WWUTT

"When God closes a door, He opens a window." Log that one among everyone's favorite Bible verses not found in the Bible. Where does this saying come from anyway? Well, you can thank Rogers and Hammerstein for the phrase the way we have it. In "The Sound of Music," the main character Maria says, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." Hey, maybe you didn't get that job or the house you wanted and your dreams did not come true. But cheer up! When God closes a door, he opens a window! You know, it sounds like you just said God's way is not as great as your way. Have you considered that maybe God shut your door because He wanted you in the house when it came down? That's the part we don't like to think about. We don't want to imagine that God would ever make us go through anything hard. But 2 Corinthians 1:9 says this is to "make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." Romans 8:29 s...

You know the story of David and Bathsheba, right? David took a walk on his roof one afternoon, and saw Bathsheba bathing. So he had her brought to him and spent the night with her. Bathsheba sent word to David that she was pregnant. So to cover the affair, David had her husband Uriah killed in battle and quickly married Bathsheba. Now, there's been a growing interest in saying David raped Bathsheba. Some have gone as far as insisting we must interpret the story this way, or else victims of abuse will feel betrayed by the church. That sounds less like a right understanding is being drawn from the text, and more like social concerns are being imposed onto the text. Setting aside varying defintions of rape, the Bible doesn't say David raped Bathsheba. In fact, 1 Kings 15:5 says that David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. Besides, you could make as much of a case that Bathsheba seduced David—bathing in the afternoon...