Tommy Mann

The Old Testament, specifically in books like Exodus and Deuteronomy, contains numerous laws that might seem pointless to us today. What can we glean by reading these ancient commands given to the Jews? Please allow me to offer one important truth.  The Jews were not the only ancient people to have laws. For example, the Law Code of Hammurabi, established in 1726 BC, states that if a man commits murder, his daughter can be executed in his stead. The Laws of Eshunna (circa 1800 BC) says that if a man kills someone’s female slave, he must make restitution by giving the slave owner two new female slaves. These law codes make it quite clear that men were of far greater value than women, and slaves were property. When we compare those Babylonian and Akkadian law codes with the law of God in the Old Testament, we see a completely different picture. Far from the modern claims that the Bible is chauvinistic, the Scriptures stand in stark contrast to the nations around them. Consider Deuter...

  The birth of Jesus is a story of paradox, where the incarnation demonstrates the humiliation of the greatest person in history. This is where Jesus “humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8).”  The God from eternity past was born. In that moment Immanuel became an infant. The Creator was crying. The Savior was swaddled. The Messiah was in a manger. The Healer was helpless. The Divine was dependent.  The God from eternity past was born. The Omnipotent One who spoke the universe into existence would not say His first word for another year. He would nurse from the breast of a woman He made. Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emanuel.    Jesus was exactly what the world needed. If the world needed a soldier, God would have sent a five-star general.  If the world needed a monarch, God would have sent a dynastic king. If the world needed a fighter, God would have sent a heavyweight champion.  If...

In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel we are introduced to three important people. They each have a great story, but their names tell an even better story. The three people are John the Baptist, and his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth. All three of their names appear together in one verse: “But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John (v.13).”     Zechariah (or Zacharias in some translations) means “Yahweh has remembered;” Elizabeth means “God has promised;” John, or Yochanan in their language, means “Yahweh is gracious.”    Their names tell a great story because they come on the scene at the end of the Silent Era, the 400 year span where God did not speak through angels or prophets. The last time an angel was sent with a message from God was to a minor prophet named Zechariah, and now, 500 years later, God sent Gabriel to speak to another Zechari...

  In Luke 15 Jesus gave three parables that had essentially the same meaning. They are the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (commonly called the prodigal son). In those parables someone lost something of value, and the parable shows the joy of the person finding what was lost.   In the first parable one sheep wandered off, and the shepherd left his 99 other sheep to find the one. In the second parable a lady lost one of the ten coins that made up her dowry. In the third parable a father watched as one of his two sons left home for a far country.    Think about those percentages. The father lost fifty percent of his sons, and he was broken. The housewife lost ten percent of her coins, and she turned the house upside down. The shepherd lost just one percent of his sheep, and he risked his life to find it. He could have said, “Oh well; I’ve got 99 more. What’s one lamb?”    That is not the attitude of the shepherd; neither was it that...

  In Exodus 32 we read the familiar story of Aaron making a golden calf for the people to worship because Moses was taking too long receiving the Ten Commandments. Do you remember what he used to make the golden calf? He asked for the earrings to be donated to the cause, so these Israelites essentially worshipped the very jewelry they were wearing just the day before.       In verses 3-4 we read: “So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.”   I think it is ridiculous that they worshipped a golden calf, but I wonder what the calf thought of the whole thing.    “Take off your jewelry,” Aaron said, “And bring me all you have.” He took all the peoples’ earrings  And made a golden calf.   I wonder what that calf would think —hypothetically,  As it watched the people that day Bowing down on ...

  Have you ever wondered what the big deal with sin is? As Christians we often speak about God’s amazing grace and His willingness to forgive sins. If all we have to do is confess our sins and He forgives us, what’s the big deal?     That is similar to the question Paul posed to the Romans: “Should we go on sinning so that grace may abound?” But he answered it this way: “By no means! How can we who have died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1)   We need to understand that sin is a big deal because the consequences of sin are a big deal. I think Cornelius Plantinga was on to something when he theorized that the essence of sin is the disruption of shalom. You might know that word as the Hebrew word for peace, or as a typical Jewish greeting. Just as we say “Good morning” and “Good evening,” Jews greet each other with “Shalom.”   It means so much more than peace. Plantinga defined it as a “universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight.” Wishing someone shalom is...