Sovereign Over Time (July-August 2013)

July-August 2013
Volume 22, Number 4

Time may be the most significant element of human life. It is certainly an ever-present reality, one that we all have to deal with constantly. We try to manage time, even control time, but it frequently gets away from us. For a Christian, the swift passage of time need not be such a burden because God is sovereign over time all the time. This is a major theme of the book of Ecclesiastes. (iStockphoto)

'Personal' from John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Three):
Time

Ecclesiastes 3 is among the best-known chapters of the Bible, and its major theme is a subject that concerns us all: time. Solomon reveals that God is solidly in control of time. John Ritenbaugh teaches that knowing that God is sovereign over time should fill a Christian with faith in God's work in him, in the church, and in His plan for humanity.

Ready Answer
Crookedness
by David C. Grabbe

Solomon states succinctly in Ecclesiastes 1:15, "What is crooked cannot be made straight," a truism that most people with a little experience in life know to be the case. Harsh words cannot be unsaid. Wicked deeds cannot be undone. David Grabbe explains the Bible's take on crookedness—some of which God initiates.

Prophecy Watch
The Symmetry of History (Part One)
by Charles Whitaker

A survey of history reveals patterns of human and national behaviors that tend to repeat themselves at certain intervals. Charles Whitaker evaluates the "Axial Period" idea promoted by Karl Jaspers, showing that, more than just events, ideas radically changed at the midpoint of the millennium before Christ—and such a thing seems to have happened again beginning with the Renaissance.

WorldWatch
Chicken in the East China Sea
by Richard T. Ritenbaugh

The People's Republic of China recently extended its Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, farther into the East China Sea. The move escalated tensions with Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, whose own ADIZs now overlap China's. Richard Ritenbaugh speculates that Beijing is trying to find out if its neighbors will blink first.

Bible Study
The Miracles of Jesus Christ:
Healing a Stooped Woman (Part One)
by Martin G. Collins

When Jesus healed a woman bent over by a severe spinal condition, it was in a synagogue and on a Sabbath, arousing the anger of the Pharisees, who taught that healing was forbidden on God's day of rest. Jesus uses the situation to illustrate a proper use of the Sabbath, as a time to loose what is bound and straighten what is crooked.