Picturepocket's Blog

Category: Bible

  • Romans 9: A Season of Giving

    In this section, Paul wrestles with the tension between God sovereignty and man’s free will. God had chosen the Israelites to be his people, but they struggled to follow his laws, fulfill his covenants, participate in the worship, and receive his promises. The people outside of the religious community, called Gentiles, were not given those…

  • Romans 8: New Life, New Family 

    Finally, Paul gives us the key to the endless cycle of law and death that we humans and our weak bodies cannot unlock. The answer is not blowing in the wind, 42 or found by looking inside ourselves. God sent his own son, in our likeness, to save us. Driven by only our earthly desires,…

  • Romans 5: The Undeserving 

    In this chapter, Paul shows the way faith runs opposite of our natural instinct. He encourages us to rejoice in our hardships and suffering we face because the difficulties produce endurance, which produces character, which produces hope. That hope doesn’t produce shame, but welcomes the love from the Holy Spirit. So, instead of running away…

  • Romans 4: Free Riders

    In this chapter, Paul is using the people and events of the Old Testament to illustrate tension between following the law and accepting the forgiveness from Jesus Christ. The issue he is addressing here is that those with a Jewish background who had accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, but were upset when people of…

  • Letters to Friends: Romans Chapter 1

    The book of Romans is an epistle, a letter, that Paul wrote during his early missionary journeys through the Mediterranean. This particular letter is addressed to those of the Jewish faith living in Rome.  Paul starts by describing himself three ways: a servant of God, an apostle, and someone set apart for the gospel. He…

  • H-A-double P-I-N-E-double S

    Our women’s study is going through the “Every Thought Captive” book by Kyle Idleman. This week we are reading about the pleasure fallacy where people pursue things that make them feel good, only to find themselves worse off. He’s right, in an attempt to make ourselves feel better we binge eat, binge watch, and binge…

  • Acts 9: On the road 

    How Saul is at the beginning of this chapter to how he ends is like night and day. He starts out breathing death threats about the men and women who follow Christ. He plans a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem to get papers giving him permission to go to the synagogues (branch worship locations)…

  • Acts 28: Sticks & Snakes

    When the survivors of the shipwreck made it to shore, the people of the island of Malta came out to help them. While they were gathering wood for a fire, Paul was bit by a snake. At first the islanders thought Paul, a prisoner, must have been a murder getting justice after escaping the waves.…

  • Acts 27: Journey to the West

    Paul and the other prisoners are packed off with a centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius to sail to Italy and face the Caesar in Rome. To get there, they must go along the coastal area of Asia (modern Turkey) and through the islands of Greece. Since the wind was against them they had…

  • Acts 26: All Roads Lead

    Paul has an audience with the new Roman governor Festus, Jewish king Agrippa and princess Bernice. Paul gives a passionate retelling of his experience as first a Pharisee, determined to wipe out the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, his conversion and new conviction and ministry to “proclaim light to both our people and the Gentiles.”…