Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

Ezra 7 is a fairly innocuous chapter. If you aren’t careful you miss something amazing.  
            We are introduced to Ezra, a potential priest descended from Aaron.  He is a scribe of the Law.  He has requested of the king, through proper channels apparently, the right to lead a group of people back to Jerusalem.  King Artaxerxes grants Ezra's request and then some, giving money to Ezra so he could buy the needed goods to make sacrifices on the king’s behalf, giving gifts to the temple for its service, designating a drawing account Ezra can use to beautify the temple, exempting the priests and temple workers from taxes, and finally designating Ezra a sort of minor governor with the ability to enforce the law, both God's and the king's, up to using the death penalty. Notice, this was a pagan king who was showing so much interest and support in Ezra’s mission. 
            Ezra must have been blown away at the favor the king showed him, but all in all, it was a fairly common occurrence.  A minor functionary makes a request through channels to the king and gets a favorable response.  No big deal.
             Except for the fact that God is credited at every step.
            As we read through the chapter, we would expect to see prophets proclaiming the word of the Lord or interpreting dreams, right?  Or maybe Ezra performed miracles to convince the king.  Surely a hand wrote upon the wall.  No, none of these things happened.  God used nothing miraculous or spectacular to gain all this favor and help for His children.  As far as worldly people were concerned this was a completely normal, straightforward event.
            Yet in verse 6 we are told that "the king granted him all his request according to the hand of Jehovah, [Ezra’s] God upon him."  And the trip back to Jerusalem was quick and easy because of "the good hand of his God upon him." (vs 9).  And Ezra had the strength to see all this through because he "was strengthened according to the hand of Jehovah my God upon me," (vs 28).  God, without doing anything miraculous, caused all these things to happen.  He was working for the betterment of His people all through this chapter while staying behind the scenes.
            Does God work miracles today?  We know He doesn't. Does He send prophets? No.  Does He work in our lives? Absolutely, yes, just as He worked behind the scenes to help Ezra get everything he needed.  Can He really affect the world positively for us without miracles? Well, look at what He did for Ezra.  Ezra wouldn't have dreamed of asking for half of what the king gave him, but God was on Ezra's side.
            God is working for us in the same way. We just need to trust him, just like Ezra did, and with no more evidence than Ezra had.  We just need to remember who is on our side, and believe it.
 
Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. ..The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. Ezra 7:27-28;  Proverbs 21:1.
 
Lucas Ward

I have a hard time seeing cobwebs.  Every so often, Keith will grab a broom, wrap an old rag around it and go around sweeping my ceilings, especially in the corners.  He always ends up with a rag covered in lacy, pale gray webs that had hung from the white ceilings, hidden from my less than perfect vision.
            A few weeks ago, after returning from a ten day trip that combined family visits with a speaking engagement, I was exercising on the porch steps and happened to look at the screen door.  Maybe because I was concentrating on my repetitious step routine instead of simply going in and out, I saw a thick layer of cobwebs wrapped around the automatic door closer.  I looked a little higher and more hung from the hinges.  Yet a little higher and both corners were strung with white.
            These were not small cobwebs.  They were several inches in diameter and so thick the black metal door looked as if someone had splashed white paint on it.  This is what I’m saying:  they were easy to see and had been there quite awhile yet I had missed seeing them.
            Here’s a question for you.  If cobwebs were dangerous in some way, poisonous perhaps, which would be the most dangerous, the ones you can’t see, or the ones you can? 
            Let me make that a little easier for you.  Those cobwebs that Keith gets down for me?  Before he retired I might not have seen them, but I knew they were there—cobwebs always hang from the ceiling.  When any special company was on the calendar, I always got the broom and brushed them down myself.  I knew where to brush whether I could see them there or not.  The cobwebs that hang all over the screen door as clear as day?  Those I never see because I never look for them.
            When we raised our boys we taught them several ways to avoid poisonous snakes.  One was to stay away from places they could hide, like wood piles and thick brush.  We also taught them to look for odd shapes and movement in the grass—the only way to see past their natural camouflage.  But on a cold sunny day, those things won’t be in some dark place, they’ll be right out in the open, basking on a sun-warmed rock or lying in the sun-baked field.  Which ones do you think are the hardest to see, simply because you aren’t looking for them?
            Now think about the dangers in your spiritual life.  Which temptations are the most perilous, the ones you know to look for or the ones you don’t bother to look for?  Which of your faults are the most dangerous?  The ones you are trying to work on, or the ones you refuse to see?
            What’s the moral of the story?  Always be looking.  Don’t fool yourself with that psychological trick called denial.  It won’t make the snakes disappear.  It won’t make the poison less venomous.  You have an enemy who isn’t stupid.  He has great camouflage.  Sometimes he looks like a friend, sometimes he looks like a blessing, sometimes he even looks like you. 
            Do a daily character exam.  Look for the cobwebs in your soul.  Look where you see them and where you don’t.  Or get someone with better eyesight to do it for you, and then listen to them.  “That’s just how I am,” may be the biggest lie anyone ever got you to believe.  Blindness is not an excuse for sin.
 
