Articles

Browse select Tabletalk articles and columns exploring themes and topics across a spectrum of relevant issues.

  • A Loyal Love by Kathy Miskelly

    “For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Those words of Ruth are often quoted to express the desire that one’s …Read More

  • Snakes and Ladders by Derek Thomas

    Poor Jacob! You have to feel sorry for him even though he’s a most disagreeable character! A “self-willed mother’s boy,” with opportunistic instincts that enabled him to outsmart friends and foes alike in a ruthless bid at getting his own …Read More

  • Voices of Temptation by Derek Thomas

    The birth of Ishmael, son of Abram and Hagar, is a tale that in some sense at least should never have been. From it emerges a familial and ethnic strife that lasts to this very day. It is a tale …Read More

  • Dying Well by Derek Thomas

    Sarah lived 127 years…. And Sarah died…. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her” (Gen. 23:1–2). Sarah and Abraham had been married fifty-two years. He would live almost four decades without her (see Gen. 25:7). …Read More

  • Jesus’ Family Tree by Joel Beeke

    Genealogies are hardly spellbinding. Perhaps, like me, you are tempted to skip them in your Bible reading. Yet genealogies are a significant part of God’s infallible Scriptures. They, too, are “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in …Read More

  • Wily Jacob by Derek Thomas

    Sell me your birthright now,” Jacob demanded of his twin brother, Esau (Gen. 25:31). Thus begins the sorry tale of Abraham’s grandson. From the start, Jacob challenges us to dislike him: a self-willed, pampered child with ruthless skills in getting …Read More

  • The Faithful Minister by Joel Beeke

    Matthew 11 begins with a brief reference to Jesus’ commissioning the twelve apostles (see 10:2–5), then returning to His work as a minister of the Word. This is the context for understanding the events and sayings of Chapter 11. The …Read More

  • Everything Is Against Me! by Derek Thomas

    It is Jacob’s lowest point. As far as he knows, Joseph is dead. That’s the story his sons have led him to believe, showing him the blood-stained “coat of many colors” (Gen. 37:31–33). He mourned his son’s death and “refused …Read More

  • What’s in a Name? by Mark Futato

    Anybody who has spent any time in the church can tell stories of flat-out ridiculous attitudes and actions they have seen in the lives of God’s people. There is nothing new under the sun. The book of Jonah exposes in …Read More

  • Limping Home to God by Derek Thomas

    Poor Jacob! You have to love him even though he’s such a disagreeable fellow! A cheat from birth, Jacob has lived up to his name and now finds himself away from home, fearing the wrath of his twin-brother, Esau. Not …Read More

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