Will Vaus

Today on our journey along Route 66 we are visiting the book of Psalms... Author   The book of Psalms is a collection of Israelite poetic prayers written by numerous authors, brought together in a process that spanned centuries. An ancient and pervasive tradition, going back to the Bible itself, attributes the authorship of Psalms to David. Many of the psalms contain the superscription “a psalm of David”. Other superscriptions link various psalms with specific events from David’s life. (See Psalms 3, 18, 34, 51, and 56.) However, these superscriptions are not original to the psalms. Linguistic and contextual evidence has led many modern scholars to reject the idea of Davidic authorship of the psalms. Of course, not all the psalms are attributed to David. Some are attributed to the sons of Korah (Psalm 42), to Asaph (Psalm 50), to Ethan the Ezrahite (Psalm 89), to Heman the Ezrahite (Psalm 88), to Solomon (Psalm 72) and to Moses (Psalm 90). Other psalms bear no superscriptions at al...

We are in the midst of our study of the seven churches of Revelation. Today we will examine what Jesus has to say to the fifth of these, the Church at Sardis. Listen for God’s word to you from Revelation 3:1-6… “To the angel   of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits   of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.   Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.  Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will...

A woman who worked in a children’s day care facility was reading the story of Jesus’ birth to her children one morning. As usual, she stopped to see if the children understood…   “What do we call the three wise men?” the teacher asked.   “The three maggots,” replied a bright 5-year-old.   “What gift did the Magi bring baby Jesus?” she asked, gently correcting.   “Gold, Frankensteins and Smurfs!” the same 5-year-old replied. [1]   Often, we get the story of Christmas confused. Oh, we know that the three wise men were not maggots. We know that they didn’t bring gifts of Frankensteins and Smurfs. We get the words right, but often we lose the meaning of Christmas.   The wise men understood that Christmas is about worship. Let us hear their story again from Matthew 2:1-12. Listen for God’s word to you… After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea,   during the time of King Herod,   Magi [ a ]   from the east came to Jerusalem   2  and aske...