angel to but Satan specifically. They also identified the serpent in the garden of Eden as Satan, though Genesis never makes such a connection. Still, the interpretations are plausible and remain popular for many Christians today, especially among Catholics and Orthodox.
Conclusion: The Hosts of Heaven
Biblically accurate angels are varied, complex, and awe-inspiring beings that play integral roles in the divine narrative — whether that’s popping up to deliver a message of hope and solace, displaying God’s might and glory in wild prophetic visions, or even wreaking vengeance on the wicked.
Most of us will likely never see a real angel in our lifetimes, but studying their appearances in the Bible can be the next best thing — and give us much to wonder about. The amazing diversity of God’s creation, seen and unseen, is beyond our wildest imagination.
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