October 18, 2025

There are several books over the years that I’ve read multiple times, including The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, and The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. But there’s one book that I’ve read through more times than these three combined—the Bible! Some people even read through it yearly, which is great! In fact, Pastor Shelvie Summerlin, who passed away this last February at the age of 96, admits to having read his Bible at least 1,025 times.

Jewish congregations throughout the world read through the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) every year as well, which they divide into 54 separate Sabbath readings. Wait! Aren’t there only 52 weeks in a year? Yes, of course, but the Jews follow a lunisolar religious calendar (ranging from 354-384 days) that may have anywhere from 50-54 Sabbaths. In years with less than 54 Sabbaths, certain readings are doubled up, but only 53 of the 54 readings are scheduled for weekly Sabbath services. The last reading is always scheduled for the holiday of Simchat Torah, which may or not fall on a Sabbath.

Simchat Torah, which means “Joy of the Torah,” is a one-day holiday that annually celebrates the completion of the reading of the Torah, and it started last week (October 14)! After sunset the Torah scroll will be removed from its ark (the decorative cabinet where it’s kept) and the people will march around with it, singing and dancing long into the night. Tomorrow morning the last Torah reading (Deut. 33:1-34:12) and part of the first Torah reading (Genesis 1:1-2:3) will be read along with Numbers 29:35-30:1 (which describes the festival offerings) and Joshua 1:1-18 (which describes the succession of leadership from Moses to Joshua). This service will be followed by another round of dancing with the Torah scroll as well as other festivities, including a meal.

What a day! Yet, the 2023 celebration of Simchat Torah, which fell on October 7, was tragically interrupted by the news of the infiltration by Hamas from Gaza into Israel. Hamas fired rockets, destroyed entire communities, took over 250 hostages and killed nearly 1200 people, mostly civilians. A day meant for joy witnessed unbearable sadness.

But Simchat Torah for 2025 started tonight at sundown. A new day! A wonderful day, particularly given the news of the release of all the remaining hostages today, and perhaps you and I can learn a lesson from the people of Israel who celebrate annually the reading of their Bibles. Psalm 1:1 notes that to a godly man the Torah is “his delight.” The writer of Psalm 119 adds that God’s Word is “the rejoicing of my heart” (v. 111). There may be challenges or even new dangers heading your way soon—more reason to open up your Bibles to find joy and so that any troubles you face won’t derail you from your commitment to the Lord. You might even want to sing or dance a little, even if someone is watching, for, after all, there is no greater blessing than to know that God loves us, sees us in our troubles and speaks to us from the Bible.

Dinosaur Bites

Some random, bite-sized topics on dinosaurs.

1. Could the large number of dragon stories from diverse ancient cultures refer to dinosaurs? Evolutionists would, of course, say no because clearly it does not fit their paradigm that excludes the co-existence of man and dinosaurs. But how do they explain this evidence?

Carl Sagan considered the historical (written) and archaeological (artifact) evidence for the existence of dragons such a threat to the evolutionary model that he made an attempt to explain away their existence by saying that perhaps the ancestral primates of humans may have had such terrifying encounters with them that their memories were stamped on their genes and passed down to humans who lived much later. How’s that for an explanation?

2. There is strong historical evidence that the biblical Job lived around the time of Abraham or earlier. If Noah’s flood occurred around 2348 B.C. (Ken Hamm) and Abraham is born around 2166 B.C. (Eugene Merrill), then dinosaurs could have easily survived into the lifetime of Job who many believe is describing them in Job 40-41 (many Bible teachers date Job even earlier than Abraham).

3. There is no indisputable evidence to date that confirms for me the existence of human and dinosaur footprints in the same fossil bed. Having lived in the area for many years, I’m familiar with the artifacts on display at Carl Baugh’s Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas who makes that claim, and although I’m quite sympathetic with his worldview that accepts the co-existence of man and dinosaurs based on the biblical record, the artifact evidence is not compelling for me.

Trivia (Answer at bottom of page)

All of the following animals have streets named for them in Jerusalem except for WHAT?

Let’s move on now to the inspiration of the Bible itself. Scripture is inspired both verbally and plenarily, meaning in its statements and in its totality. The Bible in full was inspired by the Holy Spirit in its autographa, which refers to the original manuscripts, and the Bible was recorded by uninspired human agents. I get this from 2 Peter 1:21.

