The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8 NASB Word – Yesterday we considered the possibility that the Bible is not like books written from a Western point of view. Yesterday we suggested that the Bible is a book about experiences with the holy God of Israel,…
Malta is the island where Paul was shipwrecked. It claims the longest Christian history of any nation bordering the Mediterranean. Rosanne and I had an opportunity to visit two quite amazing locations in Valetta, the capital. The first was a private tour of the Presidential Palace, once the home of the Grand Masters, and ultimately…
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8 NASB Word – Western paradigms focus on answers. Experience is reduced to principles in order that we may predict and control. In fact, the entire enterprise of science, a principal characteristic of the Western mind, is an effort to…
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 2 Timothy 3:16 NASB Scripture – By now you realize that even the choice of words in a translation carry paradigm imported meanings. For example, it seems abundantly obvious that Paul was not referring to his own…
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace Ephesians 1:7 NASB Him – There’s no debate about the Greek. The word is ho (since it precedes a vowel it is not hos). There’s also no debate that the word means “who, which, whom,…
When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. Genesis 7:11 NLT In mighty torrents – Well, you won’t find anything like the second half of this verse in the Hebrew. The…
from the movie, The Count of Monte Cristo. This is a real place on the island of Comino, Malta. I passed it today aboard the ferry to Gozo.
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 NASB Shall have – In May of 2014 we looked at the important difference between Greek thought and Hebrew thought in this verse. Usually translated “you shall not have,” the Hebrew verb plus negative, lo-yihye’, reveals an important characteristic of Hebrew thought. The translation, “shall…