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds, 2 Cor 11:13,14.
 
Dene Ward

We have put up several new feeders and the bird population has exploded.  We see more new kinds and more of them than ever before.  We have also seen a few new bird antics as well.
            Yesterday we looked out in time to see two doves running around the pole from which one of the feeders hangs.  While cardinals and titmice usually fly the four feet up from the ground to the feeders, the doves are content to peck off the ground what falls, and a great deal does.  Pick up the binoculars and watch the seeds fly every time one of the birds “on high” pecks at it.  Meanwhile, down below, the doves revel in the raining plenty.
            Except those two.  For several minutes they chased one another around and around and around that pole, the one trying to shoo the other away from the free meal.  Occasionally the one in front got far enough ahead to stop and peck a seed, but the one behind, running literally ankle deep in food, never got a bite.
            Kind of reminds me of a few Bible classes I have sat in.  Two men wrapped up in their own opinions, chase one another around in circles with their “logic,” and neither one of them get any of the spiritual nourishment being offered that morning.  Or one man desperately tries to have his meal while another of differing opinion cannot allow it and pursues him with “arguments about words.”  In fact, if the man isn’t careful, he will usually be cornered right after class as the chase continues.  Like those two birds I watched that day, neither one is fed, despite the banquet laid right in front of them.
            Paul calls that sort of behavior “carnal” and immature, 1 Cor 3:1-3.  He equates it with orgies and drunkenness, Rom 13:13.  James puts it on a par with “every vile practice,” 3:16.  All of them link quarreling with things like jealousy, envy, hostility, and selfishness.  James even adds murder and adultery to the mix, 4:1-4.  It is one thing to have a spirited discussion of the Scriptures.  It is another entirely to refuse to consider new ideas, clinging to beliefs out of pride or dismissing a point simply because of who presented it, all cloaked in concern for words and their correct meanings while patently ignoring basic spiritual concepts like Divine authority and holiness. 
            Our spiritual meals are presented to help us glorify God, not to exalt ourselves over others.  They are food for the soul, not ammunition for the spiteful.   They are nourishment for the kind, not fodder for the vindictive.  If all we can do is chase one another in circles with the Word of God, we don’t deserve to hold those sacred writings in our hands.
            I laughed at those two stupid doves under my feeder.  Then I just shook my head and sighed.  I have seen too many Christians just like them.
 
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, Galatians 5:14-16.

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Joanne Beckley.

Submission is a gift. A husband can have no greater help or hindrance than what his wife gives or withholds from him. It was once said, “The woman is the guardian of love; the man is the guardian of authority.” It takes all the strength, intelligence, and imagination and love that a woman has to be a helper suitable for her husband. OR, she can be like a gold ring in a swine’s snout (Prov.11:22), without discretion and of no value to her husband.
 
