The Daily Bible Challenge

     Good morning! We have great plans for this day and hope you do, too! There is much to do here on the Little Hundred Acre Wood. Most days are quite full between God’s work at church, The Daily Bible Challenge, and, of course, the simple chores of keeping a small homestead going. We have two dogs, four cats, and twelve chickens for our egg supply. We like being busy, but some days, like yesterday, are a bit too much! I try to make it an easier day after a long one like yesterday. But if I think I have it rough, Joseph is about to show us a day that is far more difficult!     So yesterday we had false accusations of a sexual nature, and today we will have more, but this time against Joseph! This guy is a great example of someone we should try to live like! Guys out there, could you live up to his example if so tempted? I think he had an understanding that if he sinned this way, it was really against God, and that emboldened him to resist! But th...

      Trickery from a widow to restore an oath, a threat of death for a false accusation of harlotry. But wait, there’s more! There is also this little interesting detail woven through the Bible, a scarlet thread that many think is to signify the Blood of Jesus shed for us to pay our price to be with God in heaven. You see, it is this blood that washes us and frees us from the death we deserve! I find this scarlet thread theory to be flawed, but it is an interesting read with some merit, but maybe not in its appearance in chapter 38 of Genesis. Mind you, I find no flaws in the Blood of Jesus paying our price, just with the scarlet thread representing Jesus in chapter 38. My issue is that it was Perez that ultimately became the lineage of Christ, so the thread was placed on the wrong child's arm at the birth. God knew who would be the actual firstborn and what was to happen generations later!  You can read more about this theory on this link: https://www.gotquest...

          Please don’t listen when anyone tells you the Bible is boring, we have much more intrigue in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we read/listen to Genesis 37. We have a plot to murder a family member and some pretty bad parenting skills to observe also! We have a sort of hero stepping in to save his youngest brother, but it was too late! We have someone sold into slavery and lies from adult sons to their father to hide their evil ways! There is so much meat and potatoes in these next few days as we learn about Joseph and his coat of many colors!     Click the link below to listen to a word-for-word translation as an audiobook from the NASB 95 edition. This audiobook is made possible by the great team at Blueletterbible.org. They are a great resource for all of us, and it is free, but they do have a way for you to support their long-term ministry needs!     If you have questions about how all this relates to Jes...

     Good morning and Happy Sabbath to those celebrating on Sunday. If yesterday was your Sabbath, shalom! Please do not look for things to divide us. Regardless of what day, we are all worshiping God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in that, we can unite to serve our King and Savior!     Today’s Daily Bible Challenge is made possible due to the many years of hard work and service from Blue Letter Bible! (bluelettterbible.org)! They provide the audiobook of the Bible for all of our use! Please consider supporting them financially in their efforts to spread the word of God throughout the world! That is part of my mission too, as I try to get newbies and seasoned Christians to simply read their whole Bible cover to cover to learn more about their Savior Jesus, the one who is the Christ! What could be easier than clicking on a link and listening to a chapter or two a day!     Today we are in chapter 36 of Genesis, and these are t...

   Do you like to travel? What image does that pop into your head? Is it jumping on a plane and staying at fancy hotels, or is it loading up in a motorcoach that costs more than an average home? Or maybe it is loading up a tent and some sleeping bags, and some food in the back of your car or pickup, and heading out to rough it? Well, whatever image that brings, it was not rough enough to describe the travel for Jacob/Israel and Rachel in chapter 35 of Genesis. Try walking or riding a camel pregnant and very close to your due date. But Jacob was faithful to God as he was told to pick up and move to Bethel! Click the link below and join us for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we listen/read to the whole Bible one chapter at a time!      Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=1&c=35

      Good morning, we are doing well and celebrating God’s blessings this week! We hope that your week is going very well also! We are in chapter 34 of Genesis for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. Please join us as we read/listen as we read the whole Bible one chapter at a time, just click the link below for an audiobook of the Bible !      It is a tragic story in a family for today’s text, one of rape and deception and complete vigilanty justice against a whole city for the crime of one man. I must admit there is a part of me that likes this outcome as I think rape is a terrible crime and deserves swift and brutal justice! But I can also see that these brothers didn’t consult God before acting out on their anger. Did you know that the sin of rape has a root of pride? In fact, almost all sin is rooted in pride! We will have to see later if this deception and vigilantism bring God’s wrath on the brothers or not. Pride is the downfall of almo...

