StephenBarkley.com

Thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog.  It has turned out to be a lot more involving than I first had thought. I trust you are letting God speak through Ezekiel to in- and trans-form your life. I will be taking a break over the Christmas holidays. Expect Ezekiel 18:1ff. to come online [...]

Solidity, indeed, becomes the pen Of him that writeth things divine to men: But must I needs want solidness, because By metaphors I speak?  Were not God’s laws, His gospel laws, in olden time held forth By types, shadows, and metaphors? — John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress) Ezekiel 17 is difficult to understand—ironic really, since Ezekiel [...]

For to be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of the truth. — George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons) The Western world is trying to eradicate shame. Shame has become little more than the enemy that holds us back from living up to our true potential. Some anthropologists have made the distinction between [...]

The Old Testament recognizes that poverty is sometimes due to laziness, gluttony, or extravagance, but usually attributes it to the sins of others. — John Stott (Authentic Christianity) You’ve heard these expressions: Like mother like daughter Like father like son The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree These proverbs have been found in many [...]

Beautiful Delilah, sweet as apple pie Always gets a second look from fellas passin’ by Everytime you see her she’s with a different guy Beautiful Delilah, that’s the reason why — “Beautiful Delilah” © 1958 Chuck Berry As this metaphor continues it grows more and more disturbing. To be frank, the explicit sex and brutal [...]

If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God’s Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? — Hebrews 10:28-29 (The Message) Ezekiel took 14 verses to explain the helpless plight of the baby/young [...]

He has saved me by his death; he has washed me with his blood; he has hid me in his wounds. — Charles Wesley (Journal Friday May 19th, 1738) The young girl, has a new problem. In the first six verses of this chapter, the child was discarded by her parents and left naked to [...]

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! — French Guard, Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail “Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite” (v. 3, NRSV), reads a verse at the beginning of the longest allegory in Ezekiel. In fact, the length of chapter 16 exceeds 6 [...]

The man who loves God, and is not yet pure, courts the burning of God. — George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons) There is nothing quite as effective as a perfect analogy to drive a point home. C. S. Lewis was the master of this. In his religious writings, he would often find the most ordinary and [...]

Children may not bank on the piety of parents for salvation; nor may a community find a lightning rod against divine fury in the presence of one or two righteous persons. — Daniel I. Block (Ezekiel) God never needs to justify his actions. He is ultimate reality—and what he does is right. Those two sentences [...]