Author: Skip Moen, Ph.D.

  • The Royal Rachel (rewind plus)

    While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.  Genesis 29:9 NASB   Shepherdess – Today is my daughter’s birthday.  I remember with incredible clarity the day she was born.  I was there when she took her first breath.  So tiny, so fragile—and loved beyond anything I could have imagined.  This was, and is, one…

  • Unconscionable Lightness (rewind)

    “Cry loudly, do not hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their wrongdoing, and to the house of Jacob their sins.”  Isaiah 58:1 NASB Wrongdoing – What do you really want?  What is so important that everything else pales by comparison?  What is the one thing you absolutely must have…

  • འཕགས་པའི་བདེན་པ་བཞི་

    Your Attention Please The four noble truths – Abraham Heschel wrote: “Only intense self-reflection—at least as powerful as the conditions and falsehood it sought to transcend—could alleviate corruption.  As such, this cure arrived at Truth by way of authenticity; it required unrestrained introspection, reflection.  This search for increasing, progressive intensity is usually distasteful to man,…

  • I’m Comfortable

    So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;   Philippians 2:12  NASB   Work out – I distinctly remember the conversation.  We were discussing the various philosophical ideas about the nature of time.  I pressed the other person to reconsider how…

  • The Severity of Knowing (4)

    Buy truth, and do not sell it, get wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Proverbs 23:23  NASB   Wisdom – A little etymological investigation shows us why “wisdom” is a subset of Truth:   The main synonyms are bîn, bînâ, and tĕbûnâ. The verb bîn is used more widely to mean “consider,” “discern” “perceive,” but the nouns are close synonyms to ḥokmâ and are used especially in Prov and…

  • The Severity of Knowing (3)

    Buy truth, and do not sell it, get wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Proverbs 23:23  NASB Do not sell – The verb is mākar.  Kaiser comments: “One passage uses the verb figuratively, ‘buying the truth and selling it not’ (Prov 23:23). Perhaps the Israelite king, Ahab, illustrates that passage, since ‘he sold himself to work wickedness’ under the…

  • The Severity of Knowing (2)

    Buy truth, and do not sell it, get wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Proverbs 23:23  NASB Buy/ get – The implication might be there, but the verb isn’t.  You see, the “get” in this translation has been added.  The Hebrew text just reads, “Buy truth, and do not sell it, wisdom, instruction, and understanding.”  In other words, wisdom, instruction,…

  • The Severity of Knowing (1)

    Get truth, and do not sell it, wisdom, reproof, and discernment.  Proverbs 23:23 Robert Alter   Get truth – Perhaps you’re more familiar with a different translation: “Buy truth, and do not sell it.”  The verb is qānâ, “to get, acquire, create,” but since the complementary is “sell,” translators adopt the idea of “buy,”  particularly when a commercial translation is…