Lots of Links

A few links to check out:

-After several months' hiatus, my friend Rhonda is blogging again. I've always admired her writing because she expresses so much of what she's feeling, whether joy or pain. Take time to check out her musings.

-I enjoyed this post on Jim Martin's blog, A Place for the God Hungry, about taking the time to review our week, not just from a scheduling standpoint, but from a spiritual standpoint as well. It's all too easy to let activity rule our lives, and we often fail to stop and evaluate how what we're doing is drawing us closer to God (or, in contrast, how it's marring our relationship with Him).

-I'm in a Thursday night Bible study that recently began studying a book about the prophets and kings of Israel, and how their reaction to the culture around them impacted Israel, and also how we can impact or be impacted by today's culture. The study teaches much about the Jewish culture and traditions. The author has a website, Follow the Rabbi, that provides a wealth of archaelogical, historical and cultural information that helps put passages in a whole new light.

As the website says, "For us to know Jesus—and thus God the Father and the Holy Spirit—more intimately, we must carefully assess our 21st-century culture and Western attitudes in relation to and in light of the 1st-century world of Jesus. We must immerse ourselves in the culture of Scripture and Jesus of Nazareth. And we must learn to 'think Hebrew'—in the way that the original writers of the Text thought."

If you appreciate Biblical history and archaelogy, and would like to know how to "think Hebrew" when you're reading the Bible, you'll appreciate this site.

-Finally, another plug for my friend Aleah's photography site. She's added a lot more photos (including some of yours truly!) since I first mentioned her site. She is extremely talented and I'm glad that I can say I knew her before she becomes a world-famous photographer.