The wisdom writers help us to address the fact that God’s sovereignty is both a comforting and mysterious concept.

A person’s steps are directed by the Lord.

How then can anyone understand their own way?

There’s more to the Passover plot than Judas’s betrayal for money. The stage is set for us in the description of the others involved. They weren’t simply priests and teachers, they were “chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses”.

Behind these titles were centuries of religious practice, interpretation and reinterpretation of the original download from God to his people through Moses.

The short period of time beginning with Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem provides us with some of the most exciting and momentous occasions associated with our faith. Judas’ agreement with the religious leaders, the scenes in the garden, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion and the resurrection all provide us with important chapters in the plan for providing us with redemption and restoring our place with God.

I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal. Sound familiar? Looking for status and power? The disciples are. Jesus flips the disciples’ thinking with, “Forget the power play. Serve others. Later, there’s a kingdom where you will sit at the banquet table with me, like kings. But for now, do everything you can to help someone. Don’t think you are better than others. You stood by me all this time – surely you get the picture: serve others. If I served them, you serve them.”

First question: What are your feelings about coming to the Song of Solomon? Second (related) question: What is a book so unapologetically all about sex doing in the Bible?

From the beginning of the Christian era, the Song of Solomon has been read as an allegory of Christ and the church and is commonly read this way still today.

Someone has said of this book that “We don’t blush at things we should, and we blush at things we shouldn’t.”

It struck me as I was thinking about this book how little we know of unadulterated pleasure. The world and all that God created is good, yet we have corrupted everything with sin, especially sex. We are surrounded with portrayals of sex defiled.

Someone has said of this book that “We don’t blush at things we should, and we blush at things we shouldn’t.”

It struck me as I was thinking about this book how little we know of unadulterated pleasure. The world and all that God created is good, yet we have corrupted everything with sin, especially sex. We are surrounded with portrayals of sex defiled.

David was desperate. Few of us will ever be in the same place as David with enemies surrounding him in an effort to defeat him or even take his life, but we can identify with the feeling of being desperate when we are in the midst of tragedy, illness or emotional pain. When we know we are no longer in control, we know the feeling of being vulnerable – of not being self-sufficient.