Do your recognize yourself in any of the following actions toward your husband? What are you going to do about it? Do you . . .
Disguise belittling with humor
Complain to a friend
Use long silences to punish
Mentally rehearse his faults
Take matters into your own hands
Argue to force the “right” decision
Become irritated or impatient
Use sex as a weapon of leverage
Go on a shopping spree
Call Momma
Use tears to intimidate
Pretend to be sick to manipulate
Use compliments to get whatever
Criticize decisions made
Dominate the conversation
Say, “I told you so.”
Yell or throw things
Correct minute details in his stories to belittle him
Preach/ harangue
Each of these actions represents domination – and we may not have realized it at the time. Submission is not present – nor is a meek and quiet spirit! A contentious wife can literally undermine her husband’s health. She saps his emotional strength, undermines his ambition, and destroys his chance to lead his home as God wants of him.
 
We wives have choices. Our husbands cannot make them for us. By marrying, every husband has gambled and placed his emotional welfare and his manhood in the hands of his wife. What shall we be to our husbands? a crown? or rottenness to his bones? (Prov.12:4)
 
John Clark, in his series on Marriage, likes to compare marriage to a triangle which requires pushing out toward each named corner – conscientiousness, consistency and constancy. Marriage cannot please God when its greatest killer, selfishness, is present. Two empty containers cannot fill one another. Fill one and then share with the other until both are filled.
 
We need to discuss the abused wife. Who is she? Does she have a scriptural right to leave her husband when adultery is not present? The husband, who loved her so much and treated her like a queen before marriage, may begin to physically abuse or to play a verbal “cutting” game to see how much he can make her bleed. Both are condemned by God (Eph.5:28-29 specifically).
 
Submission to such a man is exceedingly difficult. God has given her tools to work with:
a.    A meek (remember the definition?) and quiet spirit, which includes a quiet self-respect because she knows she is following God,
b.    The confidence in the great value God places on her,
c.    Brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage her, and
d.    Elders in the church to discipline a sinful brother. BUT,
e.    She must be willing to seek help! Denial and silence are Satan’s tools.
 
Questions that need to be answered:
1.    At what point should a wife no longer “protect” their marital privacy?
2.    Could battering in some cases be prevented if a wife humbly addresses all sin in her marriage (Mt.18:15-17) and seeks help quickly to solve marital problems before serious abuse develops?
3.    Do wives have the right to use civil law, (battery is a felony), an avenue God has provided for mankind? Does 1 Cor.6:1-4 come into play here?
4.    Does Christ ever ask us to support another in his sin? Is she doing this by remaining in a situation, (e.g. the home), where he feels free to abuse her?
5.    What principles does a wife need to consider, if her husband is also abusing the children?
6.    Can an abused wife leave her husband?  
7.    When life is threatened, do other principles of God come into play? Consider Mark 3:4; Gen.9:5,6; Luke 14:26-27 in light of this question.
 
In working through these thorny issues, consider Jesus and how He dealt with persecution. These are some of the principles we as wives need to consider: The treatment He received did not determine Christ’s reaction. God was always present in every action. Christ was never alone. The ultimate goal was worth the cost.
 
I cannot answer for a battered wife’s convictions. SHE will make her choices and stand by them. May God bless her in her decisions to do what is right. She is an incredibly courageous woman. The rest of us? We must reach out to the victim and believe her. Love shares pain and love supports her search for what is best in the sight of God.
 
A strong reminder: Culture in itself cannot influence a couple’s marriage in a harmful way without their consent. It is how one responds to cultural pressures that determines whether the marriage is harmed or strengthened. Likewise, the congregation where you attend cannot influence you as a couple without your consent. Decisions among brethren are being made today that are affecting marriages.
 
Marriage is the ONLY way God has provided to fulfill a person’s need for deep companionship. Rejoice in your marriage!
 
“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” (2 Pet.3:18).
 
