The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

structure

Three reasons why you do not want Jeremiah 29:11 to be about you

​Have you ever seen a conversation like this take place between two believers?

​Believer 1: How is life going, Believer 2?
Believer 2: Oh, life is terrible! My dog left me and I stepped on a LEGO. Things will never get better. Blah blah blah.
Believer 1: Oh no. Be encouraged! The Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Believer 2: Oh, wow! You’re right! Everything is just swell. I think I’ll ride off into the sunset now.

​Believer 1 has just quoted Jer 29:11. If we look at the context of this passage, I think we’ll find that he has actually misused this particular verse (though, I’m sure his intentions were good).

​Now, Jer 29:11 is a source of encouragement for many believers and I don’t want to rob anyone of encouragement. So, I have compiled a list of three reasons why we should rejoice that this passage is not about us. If Jer 29:11 was indeed about us, then:
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The Days of Peleg: Babel or Continental Drift?

​And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. (Gen 10:25 KJV)

I think that when Moses wrote, “in his days was the earth divided,” he was referring to the division of languages and nations at the Tower of Babel, but others believe he was talking about the Continental Drift. Here is a humble presentation of why I’m right and they’re wrong.
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Read the Bible like an Architect Part II

This is Part II of a two-part series.   Read Part I.

We are reading the Bible like architects by using what we know to find what we don’t know. In the last article, we looked at the core of Jas 2:14-26 and saw that “justify” only means “to declare righteous.” God calls someone righteous when he believes and people call someone righteous when they see his good works. For example, Abraham was justified by and before God by faith and he was justified by and before men by works.

Here are nine easy things we noticed about Jas 2:21-25 in Part I:
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Read the Bible like an Architect Part I

​When I was in High School, I took an architecture class that I especially enjoyed. We got to use paper, right angles, compasses, and other cool instruments that architects use along with our knowledge of geometry to solve whatever problems the teacher presented to us. Often the problems involved taking limited information and using it to extract other information. He would always say the same thing:

​Use what you know to find what you don’t know.

​That’s some solid advice. Once we establish that something is true, we can use it to make sense of things that we don’t know or don’t understand. The applications of this advice go far beyond High School architecture; it’s essentially how we progress in science and technology. It is also a fundamental concept to interpreting documents, whether they be laws, historical records, or even the Bible.
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Judge not?

Many people are quick to quote the first two words of Matthew 7:

​Judge not […] (Matt 7:1a KJV)

​But, did you know that in the rest of the chapter, there are three judgments that Jesus tells us to make about people? Let’s take a look at what Jesus says in the rest of the chapter and see if we can reconcile it with the entirety of Matthew 7:1.[Read More]

Appositive in John 1:12

Here is a cute grammar joke that has been circulating the internet:

​Personally, I prefer the Oxford Comma, but that’s a debate for another day.  For now, I would like to discuss a certain grammatical relationship that’s common in the Bible. It is called the appositive. Consider this sentence:

My wife, Lena, is an awesome person!

In the above sentence, the word, “Lena,” is a repetition and clarification of the phrase, “my wife.” Who is my wife? Lena. Who is Lena? My wife. The word, “Lena,” is an appositive. It is in apposition with the phrase, “my wife.” Pretty easy, right?
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