Bible Discernments
A Division of Prayer Gardeners
Do you enjoy digging deeper into the Bible? If that is you, would you allow me to share some discernment from God's Word? May it open your eyes like it did mine!
Hi, my name is Tom Clarke. I am the Caretaker of the Gethsemane Prayer Garden in Syracuse, NY, an author/publisher of Christian books, and a computer software developer. Both gardening and writing are part-time jobs for me, but they are my heart-felt passion: to help others experience the Lord Jesus Christ in a most personal way.
My most recent book, A Garden of Love, delves into the heart of love through my insight of a seasoned gardener. While roses are often used to represent love, I believe that many flowers can be used to point towards love because of the natural beauty of flowers and the multi-faceted dimensions of love. In this book, I take the reader on a journey through a garden – it could be your garden, but I use the one that I know. My hope is that through this book, each person will richly and deeply "experience the love of Christ" (Ephesians 3:19).
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A Garden of Love for $19.95 (paperback, color, 82 pages)
Have you ever looked closely at the intricacy of the spectacularly elegant iris as it symbolizes grace? Or sensed the flexibility, humility and love in the soft and delicate cosmos? Come with me on a spiritual journey, a journey of beautiful flowers and a sojourn into the depths of Christian love. Feel God's gentle touch as thirty flowers are colorfully presented from the Gethsemane Prayer Garden: representations of the Father's love and our heartfelt response ... more ... |
My first and second books are based on the Old Testament books of Joshua and Proverbs. One day I was reading in Isaiah 6 about the Lord's calling for Isaiah. I had no idea that a footnote from my NIV Study Bible would open my eyes to a new approach for reading the Bible. The footnote to Isaiah 6:10 reads: “The abc/cba inversion is called a 'chiastic' arrangement, a common literary device in the OT.” Note the words: “a common literary device.”
Soon I was enjoying my Bible reading even more as I understood God's word more completely.
Just as the Lord was calling Isaiah in these verses, he was also calling me to discern this deeper meaning from the Scriptures. The result is the book Joshua's Spiritual Warfare:
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Joshua's Spiritual Warfare: Understanding the Chiasms of Joshua for $14.99 (paperback, 232 pages)
The Book of Joshua is analyzed using the chiastic (ky'-as-tic) approach and then is applied to the area of spiritual warfare -- in doing so, we see the Lord emphasizing passages that would often be overlooked for their full meaning ... more ... |
The next eye opener came while my daughter Becky and I were reading through the Bible. She was a freshman at a Christian college and had only read parts of the whole Bible. I believed that by reading the Bible together, I could help her draw closer to the Lord and also impart in her a stronger understanding of the Bible. That year, we spoke on the phone every Sunday evening for 2-3 hours while she was at college, discussing what we had read.
When I got to the Book of Proverbs, I was stumped. I could speak in generalities, but I could not state the full counsel of God on any particular topic because the subjects are so scattered. Now, four years later and after extensive research, the book A Topical Treasury of Proverbs has been published:
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A Topical Treasury of Proverbs for $19.95 (paperback, 336 pages) Each verse of the Book of Proverbs is classified into one or more topics -- there are one hundred topics. Based on the NET Bible, the words from each verse have not been altered. With this approach, we can stay with a topic, meditate on it, and let the Lord minister ... more ... |
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