Tag: Bible


Travel
The Durf with shield and spear

Israel’s ancient edge

The Shephelah The Shephelah (pronounced like “Shfelah”, see this example) is the low-hills region in the Holy Land between the coastal plains and the high hills. This area long stood as a bit of a border region, and it ...
Features
Unjust steward

Unjust steward, meet the prodigal son

Unjust Steward: The Problems The “Parable of the Unjust Steward” in Luke 16:1-8 is confusing. It seems to teach lessons contrary to everything that lots of Christians believe in. The short version is that a steward for ...
Sunday Durfs
Jephthah

Jephthah: A Judge unrighteously judged

I’ve noticed that many people associate the Old Testament with writings like Isaiah, or Jeremiah, often thinking of complicated, long, and confusing prophesies. Much of the Old Testament, however, is loaded with stories. We’re all familiar with stories like Noah, ...
Sunday Durfs
Annunciation

Orthoenai

Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy When studying the many religions in the world, it’s not uncommon to see publications categorize the many faiths as being either predominantly Orthodox (correct belief) or Orthoprax (correct action/practice). Writers and scholars often use ...
Sunday Durfs
The Durf seeking truth

Seeking truth

One of my duties at church has been to teach a class on Sundays to the Priesthood Quorum (which means teaching a class to a room full of guys age 18 to 50sih). One week I was assigned to teach ...
Sunday Durfs
The Durf leaning on a question

Faith and questioning

A post on faith and questioning deserves a little background as to why I decided to write it. I had a job evaluating survey data at BYU, which sometimes means reading through heaps of open responses ...