      Is your family complicated? I know parts of mine are, and if there was ever a truly complicated family, it is the family of Abraham and his descendants! Especially Esau and Jacob (now renamed Israel). Let's follow along and see how Esau receives Jacob, his long-estranged brother, in chapter 33 of Genesis for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. My routine is to pray and then read/listen to the chapter, and then sometimes before and sometimes after, read a small commentary (usually on Got Questions) before writing to all of you. What is your routine time with God like? Do you set aside a special time for Him?     Talk with you soon!  https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=1&c=33

     Have you ever figuratively wrestled with God? Well in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge we read/listen to how Jacob wrestled with God and was crippled for life all the while receiving a blessing from God! He even receives a new name that will be carried forward as the name of God’s country for His people, Israel! It would seem Madeline and I are in a season of wrestling with God as we seek His plan for our final 20 years or so on this earth! When we have struggles in life, it seems to be when and where we see the most personal growth, is that the way it is for you? Next month I will be 64, who would have thought that my most meaningful growth in life would not have started until these last few years! God is great, and I guess He was just waiting patiently for me to get out of His way!     Click the link below to listen to more about this complicated man, Jacob, whose name literally means deceiver. Some say he was a con artist, a liar, and a manip...

     Good Tuesday morning to all of you, I hope this letter finds you and yours well! Other than a sudden cold (I thought it was allergies) and Madeline having a scare in her eyes yesterday, we are doing fine.  We dropped everything at the strong advice of her eye clinic and went in to get it checked out. We were blessed to find out it was just a “new floater” and she will be fine, but of course, our wallet will suffer quite a bit! The floater had an unusual “bracket shape,” and that is what had all of them concerned. If only we could see into the future and understand when these things were an emergency and when they could wait for a regular appointment! In life, there are few things like that! But a least we can see into the future from what the Bible teaches us about God and what is to come!     If Jacob could have seen into the future about Laban and his daughters, he might have just kept going and found another well to drink from! There ...

   Good morning, I hope your Easter weekend was full of family and fun, and worship for the one who paid the price for our deliverance! Our Holy Week was great, and we are anxious to start this week ahead, for God has blessed us greatly this week! Madeline and James are up and getting ready for work, so my little corner office looking over The Little Hundred Acre Wood is not as quiet as normal for this time of day, but they are good sounds, and I am at peace with it. Work is a blessing, but must be kept in perspective or it swallows up our very souls!     We are in Genesis 30 this morning, and we find that Jacob is in a very rare situation for any man; his many wives are fighting/negotiating over who will get to bear his next children. It is quite a story in history, and is a situation that I don’t think would be pleasant for me! I have a hard enough time being all I need to be for one wife, and can’t imagine trying to keep peace in such a situation! A...

  HE HAS RISEN!  HE HAS RISEN INDEED!    This is a greeting for Easter morning, it has been a tradition for many centuries now, but used to also include three Holy Kisses on each cheek. We Americans are too hung up on that sort of thing and become quite uncomfortable with such a greeting, and simply repeat the words! Most think this tradition came from Luke 34:34 below.  Luk 24:34 ESV - saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!"    Regardless of the original origins of the phrase, most Christians get downright giddy in response to hearing this greeting and reply, “HE HAS RISEN INDEED!”. His rising on this third day proves His Deity and confirms all HIs promises in scripture, He truly is the fulfilment of all the prophecies in both the Old Testament and New!         So it is with great Joy that I greet you this morning from The Little Hundred Wood and invite you not only to join us at Sto...

