Author: Rich Gorecki

In my Introduction to The Prophets, I explained that people in the Bible who foretold upcoming events were generally divided into Former and Latter Prophets. Within the Latter are two groups: “Major” Prophets and “Minor” Prophets. In this post on lessons from The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men, we learn about the first Major Prophet: Isaiah. I will cover another Major Prophet, Jeremiah, along with his second book called Lamentations in another post. I’ll then provide lessons from the remaining Major Prophets: Ezekiel, and Daniel, followed by posts about the Minor Prophets.  Major Means Longer We call the books of the Major Prophets, Isaiah through Daniel, “major” since their books are the longest in length and discuss a variety of topics. The books of the Minor Prophets, Hosea through Malachi, are relatively shorter and their content is more narrowly focused. These naming conventions don’t mean the Minor Prophets were any

This Old Testament section of the Christian Bible is broken down into four main sections: The Books of Moses, The History of Israel, The Books of Poetry, and The Prophets. I continue my year-long journey through the Bible with this post that contains an Introduction to the Prophets. The next few posts will provide lessons from the Prophets based on my resource this year:  The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men. I’ll also return to using the five features (Knowing God, At Issue, Men of The Bible, Myths, and Downshift), as in other lessons and my own summary called the God Buddy Focus.   About Prophets and Prophecy The Prophets are usually among the least popular books of the Bible to read due to their constant warnings and condemnations. Still, there is much we can learn from them. While the primary task of the prophets was to call the people of

This week’s lessons from The MANual, my NIV Bible for Men is a series of lyrical poems that feature the love dialogue between a simple, Jewish peasant woman and her lover, King Solomon. Scholars suggest it is an allegory of God’s love for humankind. However, the Songs of Songs celebrate not only human love but also the sensuous and mystical quality of erotic desire. Given today’s sexually charged world, this literature is a good reminder that God created sex and pronounced it “good” within the context of a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman.  About the Song of Songs Also known as “The Song of Solomon,” the Song of Songs is about romantic attraction, desire, love, and physical intimacy. It’s central theme is that sex is God’s amazing gift to a husband and wife. The Songs give us a proper perspective on physical love between a man and