Year: 2010

  • Piling Up

    Written many years ago, sometimes it’s good to reflect on past experiences. These days I am having to learn lessons about acceptance.  It is February in New Jersey.  We are having the worst winter anyone around here can remember.  My car is stuck in the ice (and had been for some days now).  Schools are…

  • Graceland (2)

    And it shall come to pass, if you carefully listen to my commandments which I command you today,  . . . Deuteronomy 11:13 Carefully Listen To – We have discovered that even Jewish rabbis recognized the priority of grace.  The false dichotomy between law and grace was an invention of Augustine.  His influence spread through…

  • Graceland (1)

    And it shall come to pass, if you carefully listen to my commandments which I command you today,  . . . Deuteronomy 11:13 Carefully Listen To –  Rabbi Joshua ben Karha said, “Why does the section, Hear, O Israel (Deut 6:4-9) precede the [section] and it shall come to pass if ye shall harken [diligently…

  • David’s Anatomy

    I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; . . Psalm 139:14 Wonderfully – Believers love this verse.  It’s so majestic.  It lifts the human being to such elevated heights.  We are almost like angels.  We are special.  God made us. But there’s a little problem.  The words ki nora’ot…

  • Inevitability

    For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. Psalm 31:11 Fails – Sin contains its own consequences.  There is no separation between the act and the result.  Unlike our system of justice, the Hebrew view does not think of…

  • Paradigm Shifts: A Change in Method

    Are you salt?  Jesus used this metaphor to help us understand the effect that we are to have on the surrounding culture.  We are not to be unnoticed, blended consistency.  We are supposed to make a difference – a difference that is immediately detected.  Christians flavor life with a God-perspective. You probably agree.  What’s the…

  • Sexual Billboards

    and they shall become one flesh Genesis 2:24 Flesh – Sex is a meaningful deed.  So says Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.  What he means is that sex is not like other deeds.  Sex is “one of those things that make a complete world.”  It is a drive that has meaning in itself, not derived from its…