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: Sea of Galilee

    The Sea of Galilee was the center of Jesus’ ministry in northern Israel. Many of His most well-known moments happened there. It’s where He called fishermen like Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow Him. It’s where Jesus calmed a raging storm. It is where Jesus walked on water, and where Peter also walked on…

  • Field Notes: Jordan River

    When the Israelites led by Joshua reached the Jordan River, it was at flood stage – fast and deep – impossible to cross on their own. God instructed the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to step into the water. As soon as their feet touched the river, the flow stopped, and the people…

  • Field Notes: Red Sea

    When the Israelites reached the Red Sea, they were trapped. Pharoah’s army was right behind them, the Red Sea was in front of them, and they had nowhere to go. God told Moses to stretch out his hand, and the waters of the Red Sea parted. The people crossed on dry ground with walls of…

  • Field Notes: Jacob’s Well – Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

    John 4 Jesus sits down at a well… tired, waiting. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water, and He asks her for a drink. The conversation moves quickly past the water in the well, and He offers her something she was not expecting…living water. Then it gets personal. He knows her, and He knows her…

  • Field Notes: Hagar’s Well – Beer-lahai-roi

    Genesis 16 Alone in the wilderness after fleeing from Sarai’s mistreatment, Hagar stops by a spring for a place to rest and regroup. At the well, she is found by an Angel of the Lord who calls her by name and asks, “Where have you come from and where are you going?” Hagar answers only…

  • Field Notes: Beer-sheba – Wells of Abraham & Isaac

    Genesis 21, 26 After Hagar and Ishmael are sent away, Abraham’s servants dig a well (claim an area of land). Abimelech’s people claim it, and what starts as a simple dispute turns into an all-out confrontation. In the end, a covenant is made. Abraham sets apart seven lambs as a witness, and Abimelech recognizes the…