Author: Skip Moen, Ph.D.

  • THE LAST DANCE

    Some major changes are coming to the Moen household.  I’ll keep you posted on developments as warranted, but for now what you need to know is this: If you ever thought of having me come to teach in your location, it will have to be this summer.  There are some days available in June, July…

  • The Plea for Integration

     Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.  Psalm 103:1 NASB Within– What is within you?  Maybe you’re not sure how to answer that question.  Let’s try it a different way.  When you dream, what things happen to you over and over?  Do you have dreams about being embarrassed?  Lost?  Threatened?  Or maybe you…

  • Clear Thinking

    No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.  John 1:18  NASB Explained– First, let’s deal with some punctuation.  There isn’t any in the Greek text, so we find some English variation when the translators construct the sentence.  In the ESV, this reads: “No one…

  • The Jacob Commandment

    If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, then it shall be in the day he wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of…

  • The Family Name

    An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.  Proverbs 12:4  NASB Rottenness– Why does the Bible seem to focus on the potential damage to the husband’s reputation?  Why are there no comparable verses about the harm inflicted on women?  For example, the infamous passage in Numbers about a…

  • The Competition

    So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years.  Genesis 29:30  ESV More than– Why does Jacob love Rachel more than Leah?  Leah is devoted to Jacob.  Leah gives Jacob many sons so obviously he didn’t maintain sexual distance from her.  Leah pleads for his…

  • Storytelling

    And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”Matthew 13:10 NASB Parables– Let’s consider the biblical approach of communication.  Why doesn’t the Bible just give us a list of rules or a well-organized theology?  Why does it sort of ramble around, throwing in parts of different genres of…

  • Alienation

    But Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him.  Genesis 42:8 NASB Recognized– Moshe Luzzatto points out self-awareness is a function of our interaction with others.  We, in fact, owe others for our very existence as psychological selves.  According to Luzzatto, this is an infinite debt.  After all, it constitutes what we know as life…

  • Correct but Insufficient

    The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. Genesis 2:22  NASB Brought– When I wrote Guardian Angel, I thought the title would be The Perfect Enemy.  My thinking was this: God brings into the lives of husbands precisely those wives who act as polishing stones, grinding away…