Female Images of God: A Housekeeeper

God is depicted as a housekeeper who cleans and sweeps through her entire house to find one lost coin.  The lost coin becomes her focus until it is found.

“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  “When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’  “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15: 8-10 (KJV)

Jesus zealously holds onto those given to Him.  These verses are part of the foundation of the doctrine of the Eternal Security of the Believer.  Some describe this as “once saved, always saved.”  The doctrine states that Jesus will not allow anyone who truly belongs to Him to be separated from Him by anyone or anything.

“… Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.” John 18:9 (KJV)

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.” John 10:27-30 (KJV)

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 (KJV)

Portrait of Jesus Damaged in Spain

An 80 year old woman in Spain was just trying to help when she "restored"a twentieth-century painting of Jesus in Borja, Spain.  She was known as a local artist but she horribly disfigured the painting, possibly totally ruining it if the paint cannot be removed.  No one believes that she intentionally destroyed the painting.

First English Language Book Written by a Woman

Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (ca 1393) is believed to be the first book written by a woman in the English language.  The writer was Dame Julian of Norwich (b. ca. 1342, England - d. ca 1416). She was a hermit and Christian mystic.

Religious Humor: Proverbs 11:22

The following verse is an example of the use of hyperbole in Hebrew humor.  It makes its point by placing side by side two intense images which would ordinarily never be thought of together.  When one thinks of the Hebrew attitude towards pigs, it is obvious that this is not intended as a flattering thought.

"[As] a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, [so is] a fair woman which is without discretion." Proverbs 11:22

Be Careful Interpreting Biblical Facts

Some modern scholars have decided that Paul didn't write all the books normally attributed to him. For a discussion of this you should read What Paul Meant by Garry Wills. I personally am not convinced by his arguments.

The question of whether or not Paul wrote Hebrews is a different matter. I don't think he did. He always put his name into his letters as a way to stress the teaching authority of his letters, but no name is attached to "To the Hebrews.(ΠΡΟΣ ΕΒΡΑΙΟΥΣ)"

The book reads as a scholarly and well-written, logically constructed essay; Paul's letters read like they were poured out of the intellectual volcano that was Paul. He was, after all a Pharisee, and his letters sound like a preacher speaking extemporaneously, throwing out question after question, piling paradoxes on top of one another, sometimes sarcastically insulting his opponents, sometimes sounding gentle and fatherly. Just when he seems like he may go too far, he pulls back and asks "does this mean?" questions. His repeated answer; "God forbid!"

One of the arguments used to decide that Paul didn't write Hebrews is the fact that the book uses 112 Greek words that are not found anywhere else in the New Testament.

Moses Stuart (1780-1852), an attorney, pastor, and linguist (Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and German) countered this argument with the fact that everyone agrees that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians yet it contains 230 words found nowhere else in Paul. In other words, the unusual words in Hebrews probably prove nothing about its authorship.

The non-Pauline author most commonly mentioned for Hebrews is Apollos (Acts 18:24-27; 1 Corinthians 3:4-6, 16:12, Titus 3:13). The fact that no writer's name is placed on the book has led some to think it may have been written by a woman.