Terry Pruitt's Blog

I would like to thank Dr. Todd Beall for giving corrections to this paper. Errors are mine alone. Introduction The Queen of Sheba is never named in the Bible. Though her country is named as Sheba, we do not know its geographic location definitively. Three major views of where Sheba is located are: in the northern Arabian Peninsula called Wadi Es-Seba; southern Arabian Peninsula in what is now Yemen; and in Ethiopia.[1] While there are many, some fanciful, proposals for Sheba's location, this paper will confine its discussion to southern Arabian Peninsula and Ethiopia. Justification for this approach is that in the NT Jesus calls this queen the "Queen of the South." (Matt 12:42, Luke 11:31) This gives a cardinal direction from the land of Israel: south. The idiom used by Jesus suggests a lengthy distance from which the Queen came. The idiom use support an argument to preclude the northern Arabian Peninsula view.[2] This paper will examine the two primary te...

Text: Job 2 Main Idea: You and I need to receive both good and evil from the Lord. Introduction Probably one of the most prayed for requests in the American church is the request for healing. Some churches are looking for dramatic healing each week. Other feel it is a good thing to do just so one show he is concerned for the other party. It is good because it shows symbolically that one cares. Whether a prayer for healing is offered with skepticism or faith does not negate the fact that some of the most common forms of suffering in America are health related. This sort of suffering shakes us to our core. Unless the Lord returns, chances are most of us we die from an accident or a disease that causes our health to fail. Some people suffer life long illness while others suffer just a little at the end of a long life. Our health will be an issue. Will it cause us to be bitter or will we be someone who flourishes spiritually as the physical man is passing away. I have a great-...

God declares a new covenant thus making the old covenant with Israel obsolete. 8:7-13 The old covenant had many regulations but did not perfect the conscience of those under it. 9:1-10 Christ truly cleansed those under the new covenant with his own blood. 9:11-14 Christ established the new covenant through his death. 9:15-22 The new, heavenly covenant is superior to the earthly shadows in the first covenant. 9:23--28

I am studying the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. One of the things that strikes me is the difference between the Wisdom Literature and the rest of the Old Testament. The Books of Moses tell us how God established his covenant with Abraham and then the children of Israel under Moses. The History Books tell use how the Children of Israel did at keeping the covenant. Largely that is a story of God's patience and Israel's seeking to become like the nations they were meant to displace. The Prophets were written to tell the children of Israel how God was going to respond. He sent the northern tribes off to Assyria in exile and the southern tribes to Babylon. The Wisdom Literature has less to do with covenants of God than the other sections. One can think of God establishing and responding to his covenant with his people as a the vertical relationship, with man below and God above. The Wisdom Literature has much more focus on the horizontal, earthly relationships. Th...

3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, [1] you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's [2] house. 3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. [3] A Rest for the People of God 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefo...

The Idea of Hebrew Poetry By Terry L. Pruitt Introduction Americans dislike poetry, or at least claim that it is inaccessible. However, most parents do recite nursery rhymes to their children. Most children and parents seem to enjoy this ritual. While some of the words are crazy, like a cow jumping over the moon, few people find them inaccessible. Poets are not generally known to make a lot of money, however, when poetry is set to music it becomes a multi-billion dollar industry. Poetry is involved in the stables of these sections of the music industry: sheet music, radio stations, music recording CDs, DVDs of music videos, digital music such as iTunes and live concerts. The American culture does not care much about poetry for poetry sake but embraces poetry with outstretched arms and open wallets when presented with the right social context. In discussing poetry in the Bible, we may find ourselves lacking the right context to use as an excuse for embracing the literary form. ...

Reconciling two concepts or two facts that seem incompatible is common in most academic fields. The classic example in physics is reconciling the fact that light acts like a wave with the contrary fact that light also acts like a particle. Some scholars who study Old Testament (OT) literature however take the approach that ancient writers of the Scriptures used diverse sources and did not reconcile the sources even if they disagree significantly. With this approach, rather than attempting to see how or why two different accounts can be reasonably reconciled, the scholar assumes that one or both of the stories are not entirely true. The stories of Saul's death in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1 are two accounts that may be seen as either contradictory or as part of a cohesive single story. The most reasonable way to take the two stories of Saul's death is that the original author intended the audience to understand that the Amalekite was lying about having killed Saul. Some sc...

