“and hope does not disappoint; because” Romans 5:5 Disappoint – How many times have we read this verse and never heard it speak to the depths of our hearts? Do we really believe that God engineers life in order that we can arrive at the place of no disappointment? Have we submitted ourselves so completely…
“who turned the grace of God into licentiousness” Jude 4 Licentiousness – Even in English we stumble over this word. Bible publishers have done their best to accommodate our standard third grade reading vocabulary (one of the reasons why I find it so difficult to get a publisher) by offering “license for immorality” or “sheer…
“For certain persons have crept in unnoticed” Jude 4 Crept in unnoticed – Jude writes like an e-mail memo. He gets right to the point. He’s brief. His words are carefully chosen. His message carries a punch. Most importantly, Jude sends out this Greek e mail to warn us. There’s a deadly virus on the…
“The gospel according to Matthew” According – Of course, you will recognize where this is found in the Bible but it doesn’t have a chapter and verse number. In the Greek text, it is merely KATA MATTAION. The words for the “gospel” are understood. We don’t think much about the title of the book of…
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” Philippians 2:5 Have this attitude – You just got cheated! I don’t know how “attitude” ended up in this verse (it’s the same in the NIV), but it certainly isn’t close to the use of this Greek word in its occurrences in the Classics,…
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” Psalm 133:1 Unity – The God of Community. If you’re going to live out emotional theology, you better be prepared to live it out with others. God might deal with you individually when it comes to redemption, but He will…
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” Psalm 133:1 Behold – Stand up. Raise your hands to heaven and shout, “Yes, God!” Now you get the idea. David puts this Hebrew word, hinneh, right at the beginning of his thought because he wants to emphasize and intensify…
“And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities” Psalm 130:8 His – Your eighth grade English teacher would have circled the word in red. She would write in the margin, “number disagreement”. “Israel” is plural but “his” is singular. Did God make a grammatical mistake? Take a look at this verse in your translation…
“but the way of the righteous is made plain” Proverbs 15:19 KJV Plain – Get out the map. This is not a word about spiritual insight. It’s a surveyor’s word. The Hebrew selulah is the word for a road that is built up above the lay of the land. It is designed for easy travel…
“Freely you have received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8 Freely – If Jesus said it, it must be Aramaic, not Greek. That drives us back to the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word dorean. We find hinnam, “undeservedly, without cause”. You can see the word in use in 2 Samuel 24:24 and Jeremiah 22:13. Goods and…
