Author: Rich Gorecki

One of my favorite contemporary Christian music artists is Chris Tomlin, the singer of such great songs as Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone), How Great is our God, Indescribable, and many others. One of his more catchy songs includes some powerful lyrics from a story in the book of Ruth, our next lesson from The MANual, the NIV Bible for men.  About The Book of Ruth The eighth book of the Bible is about a widow and the influence of her relatives. It’s a story is about love, friendship, and family loyalty after a tragedy. The purpose of the book is to show the strength of character of three people: Ruth, her mother-in-law, Naomi, and a close relative named Boaz. Many believe the prophet Samuel wrote this book, but evidence suggests it was written after his death. The book of Ruth is short with just 4 chapters but it

No one likes to go before a judge. We also don’t want anyone to judge us, especially those who do not sit behind a courtroom bench. But the book of Judges shows us that judges are heroes too when they help us return to godly behavior and right living.  This week’s lesson from The MANual, an NIV (New International Version) translation of the Bible, describes the work of 12 judges — men and women, who heroically delivered the people of Israel from their oppressors, despite repeated cycles of disobedience. Here Come The Judge(s)   With apologies to comedian Flip Wilson, I paraphrase a line from one of his famous bits to open this lesson. The 21 chapters in the book of Judges cover a time span of 325 years and six successive periods of oppression and deliverance. The setting is the land of Canaan which is modern-day Israel. God helped the Israelites conquer

Our lessons from The MANual continue in the early part of the Old Testament with the book of Joshua. After venturing through the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), we now look at the events that follow the conquest of the Promised Land for more lessons on becoming godly men.  The next several posts come from what some call the “History books of Israel.” These books are often out into two groups. The first, consisting of Joshua through Kings, is known as the Former Prophets. The pairs of 1 and 2 Samuel & 1 and 2 Kings were originally single books so Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings were once considered a mirror set to the first five books of Moses. The second group, Chronicles through Esther, is known as The Writings. I’ll cover all these over the next several posts. About the Book of Joshua The setting