I remember when I was about 10 year old asking a Sunday School teacher if "Thou Shalt Not Kill" meant animals. She said she did not know. I also remember very clearly someone telling me about the veil between the main section of the Temple in Jerusalem and the Holy of Holies. The teacher said that people tried to break that veil using oxen and other animals so they could know God. The seperation between the God and man was broken when Jesus died on the cross; there was an earth quake that broke that curtain giving mankind access to God I also remember a Vacation Bible School lesson how each one of us is unique and we are not a number. I did not get it. I was being raised in a rural farm community and computers were a novelty, not a force for making the world impersonal to me. Here are three clear communications from a good church with good teachers that simply missed the mark in Bible interpretation, missed the mark on the facts of the Bible and missed the mark on app...

I am reading Nehemiah right now. A big theme is God's sovereign protection. Some of the ways this theme is portrayed in the book: o - When Nehemiah is sad before the king, instead of getting punished he is rewarded. I heard in a Bible study years ago that being sad before the king at that time could be a capital crime. o - When Nehemiah is traveling with much wealth, he and his party are protected without the king's guard. o - When enemies came against Nehemiah to stop the work of rebuilding the wall, God gave the success to continue. o - When the wall was complete the various people groups around them recognized the hand of God in helping the people of Jerusalem in rebuilding the wall. I would say the American Evangelical church does not preach these themes. I have a couple of reasons why I think that is. One would be that we don't have much threat against us. Another would be that God's divine protection implies much more connection with a world that is not na...

I finished reading the two books of Chronicles in the Bible. A major theme in the books is that God wants his people to seek his guidance and protection. In the Evangelical circles that I run in, this is not something we embrace since it has a subjective element of truth to it. But reading the books of Chronicles has me convinced that we should be seeking guidance and protection. I don't think I hear anyone talking about God's sovereign protection anymore. I believe that to be because it requires interpreting events in terms of what God intends to communicate through them. Another theme in these two books is the need for faithfulness in worshiping the one true God. These are basic ideas that the New Testament is built on. If you pull these ideas out, the New Testament faith is not cohesive as a system of thought.

On my trek through the Bible, I'm in the book of Job once again. Most evangelicals feel that the message of Job is simply that there are unseen issues happening in heaven so we can not understand suffering. However, we have a lot of chapters in Job (41) for that simple message. That's right, people who wrestle with the idea of suffering know nothing. The thinking is that all these orators and thinkers in the book of Job got it wrong and God has it right. Could we not have done as well by a poignant proverb in the book of Proverbs if that is the long and short of it? "Suffering is not understandable; quit trying to figure it out unless someone mistakenly think that you communicate with the transcendent one and understand the meaning of your life." III Evangel-Christian Chapter1, Verse 13 A part of our evangelical philosophy of life is mistaken by thinking that things like beauty, meaning, and righteousness are somehow less true than things that are provable via ...

Psalms have been something that I have for years thought was a balance in Scripture. Paul's letters reach the mind and makes you wonder, but certainly when the Lord told us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and might, he meant to include that we should love the Lord with our emotional aspects of our being. So the Psalms seemed to be a solution or balance with those who might make Christian religion an egg head, mind centric sort of thing. But I recently read through the Psalms with refreshing insights. For the first time I saw the Psalms as theological. Take for instance, Psalm 65:2 tells us that, "When iniquities prevail against me, you (God) atone for our transgressions." In this we see substitutionary sacrifice for sin. It points to God being the source of the atonement, not man. Another Psalm with theological insights is Psalm 82:8 where it says, "Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the n...

I'm reading my Bible each morning on the porch of our beach condo. I had already started reading Genesis through part of Joshua before I got here. I just finished 2 Samuel this morning. Here are a few insights from the past week's reading. 1. Joshua and others were told to be strong and couragous. Those who were not strong and couragous were not following God's will. I think the message for anyone reading the book is "What ever you had finds to do, do with all your might," assuming of course that you are working within a godly framework. 2. The children of Israel wanted a king like the nations around them. They got what they wanted but it did not have a good result. Saul turned out to be a good looking leader who became very self centered. Lesson for everyone, becareful that you don't seek to follow the things of the fame world. 3. David was a man after God's own heart. He depended upon God to establish his kingdom, not his own smarts. He waite...