Reel Life

Utter futility!—said Kohelet—utter futility!  All is futile!  Ecclesiastes 1:1-2  JPS Utter futility – bavel bavalim.  Literally, “vapor of vapors.”  “Utter senselessness” translates Michael Fox in the JPS commentary.  “Ecclesiastes is a strange and disquieting book.  It gives voice to an experience not usually thought of as religious: the pain and frustration engendered by an unblinking…

Shut Up (Times Two)

And You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a large place.  Psalm 31:8  NASB Not given me over – What does it mean to fall into the hands of the enemy?  Pay attention to David’s parallelism and you will understand just how much Hebrew is…

The Ides Have It

And I went back and saw all the oppression that is done under the sun: the tears of the oppressed who have none to console them, and from the hand of their violent oppressors there is none to console them.  And I praised the dead, who have already died, more than the living, who are…

Facing Reality

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Genesis 32:24 NASB Alone – Consider these: “Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.  This is what makes us human.  But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality.  Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge…

The Theme Song of Life

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [a]suitable for him.”  Genesis 2:18 NASB Alone – We all die alone.  From birth to death we struggle to find connection.  Sometimes we succeed.  Sometimes we don’t.  But the drive is there, only to be extinguished at the…

The Perfect Enemy

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [a]suitable for him.”  Genesis 2:18 NASB Helper suitable – My work never gets too far from this original story of human desire.  Over and over I return to these seminal verses, trying my best to tease out the…

The Other Shoe (Rewind)

for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.  Romans 10:10  NASB Resulting – You’ll need to read a few other English translations of this verse to see the issue. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses…

Things You Never Asked (Rewind)

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  Genesis 1:28  NASB Fill/subdue – How much more coffee can you…

Insights and Warnings

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1  NIV Teach us – “Theotropism, man’s turning toward God, is a structure of experience that may be attained through the performance of ritual acts, prayer,…

Gaps

but King Joram had returned to Jezreel to have himself healed of the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted on him when he fought Hazael king of Aram. So Jehu said to the other men, “If this is your intent, then let no one escape from the city to go tell about it in Jezreel.” 2 Kings 9:15 NASB Hazael – The religious world…