Picturepocket's Blog

Tag: culture

  • Romans 3: Why Even Try?

    In chapter three, Paul addresses the question, if God is giving out grace, then is there any benefit of being Jewish and practicing the law. Paul, also a Jew, responds, absolutely. First, the Jews carry the legacy of being the oracles of God. Second, if some of the chosen along the way were unrighteous, it…

  • Arrivals & Departures

    When my father passed decades ago, it was a quick. He seemed relatively healthy and active, then just died on his way to work. Within two weeks his body was buried, and within two months all of his paperwork was closed out. His name was carved onto a headstone and deleted from all of the…

  • 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.…

  • Sweater Weather

    People talk about mental labor of running a household and I will give you a half-day example. In order to feed my children breakfast and make lunch and get them into the car for carpool, it helps to start with a clean kitchen that started the night before.  At eight last night, the kitchen was…

  • Acts 22: Citizenship 

    As Paul is being lead to the barracks, he turns and addresses the crowd in the Hebrew language. Hearing their own words, they stop and listen as he tells how he was raised Jewish and received religious instruction under Gamaliel, a wise priest, and dutifully persecuted the followers of the Way. He tells how he…

  • Acts 21: Trouble

    After Paul said goodbye to the Ephesian elders, he continued by boat across the Mediterranean sea back to the city of Tyre, in Syria, north of Jerusalem. He stayed with disciples there and they warned him not to go to Israel. Then he went to the house of Philip, one of the seven, who had…

  • Acts 20: Homecoming

    In this chapter, Paul leaves for Macedonia with seven others including Timothy (Lystra), Sopater (Berea), Aristarchus and Secundas (Thessalonika), Gaias (Derbe), Tichus and Trophimus (Asia). They traveled from Macedonia (Northern Greece) to Troas (Western Turkey) by boat after the Passover.  Paul gathered them in an upper room and spoke to them before he left. He…

  • John 8: The One

    This chapter starts out with a test. While Jesus is sitting down to teach, the religious leaders bring him a woman that they said they caught in adultery, and they want Jesus to pronounce judgment on her so they can stone her. Stoning was a form of punishment that would kill somebody by 100s of…

  • Children’s Stories

    Something fun to do in Oregon is to visit the Enchanted Forest outside of Salem. Built into a wooded mountain side, kids can interact with various Grimm fairy tales before their Disney glow-up. I went as a kid and I’ve taken my daughters several times as well. They have a cute Humpty Dumpty, scenes from…