However, there is an important distinction to be made. When we’re talking about the inspiration of Scripture, what exactly is inspired? Is the person inspired? No, actually only the Scripture is inspired. Paul, the writer of Romans, for example, is not the inspired agent. He is the person who wrote down the words on the paper, but only the words are the inspired information. It’s important to make this distinction because Paul wasn’t inspired to the point where anything he ever wrote was Scripture, such as his shopping list for the agora, the marketplace. That’s not Scripture. Paul himself wasn’t the inspired agent, but he did write inspired Scripture, again meaning the documents, the autographa, the original manuscripts. God prepared at least some of the writers of Scripture before their births. We have statements in Jeremiah 1 and Galatians 1 which confirm that God revealed the information to them. But God only inspired their canonical writings. Paul’s shopping list for the marketplace wasn’t inspired, but Romans, Galatians, Colossians, Philemon, and everything else he and the others wrote that have been included in the canon of Scripture are inspired.

Every Scripture then has dual authorship—both the Holy Spirit and the person through whom the Holy Spirit was writing. God used the personality of His agents, and we can see differences in their writing styles. Mark, for example, differs substantially from Luke. He uses different Greek constructions from Luke, so the Holy Spirit used personalities and intellects in the writing of Scripture. Thus, we can say in one sense that both Mark and the Holy Spirit wrote the Gospel of Mark.

The writers were at times conscious of the Holy Spirit’s control over their writings, which is quite interesting. We see this particularly in the Old Testament prophets, such as Ezekiel who seemed conscious in Ezekiel 3 that what he was writing down was a specific revelation from God for the people.

Keep in mind that Paul didn’t wake up in the morning, thinking, “I’ll sit down and write some Bible today.” Instead, I think Paul simply wrote a letter to the church in Rome containing things that he really wanted them to know and learn. Yes, Peter mentions that Paul wrote Scripture, but I don’t know that Paul was conscious that his letters would one day be considered Scripture. He’s just writing to them now, but the Holy Spirit inspired these letters from his hand with the intention of them becoming part of the canon though at other times admittedly a prophet would know that what he wrote or spoke was the inspired words of God.

In general, the apostles and prophets were cognizant of the divine origin of Scripture. If something was considered Scripture, other writers of Scripture knew that it was the Bible and that its authority came from God Himself, literally from the Holy Spirit.

Lastly, the truths of Scripture cannot be altered or terminated. Every aspect of Scripture will persevere and be realized. Every prophecy will come about. Everything that the Scripture discusses will be realized. Jesus said that He did not come to eliminate the Law. He wouldn’t do away with one jot or tittle.

All Scripture is ultimately authoritative in all matters of faith and practice. The whole Bible is useful to us. I’m an Old Testament guy, so it saddens me to hear of Christians who are afraid of the Old Testament. It’s probably because they don’t know much about it. They’re not very familiar with it. There are even some people who don’t believe that the Old Testament applies to us today though it absolutely does. All Scripture informs us who God is, what He loves, what He hates, and what He desires for certain people in certain time periods in history. Even though the dictates of the Law of Moses don’t apply to me today and even though I’m not under the authority of the Law of Moses, I can still read the books of the Law and come to know who God is. I’ve come to appreciate what He’s done in history, and I can learn from both the good and bad examples of those who lived during the time of Genesis, Numbers and Deuteronomy. So all biblical content is good and useful for all matters of faith and practice, and the Bible is the ideal tool to guide and to protect the people of God and to combat falsity. There are many passages of Scripture that speak to that.

Adam Keim

Scripture Study The Mustard Seed

Matthew 13:32 states that the mustard seed is the “least of all the seeds.” Some have asked, “Isn’t it true that there are smaller seeds than the mustard seed? So, how can we take this statement to be true?”

Let me take a shot at it. Yes, it’s true that the poppy and rue seeds are smaller, but there’s no error in Jesus’ statement. The expression, “small as a mustard seed,” was a common Jewish expression for anything that was really tiny (cf. Luke 17:6). Jesus is using a popular expression of his day; he’s not speaking absolutely. Note too that the word translated “least” or “smallest” in some translations is actually a comparative, meaning “smaller.” The mustard seed is “smaller than all other seeds” (NASB). In other words, it is in a class of the smaller seeds known to men.

Answer to the Trivia

E. Tiger