Joanne Beckley

I came across the phrase “for thy name’s sake” in Psalm 79:  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for thy name’s sake. 
            The whole psalm bases its appeal on the fact that God is the one being scorned when His people are defeated by the nations.  The psalmist certainly had it right—those people who had slipped so far into idolatry and all its vile and attendant practices could not possibly think that God would save them based upon how faithful and righteous they had been.  The only possibility of salvation was to throw themselves on the mercies of their God, to remind Him that it was a personal affront to Him when His people were conquered. 
            The nations have come into your inheritance…your holy temple they have defiled…the dead bodies of your servants have they given to the birds of the heavens for food…render sevenfold into the laps of our neighbors the taunts wherewith they have taunted you.  And in keeping with that, the psalmist then asks for forgiveness, not for the people’s sake, but for God’s name’s sake.
            I looked up that phrase and found it several more times in the collection.  What was God asked to do “for His name’s sake?”  Pardon sins, 25:11; lead in paths of righteousness, 23:3; preserve life, 143:11; lead and guide, 31:3; deal on my behalf and deliver, 109:21.  Herein lies a lesson we need—all these things, including pardon and deliverance, God does, not because we deserve them, but because of Who He is.  We have nothing to bargain with any more than those fickle people of old.  We, too, have sinned against a loving Father, often in a rebellious and disrespectful way.  We may not bow down to an idol, but we love the world as much as they did, follow its example as if we fear to be different from it, and let it seep into our minds to the point we no longer even recognize sin.
            I hear too many brethren in the midst of a trial ask God, “Why, when I have tried so hard to be faithful for so long?”  We just don’t get it.  One sin forever makes us unworthy to be in the presence of God.  It breaks our covenant with Him as surely as a broken contract today.   God is Holy, He is righteous, He cannot tolerate sin.  But lucky for us, God is love, too, and because of Who He is, we have hope.
            When the trials come, when the fear mounts and the sorrow overwhelms, this is what we say to Him:  We know we do not deserve it.  We know you are far above us and our frail existence.  Please show the world your essence.  Please help us and comfort us and deliver us, not for our sakes, but for your name’s sake.  Otherwise we don’t have a leg to stand on, and we know it.
 
"I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25

"For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Isaiah 48:9

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7.        
 
Dene Ward

We had people coming for lunch and Keith was helping me clean the house, particularly the heavier work.  As he walked past the dining table he happened to look at the fixture there, six of those candle-flame shaped bulbs surrounded by twelve rectangular glass plates etched with flowers.  “Looks a little dusty,” he said, and proceeded to clean them one at a time. 
            After he finished he turned on the light and I nearly grabbed my sunglasses.  I had not known the fixture was so dirty.  Those glass plates didn’t look that bad, hanging up above my head.  Boy, was I wrong.  The thing sparkles like it hasn’t in years.   Since I use that table for most of my Bible studies, maybe I won’t have so many headaches now.
            It’s not like I didn’t know it was there.  Certainly I understood the fixture could become dirty.  I have lived here for thirty years now and I know how much dust settles.  On the other hand, it is far above my head.  Like the top of the refrigerator, I never notice how dirty it has become.  I simply take the light for granted—after all, I can still see.
            Have you ever picked up something written by a skeptic or talked to one about the scriptures?  How they see the Bible will amaze you.  “What?”  I have thought many times.  “Where did they come up with that?   How did they get that out of that passage?”  It isn’t just the ignorant taking bits and pieces out of context.  It is their way of thinking that skews their viewpoint.  Of course a “free-thinking, free-loving intellectual” will see the morality of a Christian as a prison.  It takes a man who understands the integrity of temperance to see that other lifestyle as enslavement to self-indulgence.  “I will not be mastered by anything,” Paul says, and we who practice that understand the true liberty found in Christ.
            So how do we clean off the dust and see the light?  Peter, in speaking about the prophecies of Christ, makes a powerful point when he calls the word of God a light to which “you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place” 1 Pet 1:19.  We live in the country.  The first comment most of our city-dwelling visitors make after an overnight is, “It sure is dark out here.”  We have learned to see in the starlight, but after hearing them bump around in the night so often, we now lay a small penlight on the bedside table in the guest room.  The dark can be dangerous—anyone can trip and fall.
            The Word does for us what that light does for our guests.  It opens our minds to the Truth; it helps us see things as they really are, not as the Prince of Darkness would have us think.  It shows us first and foremost our leader and his example.  “I am the light of the world,” Jesus said (John 8:12). “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”
            But having the advantage of that light places obligations on us.
            For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth), proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of. But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light, Eph 5:8-13.
            You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do [men] light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shines to all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:14-16.
            Do all things without murmurings and questionings: that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life…Phil 2:14-16a.
            Look at your light this morning.  Is it dimmed with the dust and film of everyday life?  It is easy to take for granted the life we live in the Lord, to be satisfied with our lack of “big, bad sins.”  We may not be associating with the “unfruitful works of darkness,” but are we “reproving them?”  We may not be doing wrong, but are we doing right?  We may not forget to study our Bibles, but are we “holding forth the word?” 
            Maybe it’s time to do a little cleaning.  I wonder if your neighbors will need their sunglasses when you do.
 
