Field Notes are quick sketches from the Biblical world – the people, places, rulers, etc. that show up in Scripture and shape the story around them.
Sometimes that still means looking at the armor Paul describes in Ephesians. If that’s what you’re after, you can find each piece of the armor in the sidebar links at right.

  • Field Notes: Where Were You When I Laid the Foundation of the Earth?

    For most of the book of Job, Job wanted answers. He wanted to understand why everything he had built and loved had been taken from him, and he wanted God Himself to explain it.

    By the time God answered him, Job had lost his children, his wealth and his health. He had spent chapter after chapter arguing with his friends about why this had happened and wanting an opportunity to make his case before God.

    Then, in Job 38, God finally spoke. He didn’t begin by answering Job’s questions. He began asking His own. God spoke to Job from a whirlwind and asked, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”

    Job obviously wasn’t there, and that was the point. God continued by asking Job about things that existed long before him and operated far beyond his control. “Have you ever in your life commanded the morning?” “Have you entered the springs of the sea?”

    Then the questions moved into the heavens. “Can you tie up the chains of the Pleiades?” “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?”

    God asked about weather, stars, animals, birth, death, light, darkness, snow, hail, rain and lightning. The questions continue for four chapters. They weren’t really a test of how much Job knew. They repeatedly showed him how much he didn’t.

    Then God asked, “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?”

    Job finally answered. He said he was insignificant and had nothing to say. He put his hand over his mouth.

    God wasn’t finished. He spoke again from the whirlwind and continued questioning Job, this time challenging whether Job could exercise the justice and power that belong to God. Then came Behemoth and Leviathan, two creatures Job could neither control nor overpower.

    By the time God finished, He still had not given Job the explanation Job had spent so much of the book wanting. Instead, Job said something had changed in what he understood about God. He had spoken about things he didn’t understand, things too wonderful for him to know. He said, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.”

    God’s questions didn’t give Job the reason for everything that had happened to him. They changed Job’s understanding of how much he could possibly know from where he stood.

    Job wanted God to explain Himself.

    God showed Job just how much bigger the picture was than Job could see.

    Job 38–42

    God has more questions. See Let Me Ask You Something: When God Asks a Direct Question.

  • Field Notes: Questions God Asked Moses

    Moses asked God a lot of questions. God had a few for Moses, too. They began almost as soon as God called Moses from the burning bush. Moses wanted to know why he was the man for the job. He worried that the Israelites wouldn’t believe him, so God asked, “What is that in your…

  • Field Notes: What Do You See, Amos?

    Amos did not start out as a prophet. He was a shepherd and a grower of sycamore figs when God took him from tending the flock and sent him to prophesy to Israel. God gave Amos a series of visions warning that judgment was coming. In one of them, Amos saw the Lord standing beside…

  • Field Notes: Can These Bones Live?

    Ezekiel was carried by the Spirit of the LORD into a valley filled with bones. There were a lot of them, scattered across the valley, and they were completely dry. God led Ezekiel around among them and then asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel answered, “Lord GOD, You Yourself know.” Ezekiel was…

  • Field Notes: What Is Your Name?

    Jacob was on his way home after years away, and he was terrified. His brother Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men. The last time Jacob had seen Esau, Esau wanted to kill him. The night before they met, Jacob sent his family and possessions across the Jabbok River and stayed behind…

  • Field Notes: Whom Shall I Send?

    Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on a throne with seraphim above Him calling, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of armies.” The foundations shake, the temple fills with smoke, and Isaiah is terrified. He says he is a man of unclean lips who has seen the King. One of the seraphim takes a burning coal…

  • Field Notes: What Are You Doing Here, Elijah?

    Elijah had just come off one of the biggest victories of his life and one of the most famous victories in the Bible. On Mount Carmel, he challenged the prophets of Baal, and God answered Elijah’s prayer with fire from heaven. Then Jezebel threatened to kill him, and Elijah ran. In the wilderness, he sat…