   Holy Saturday! What would you have been doing if you followed Jesus? Would we be giddy in anticipation or cowering in fear, waiting for the Roman soldiers to arrest us, too? One of the frequent statements from God is Do not fear; which is said 58 times in the Bible! So God/Jesus would not want us to be cowering in fear, while we wait for resurrection Sunday! Today is a day of waiting, but for those disciples, it must have been a very tough time. The man/God they followed for the last three years was now dead and in a tomb being embalmed with 100 pounds of spices and fine linen cloth. Yes, they were told many times that this was coming, but they did not understand, nor did they comprehend why, or that He was the Holy Lamb, a perfect sacrifice to pay for all sin for all mankind that will accept and believe!     Since the followers were just hiding together in fear, there is not a good chapter to reference for this particular day, so we will cover anot...

 

     Good morning, today is Good Friday. Have you ever wondered why it was called that? Isn’t it a strange name for a day when Jesus was scourged and crucified? This will be very short as we are listening to two chapters today for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge! John 18-19, after 18, just let the Bible Audio book keep playing, and nineteen will start in a few seconds. Below is an explanation of where the name Good Friday came, courtesy of Got Questions!     The answer lies in the etymology ( the study of the origin of words ) of the English word good . In Middle English, the adjective gọ̄d held the sense of being “holy” or “sacred.” Before standardized spelling, the word also appeared as gode , goed , gude , goid , and good ( Middle English Dictionary , Regents of the University of Michigan, 2025). The connotation of being “holy” is carried through in modern observances of “Good” Friday. (Got Questions) https://www.gotquestions.org/Good-Friday.ht...

     Good morning, we are breaking the routine of The Daily Bible Challenge and going with John 13 for today’s chapter. We will return to Genesis 30 on Monday after the conclusion of Holy Week. The reasoning for this is that today is Maundy Thursday, which is celebrated around the world as the time when Jesus washed the disciples' feet and they had the Last Supper. These are usually more somber services at churches as we prepare for what is to come. We begin as Jesus prepares the ultimate sacrifice to deliver us from hell into salvation into eternity with Him in heaven. He knew full well all that was about to happen, yet He allowed it to happen out of love for us! Click the link below and listen to this account of this special Pass Over night with Jesus and the twelve disciples!    Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=43&c=13

  Things are really shaping up on The Little Hundred Acre Wood this year; it would seem God has great plans for us in this season. My little new-to-me antique truck is running well now, and I am working on some aesthetics to make it more comfortable and less humiliating too LOL! The new dash should go in on Saturday, and the seats arrive next week. All this has been done through trade/bartering deals, as money is not plentiful so far this year. Some of these deals involved some bait and switch from the young seller's dad and grandfather, but in the end, God had a plan for me! Most of these deals have been otherworldly in their circumstances. By that, I mean in no way could I have made such wild situations occur! Yep, God did these things, and I feel very blessed and grateful for all of it!  It is way too long a story for here! If bartering and old truck deals are of interest to you, watch soon for an update on my FB home page for more details about the saga of Eeyore Two!...

     Good morning! We have a theme going as we study Genesis, and the more we delve into these men and women of the past, the more we see that God has started a trend of using flawed men for His messengers and for His mighty men of war and leadership. I know I picked on Abraham so much that many of you were frustrated with me! My purpose for pointing this out becomes more in focus now as we see this trend, God is glorified through the weakness of mankind. Our weakness proves we need Him to save us from ourselves and from satan’s snares of this life. We are incapable of doing good unless it is He doing it through us. We are all evil by nature and need Him to save us!     So Jacob, whose name means deceiver, is chosen to lead and create this new land and its many descendants to fill the land for generations to come. It is important to remember that this trend will continue through Jesus's coming for the first time and even to this day. Abraham, Mose...

     Good Monday morning, I hope you had a good and restful weekend and are charged up for this week ahead! I know I am, and I have a great list to accomplish today. We did pick up that parts truck last week, and today my truck (Eeyore two) will get many new items installed to correct a few details on mechanical issues. The most important part is the new carburetor, as there were problems with the original and the one I rebuilt. But she runs well now, and the AC blows cold! They sure don’t make them like this anymore. This is a forty-three-year-old truck, and it took only a fan belt, an idler bearing, and no other parts to resurrect the air conditioning, and she blows 37 degrees out of the vents!      Well, there I go again rambling on about this old truck, let’s get to Today’s Daily Bible Challenge in Genesis 27! If you have ever heard someone say the Bible is boring, maybe they skipped these chapters! We will have deception, stealing a bles...