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father…Matt 13:43.
 
Dene Ward

     Most of us over 60 grew up watching Westerns on television.  Marshall Dillon, Cheyenne Bodie, and Rowdy Yates were our heroes.  We also watched a show called "Wagon Train," but only occasionally as it aired on Wednesday nights.  We had to be sick at home to see that one.  Otherwise we would have been at Wednesday night Bible study.
     None of us were told about the real adventures and tragedies of the Old West until we grew up and read some of them.  I am sure you know of the infamous Donner Party, a group of emigrants traveling west to California that wound up trapped by snow in what is now called "Donner Pass."  Unable to get through the mountains, their situation led to disease, starvation, and ultimately cannibalism to survive.  Of the 87 who began the trip, only 45 reached California.
     Could it all have been avoided?  On August 6, 1846, they came upon a note from their guide, who had gone ahead.  The note told them that the route was worse than he had thought, possibly impassable, and they should wait for him to return.  After 8 days, he sent another message to follow yet another trail and they did.  Now we view their guide, Lansford Hastings, as an unscrupulous man, completely unconcerned with their safety.  The route was not better, had never even been blazed for something like a wagon train, and cost them 18 days, putting them squarely into the winter in those higher elevations. 
     It is difficult to say that they should have known better, that his words about the pass being impossible to travel should have sent them scurrying back to safety, rather than forging on ahead with this guy.  It remains a tragic episode in the history of Westward expansion, the site of which is now the Donner Memorial State Park.  Not only does it commemorate this particular event but all the trials of all pioneers in the nineteenth century.
     It is easy for us to look back and criticize.  It is even easier to say, "I told you so," which helps no one at all except perhaps a weak ego.  But it also serves to remind us to pay attention to all the warnings in scripture.  Look through the prophets and see warning after warning, not only unheeded, but the messengers persecuted.  Surely we, who pride ourselves on our "superior" knowledge would do better.  Would we?
     Do you realize that wealth in the New Testament is never pictured as anything but dangerous?  Yet, we all confidently affirm, "I would do better than they did, Lord!" as we work ourselves into a frenzy to make more money.  False prophets are shown to be handsome, friendly, and flattering, tickling ears with their smooth speech.  "We wouldn't fall for them Lord," and yet knock one another over like a snaky row of dominoes as they stroke our feelings and condemn those who disagree with them.
     Do yourself a favor this week.  Run a search and see all the things we are warned against.  Put them into categories so you can get the brunt of the impact for each.  These things God warns us against.  Don't make a fool of yourself by arguing against God's opinions.  His "I told you so" could be the last thing you hear.
 
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray Matt24:4.
 
Dene Ward
 

I was reading the Q and A column in a cooking magazine based in Boston.  “You’re kidding,” I spoke aloud when a reader asked how to dispose of bacon grease without clogging her sink.  Dispose of bacon grease?  Keith was equally appalled, but on a whim he asked a friend, who is originally from New England, what he did with his bacon grease.

              “Why?’ he asked with a suspicious look on his face.  “What’s it good for?”

              What’s it good for?  I guess this is one of those cultural things.  Bacon grease to a Northerner must mean “garbage.”  Bacon grease to a Southerner means “gold.”

