Tommy Mann

  The old prophets rarely used years to date their work, and instead chose to tie their writings to events in history. In the Old Testament Amos said he wrote, “in the days of Uzziah…two years before the earthquake.” (1:1) His fellow minor prophet Zechariah mentioned this same earthquake, saying that on that future day of the Lord (a time of judgment), “you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah.” (14:5) Uzziah’s story is found in both 2 Kings 15 and 2 Chronicles 26, but neither account mentions an earthquake. But since two prophets later referenced it, it must have been a doozy. The fact that the narratives about Uzziah do not cite this earthquake has given scoffers some ammunition to say the Bible is not credible.  But not anymore. Archaeologists now believe a massive earthquake rocked the Middle East in 760 BC, during the reign of Uzziah. They estimate that the quake would register a staggering 8.2 on today’s Richter scale, which mea...

Thanks to social media there is a word we are hearing more and more: influencers. People who amass a large following online get paid to promote products, as companies have learned that people will purchase what their favorite trending celebrity tells them to buy. In recent election cycles politicians have paid influencers to rave about them to their followers. These influencers get paid to make people do something they probably would not have done on their own.   But influencers have always been around, even if they weren’t paid for their influence. Human nature shows that some people are leaders and others are followers; leaders influence while followers follow the lead. We see a clear example of that in 2 Chronicles 23-24 with the unlikely king named Joash.  His father died as a result of a battle wound, so the queen mother assumed the throne and murdered all the male relatives that could challenge her for the crown. But she missed one. Her grandson Joash was hidden away by ...