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: Jesus

    Sometimes temptation shows up as the easy way out. After forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus was starving when the Tempter came to Him. The suggestion seemed innocuous. Turn the stones into bread, eat them so you won’t be hungry. Solve the problem. End the hunger. Take the shortcut. But Jesus responded with…

  • Field Notes: The Thief on the Cross

    Sometimes it all seems lost. There is no hope at all. Only darkness seems to lie ahead. Two criminals were crucified beside Jesus. One joined the crowd in mocking him. The other saw something different. He admitted his own guilt and recognized that Jesus had done nothing wrong. In the middle of that hopelessness, he…

  • Field Notes: Isaac

    Sometimes we just get tired of fighting. Conflict arises, and yeah, we could go at it again – but those times when we choose not to are the pinnacle of self-control and often where peace can be found. Isaac’s servants dug a well in the valley, and the local herdsmen immediately claimed it as their…

  • Field Notes: Joseph

    We’ve all had a moment when doing the right thing costs us immediately. Joseph was a slave in the house of Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, when Potiphar’s wife began pressuring him day after day. Joseph could have done it in secret. No one would have ever known. No one would have stopped him. But…

  • Field Notes: Micaiah

    What do you do when everyone around you agrees…and you know they are wrong? There was a prophet named Micaiah who stood before King Ahab while four hundred other prophets promised victory in battle. The king wanted reassurance. The court wanted agreement. But Micaiah refused to adjust the message. He said, “If you ever return…

  • Field Notes: Rahab

    You’ve felt this before. The moment when you act without guarantees. There was a woman in Jericho who hid two foreign spies in her home while her city prepared for war. The walls were still standing. No trumpet had sounded. No proof had been given. But she had heard enough about Israel’s God to stake…