As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the multifaceted grace of God 1 Peter 4:10 NASB Employ it – I’ve written a lot of linguistic studies. More than 8000 and counting. But today I just don’t feel like it. I feel spent, lonely, anxious. I’m feeling worn…
For what does a man have from all his toil and from his heart’s care that he toils under the sun? For all his days are pain, and worry is his business. Ecclesiastes 2:23 Robert Alter Heart’s care – Let’s cover the technical issues first. One of the reasons scholars believe Ecclesiastes was written after…
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, Ecclesiastes 2:24 ESV Toil – “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.” Ah, the naiveté of those seven dwarfs in the Disney…
Only this, I have found, as a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains he makes under the sun, during the numbered days of life that God has given him; for that is his portion. Ecclesiastes 5:17 NJPS Real good – There are two views of what…
and there was not a man to till the ground Genesis 2:5 (Hebrew World translation) To till – There is no difference between sacred and secular. Better read that again since nearly everything about our culture is based on separating sacred and secular. We have church and state, spiritual and carnal, righteous and wicked and…
For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. I Corinthians 3:9 NASB Fellow-workers – For devotional impact, one can hardly improve on Oswald Chambers’ commentary on this verse (see April 23 of My Utmost for His Highest). With typical aplomb, Chambers delivers a razor-sharp message. A man or woman engaged in the…
But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord takes thought for me; you are my help and my savior; delay not, O God. Psalm 40:18 (Hebrew World) I am poor – Back up one verse. “Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You, let those who love Your salvation say…
