The Gospel of Mark is the second of the Gospels in our Bibles. Remember, the word for “Gospel” comes from the Greek word which means “Good News,” and each of the gospels present Jesus as the One who not only is the “Good News,” but who is also the One

From the last page of the Old Testament in the Book of Malachi to the first page of the New Testament in the Book of Matthew there is a gap in history of approximately 450 years. It had been four and a half centuries since the people of Israel had

In our last few blogs, we have been accumulating names associated with the returning exiles after 70 years in Babylonian captivity. These names included the prophets Haggai and Zachariah, in addition to Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the High Priest, both of whom were commissioned by God to oversee the

In our last blog, we were introduced to three individuals: Haggai the Prophet; Zerubbabel the governor of the returning exiles; and Joshua the High Priest, all commissioned by God to fulfill their calling in rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. If you recall, after building the altar of sacrifice so that

In 538 B.C. King Cyrus of Persia issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to their land to rebuild the Temple that was destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonian army. Gathering supplies for the 900 mile journey which would take several months, Zerubbabel (the son of the governor

Empire was ascending. In his very first chapter, Zephaniah describes the coming judgment saying, “Near is the great day of the LORD, near and coming very quickly; listen, the day of the LORD! In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day, a day of

Habakkuk prophesied during the final years leading up to the invasion of the country by the mighty Babylonian army. The Northern Kingdom had already fallen to the Assyrians in 722 B.C., and then just over a hundred years later in 612 B.C., the Assyrians were defeated by the Babylonians. And

If you recall, it was just 2 books ago (the Book of Jonah) when we looked into the life and ministry of Jonah: How he heard from God but ran from his calling; How he cried out to God from the belly of the fish; How he went to the

It goes without saying that we all hate injustice. We despise seeing the poor and weak exploited by the rich and powerful. And we are not alone, as the Prophet Micah over 2,500 years ago called out the rich and powerful in Jerusalem for exploiting the weak and helpless who

Of course, we have all heard of Jonah, the guy in the Old Testament who got swallowed by a whale!!!! Actually, it was a giant fish, and in case you are a bit skeptical, there is a species of “giant fish” who has a throat large enough to swallow a