October 2024

If it’s true that with every commitment and promise we get to know more of God’s heart for humanity, then I wonder—what are we doing to God’s heart when we don’t take God’s word seriously? Why didn’t God just give up on a covenant people who failed to uphold their part of the agreement? The answer is probably simple: God cannot! God cannot help but remain faithful to His own promises. Because, as we saw […]

Many promises are based on commitments. Here’s a good example: “You whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and grey hairs, I am He, I will sustain you” (Isaiah 46:3b-4a). With a promise or a commitment, only one party is involved. However, when a covenant is made, it always happens between two parties, and in the presence of witnesses. It is like a

For me, there is no Scripture in the Bible that captures the imagination quite like Isaiah 43:19. Perhaps that’s why the rabbis connected the legend of Joseph with Isaiah’s promise: who could have ever believed that the surrounding nations could be relieved from famine because of the chaff Joseph let drift away in the Nile River? In the same way, one could ask: who would have ever thought that God could make a way in

In the ancient rabbinic writings, there is a legend about Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was appointed as the head of Pharaoh’s great grain stores in Egypt (Gen 41). During the seven years of abundance, so the legend goes, Joseph had the chaff separated from the wheat; all the husks and waste were thrown into the Nile and drifted away. The surrounding nations, who were sustained by the Nile, saw the chaff floating during

Someone once said, “A text without a context is a pretext.” If you don’t take the context of a text (especially an ancient text) into account, you essentially turn it into your own self-written text. Take Jeremiah 29:11 as an example. I was 17 years old, already months in hospital after an accident, when Old Reverend Dirk read this promise to me. “This is meant for you,” he said, as he read: “For I know

Some people view God as an observer of our lives. Yes, God is watching us, but for many, this thought is more frightening than comforting. The question each person must eventually answer is: “Where is God in all this chaos around us?” Like David (in Psalm 22:1), we sometimes cry out to the heavens: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Some people say we live in the “era of loneliness.” The internet

In 1947, the British-American poet W.H. Auden wrote a poem titled “The Age of Anxiety”. Since then, this expression – “the age of anxiety” – has been increasingly used to describe the 21st century. Compared to previous generations, even the poorest of the poor have better living conditions than ever before. Yet, all the apparent social improvements have not helped us become happier people. We have become fearful people. It’s not just the strangers around

Recently, a woman sat with me, venting her frustrations about life. Absolutely nothing is going right for her, she said. “There are so many promises in the Bible that God will answer our prayers,” she shared. “But I ask and ask and ask, and nothing changes.” She is starting to lose her faith in God, she continued: “Either I don’t believe correctly, or God is just a mirage.” Before I could even ask what she

For us, a promise relates to something that is yet to be realised in the future, while we know that many of the promises in the Bible have already been fulfilled (but still apply to us). Therefore, many theologians prefer to speak of “assurances” or “guarantees” (which the Holy Spirit is indeed for us—see #8). Here is a good example of an assurance: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).

In a promise, there is never a “perhaps”; there is always a “definitely.” And now there is another important thing that we do not always understand well: there are no “outstanding” promises from God. The Bible refers to Jesus as the fulfilment of all of God’s promises. 2 Corinthians 1:19-21 is an important text regarding this: “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, … is God’s ‘yes’, the ‘yes’ to all of God’s promises. Therefore, it