Category: Daniel 4
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A Slow Learner Is Still a Learner
It’s (past) time to bring Daniel 4 to a close and bid fond farewell to Nebuchadnezzar. (He actually does show up posthumously in the next chapter, but he’s a distant memory there, which turns out to be part of Belshazzar’s problem. But, I am getting ahead of myself.) I rather like the pompous, short-fused, crazy…
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Prophets, Pride, and Pay-Up Chocolate
On Friday afternoon the FedEx man showed up at my door, bearing gifts of chocolate from a far-away friend admitting he was wrong. Jeff hadn’t done anything hurtful to me or anyone else, but his pound and half of chocolate was acknowledgment that (at least this time) my interpretation of Daniel was better than his.…
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Care To Be a Daniel?
In my Baptist Sunday school, we sang a song called “Dare To Be a Daniel.” It was all about taking a stand and standing alone. Daniel showed great gumption when he stood alone (or with his three friends) against the pervasive perversity of Babylon. He dared! But Daniel also cared, and sometimes that’s even harder.…
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Green and Gold
I apologize up front to my fellow fans of the Green & Gold: this blog post is not about the Packers. I shamelessly used that color combination to lure in readers. (Did it work?) However, shamelessness does not equal randomness. Read on… You might recall that in the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar has two dreams.…
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Schadenfreude
I’ve tried numerous times to learn German (not for fun…because it definitely isn’t), but the vocabulary kills me every time. Seriously, when a language allows the ad infinitum gluing together of words already-too-long to make new-out-of-control-longer words, it pretty much guarantees failure for people with short attention spans. I’ve made up an English word for…
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The Taller They Are, the Harder They Fall
I live in the Evergreen State, and a line of towering pines across my parking lot reminds me of this whenever I sit at my desk. If any of them decides to fall eastward, I’ll be really glad to have renter’s insurance. When my sister and I drove through nearby forested mountains, she summarized things…
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Déjà-vous All Over Again
Nebuchadnezzar’s first disturbing dream came to him when he was a new king (chapter 2). He saw the “large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance” (2:31, NIV ) and, although the dream troubled him, things ended well for him. The interpretation bode badly for empires that succeeded him, but Nebuchadnezzar was the head of…
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Say It with a Song
So what’s this important something Nebuchadnezzar had to say? The suspense has probably been causing you pain for a week. Let me put you out of your misery. The great and mighty king of Babylon is bubbly. He’s tickled to tell his story. The stuffy wording of most translations zaps the life right out of…
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“Dear Everyone, I’m pretty great, but…”
I still send letters, honest to goodness letters, through the mail. (I’d say I still write letters, but that’s not true. I type them.) When I tell people this, they look at me funny. (I try to avoid telling them at the same time that I don’t carry a cell phone.) Sometimes I consider it…
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What I Did on My Summer Vacation
I didn’t blog. And, aside from two weeks teaching the book in Myanmar, I didn’t think about Daniel. Thus, I am in need of review. Presumably, so are you. I will resist my teacherly urge to spend the next three blog entries reviewing (especially since I’m only writing once a week these days) and instead…
Three Rubies Press 