              My mother kept a coffee can of it in her refrigerator.  I do the same.  My grandmothers both kept a tin of it on their stoves.  They used it every day, just as their mothers had.  In the South bacon grease is the fat of choice.  In the old days only better-off farmers had cows and butter.  The poorer families had a pig, and they used every square inch of that animal.  Even the bones were put into a pot of beans and many times the few flecks of meat that fell off of them into the pot were all the meat they had for a week.  In a time when people needed fat in their diets (imagine that!), the lard was used as shortening in everything from biscuits to pie crust.  And the grease?  A big spoonful for seasoning every pot of peas, beans, and greens, more to fry okra, potatoes, and squash in, a few spoonfuls stirred into a pan of cornbread batter, and sometimes it was spread on bread in place of butter.

              I use it to shorten cornbread, flavor vegetables, and even to pop popcorn.  Forget that microwave stuff.  If you have never popped real popcorn in bacon grease, you haven’t lived.  I am more health-conscious than my predecessors—in fact, we don’t even eat that much bacon anymore.  But when we do, I save the drippings, scraping every drop from the pan, and while most of the time I use a mere teaspoon of olive oil to sauté my squash from the summer garden, once a year we get it with dollop of bacon grease.  Any artery can stand once a year, right?

              As I said, it’s a cultural thing.  Things that are precious to Southerners may not be so to Northerners, and vice versa.  Don’t you think the same should be true with Christians?  What’s garbage to the world should be gold to Christians.

              One thing that comes to mind is the Word of God.  In a day when it is labeled a book of myths, when it is belittled and its integrity challenged, that Word should be precious to God’s people.  David wrote a psalm in which at least seven times he speaks of loving God’s word, Psalm 119.

              We often speak of “loving God” or “loving Jesus,” but you cannot do either without a love of the Word, a love shown in obedience.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the words that you hear are not mine, but the Father’s who sent me, John 14:24.  Jesus even defined family, the people you love more than anyone or anything else, as “those who hear my word and do it,” Luke 8:21.  Surely the ultimate love was shown by the martyrs depicted in Rev 6:9 who were slain “for the Word of God.”

              Do we love God’s Word that much?  Then why isn’t it in our hands several times a day?  Why aren’t we reading more than a quota chapter a day?  Why can’t we cite more than one or two proof-texts, memorized only to show our neighbors they are wrong? 

              Bacon grease may be gold to a Southern cook, but it is hardly in the same category.  Yet I think I may have heard Christians arguing more about when to use bacon grease than when to read the Bible.  Maybe we are showing the effects of a culture other than a Christian’s.
 
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. John 14:21
 
Dene Ward

Let me warn you from the outset—reading this book is a project if you are not a scholar.  Having said that, I managed to get through it without too much trouble, and learned some things as well, even though I am not a scholar.  It seems to me that this scholar does his best to make this book and its thoughts as accessible as possible for most people. 
            The greatest thing this book did for me was to compare biblical faith with other faiths.  If you have heard all your life, "We all worship the same God," the author will prove to you that is not so.  He goes through many different faiths examining and comparing their "story" as he calls it with the Old Story, the Old Testament, and you will come away knowing that the God you worship is most definitely not The Great Spirit or Allah or any other of the various "gods" based upon their exhibited character, actions, and spoken words.
            He also takes several of the great questions of life and examines all of these religions by the answers they give.  What is the world?  Who is God?  How should we relate to God?  Why do evil and suffering exist in the world?  In all the exploring you will come away knowing more than ever that our Old Story is the true one, the only one that makes sense.
            If you decide you want to give it a try, do not despair when you pick it up and see how thick it is.  The last third is footnotes (many certainly worth reading), bibliography, and various indices.  I won't tell you that you will understand everything you read; neither did I.  Still, I learned new things and now have a better handle on how to deal with other religions, and their followers.  My advice?  Read slowly and take notes.  Then in a few months, read it again.  You will understand more than you thought possible.
            Seriously Dangerous Religion is published by Baylor University Press.  It is also available on Kindle.
 
Dene Ward