Hello Reader,

When a widow of a member of the company of prophets cried out to Elisha, she had nothing. Her husband was dead and creditors were threatening to take her children as slaves. When Elisha asked what she had in the house, she answered, “You servant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil” (2 Kgs 4:2). Elisha instructed her to go throughout the neighborhood and ask for jars. Her children brought back jar after jar and she poured out the oil from the little jar and it did not run empty. It was only when there were no more vessels that the oil stopped flowing.

She kept pouring and the vessels kept being filled. The same is true for us when we come to God’s word. We might think we have nothing, or very little. We might be embarrassed by how little we know or understand the Bible, how difficult it is for us to remember the books of the Bible and where they are, or even who all the people and places are that we encounter when we read. That woman thought she had nothing to offer but emptiness. Yet, empty vessels were just what God wanted. It was in the empty vessels that the miracle took place. God delighted to fill them. All that was needed was for the vessels to be brought.

We don’t have to be experts to read the Bible. We simply need to come to be filled. The purpose of reading the Bible is not to have all the answers, but to enable us to come to God and His Word and be filled. We come as empty vessels when we come with questions and expect God’s Word to fill us with the wisdom, knowledge, and Holy Spirit that he promises us.

There is a lot going on here recently at Peniel Press.

We have a new email address (hello@penielpress.com), because we want to look more professional and hopefully get out of people's junk folders.
We have a new online bookstore, so you can buy our books directly from us and avoid giving Bezos any more money. It ships globally and you can choose the currency at checkout.
I also released two new books in March -- Count the Stars and Servanthood & Service
I am leading multiple workshops in April through Servanthood & Service to help train and equip elders and deacons within the local church.
I have begun working on the final book of my trilogy on learning to read challenging portions of the Bible, focusing on the places in Scripture (tentatively titled The Well Never Runs Dry).

Below, I have a fresh, unedited section for you from The Well Never Runs Dry. If it seem intriguing to you, I will keep posting about it in the coming months, but I use the same basic approach to the biblical genealogies in The Sinews of Scripture and to the biblical numbers in Count the Stars. If someone shared this issue with you and you would like to receive it in your own inbox, you can sign up by clicking here.

Training Biblical Memory

To understand biblical places, we need to train our biblical memory. Places carry weight and meaning in our lives, and a place where the same kinds of events have happened over and over can trigger powerful memories and emotions when we step into that place. Some of those place-memories are positive. For those who grew up in a loving home, eating meals together around the table, just pulling up to the driveway for Thanksgiving can bring joy to our hearts and countless loving memories to mind. Gathering around the table can recall all the other meals that took place sitting in those same chairs near the ones we love. We are prepared by that place — and the memories and activities associated with it — for peace and joy. For those who found safety in the church from a difficult and chaotic life, just entering the sanctuary can our whole mood and demeanor. We are prepared by that place for worship and safety. A room, a city, a stretch of road, all can have associations in our memories based on what has already taken place there.

Some place-memories are not so positive. When we drive around the curve where a friend crashed their car, our heart races and our muscles clench. For some, sitting around the table for a family meal does not bring memories of peace, but of countless corrections and criticisms, parents bickering and fighting. Just being there can bring it all back to us, vivid in our minds and bodies. We are prepared by that place — and the memories and activities associated with it — for pain and loss. Going to the hospital for a regular check up might bring back the memories of loved ones hooked up to IVs and monitors, fighting for their life. Suddenly, we are back there and that place has prepared us for certain experiences to happen. Repeated events and actions in a place create expectations of what will happen there again.

This relationship between memory and place is not only something personal, but something we share together as a people. The significance of certain places and certain events get reinforced by retelling the story over time. If a similar event happened in the same place, our minds would immediately make the connection, because the events and the place are tied together in our collective memory, our collective understanding of what is significant about that place. If someone were to dump tea in the Boston Harbor, even though it is hundreds of years later, Americans would immediately make the connection to the Boston Tea Party. Even just saying the name of certain places brings immediate associations: Columbine, Waco, Vimy Ridge, Kamloops, Pearl Harbor, Ypres, Red River, Gettysburg. As you read that list, some places may have jumped right off the page, you knew immediately what such a place meant. Others might have been less familiar. Some of those listed are deep in the American consciousness and these places, even if we have never been there, carry associations and history with them. Some of those I listed have deep connections to Canadian history and identity, carrying significant associations for Canadians. Different places have different associations because people have learned to remember them and what took place there.

A black and white photo of a cannon — Gettysburg, photo by John Kostyk (unsplash)

The challenge of learning biblical places is training our biblical memory. Just as certain places have echoes and associations in the minds of Americans or Canadians, the places in the Bible carry significance when we remember what took place there. Because God providentially guides and directs history, we should not be surprised that biblical events that take place in the same or similar place would be connected in some way. There are no accidents in the Bible. By deepening our fluency in the history and events in the Bible — and the places where they took place — new layers of meaning and significance will emerge as we read the Bible.

For this reason, the best first question to ask when we come across a place in the Bible is, “What else happened in this place?” By stepping back and looking at the various events that took place in a particular location, we can often see more deeply what is happening in the specific passage we are studying. What has happened in a place prepared the people to expect certain kinds of things to happen again and we see the same things happening over and over again and a place takes on a certain meaning in the Bible.

Learn to slow down and pay attention to the details of the Bible

Available now!

Servanthood & Service

Back in 2025, I put together an Elder and Deacon Training Manual to help local churches like mine better equip their elders and deacons for work within the church. Not long after its release, I was contacted by Western Theological Seminary about collaborating on turning the manual into an online course that could be used in local churches. I was thrilled and we have been working diligently over the past several months to transform the Elder and Deacon Training Manual into Servanthood & Service: A Training Manual for Elders and Deacons in the Reformed Church. The core teaching is the same, but the book is now a workbook with questions and prompts to help participants think deeper what being an elder, deacon, or consistory might look like within their local church.

When the course is finished, there will be videos, training modules, and digital downloads. However, I have already been working with classes and churches to lead in-person workshops through the material. If your church, classis, or middle assembly is interested in potentially having me lead a workshop in Fall 2026 or Spring 2027, please email me (hello@penielpress.com) to check availability.

Thank You

We appreciate your prayers for the work we are doing in providing theological resources for the church. One of the best ways to support us to buy our books and tell your friends to do the same. However, if you'd like to contribute in other ways, you can always put a few dollars in the tip jar to get me a coffee.

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