     Good morning to you and Happy Sabbath if you are in the American church! If yesterday was your Sabbath, I hope it was full of worship and rest! We are preparing for our Sabbath day of worship and service to the Lord’s people. I am about to head out to breakfast with some men who meet every two weeks for prayer and accountability. I find more and more that we really were made by God with a need for community. This would have been so foreign to me before God changed my heart! I feel so connected with these brothers in Christ, and we all are growing in this time as we do life together, sharing our wins and losses!      We see Isaac had such a community in his life, too, as we read chapter 26 of Genesis. But he had to travel around a bit to find his place; he was not welcomed in some of his attempts at building community. I, too, had such struggles as I started my walk with Christ, and when we moved to the area of Granbury, TX, that all chan...

   Good Saturday morning to all of you, yes, even to those who despise me for publishing about God and His Bible daily, I still bid you a good morning and hope the best for you! But don’t sing my praises, sing God’s because He made me this way. I was a bitter man who sought gain from everyone before God got ahold of me and challenged my heart! These days, God has me in a new lifestyle that the old me would have considered a position of weakness as a man, depending on Him instead of my own power and control. How foolish it was of me to think I could control this world for my gain! Those lies I was believing were the trickery of satan and his minions. If I let go of control and allow God’s will to be done in my life, I find things are much more satisfying, dare I say I sometimes even find that elusive feeling of contentment!     So if that sort of peaceful life has an allure to you and you want to know more about a New Life in Christ, then please contact...

     Good morning, I hope this letter finds you well. It will be a busy day around The Little Hundred Acre Wood today. My darling bride and I will be traveling to Boyd, Texas, to pick up a parts truck I did some horse trading for. I am not trying to make my little Eeyore two a show truck, but I would like it to be safe and at least not draw negative attention as it does now! God is using this time to further humble me as we prepare for whatever He has next for us. He seems to be hard at work on something, but it is not clear to us yet just what He is preparing us for. But learning to wait is a very important life lesson, so as I wait, pray, and submit, I will finish the little truck restoration with the great parts truck we will move here today. It has a well-rebuilt engine and a great interior to transfer over. If it were a 4x4, I would make it my truck, but it is a rear wheel drive. Well enough about my wild-eyed, crazy adventures, let's get to today’s challenge! ...

     Good morning, I hope this week has been treating you well! Mine has been an amazing week full of God’s blessings. Such as yesterday afternoon, I was officially notified that I will be graduating in early May from the Seminary and will become a licensed Pastor, at last fulfilling my calling from when I was a mere eighteen years of age! I ran from this calling and God for many years, most of them using the very real feelings that I am too emotional to officiate funerals. I to this day think many will choose anyone but me for this, as I may not be the best to comfort a family, as I might be wailing myself. I don’t cry over much, but if someone dies young or without knowing Jesus as their Lord and Savior, I feel great pain over such things! Maybe that makes me the perfect candidate for some, but I assure you it makes me possibly the worst for others!     So, what does this have to do with The Daily Bible Challenge? Well, Abraham loses his preciou...

     Good morning. Today’s Daily Bible Challenge is also available on other platforms and as a blog on Blogspot. I list it here on FB and in groups in analog/longform so as to reach people who will not click on unknown links. I also list it here as this is our community, and I want to be closer with my community! I don’t blame people for being leery of such things; the internet is a dangerous place.     Today’s Daily Bible Challenge is my least favorite chapter in the whole Bible. Chapters like this are a big part of why this is called a “Challenge”!  I remember my rage against God the first time I read this chapter! You see, my first son was not very old, and my second had just come along; I treasured these two sons like nothing I had ever seen, felt, or possessed in my life! So this chapter that I still wrestle with and I can hardly bear writing to you about sent me off into a rage against God, feeling betrayed in some way, it is probably t...