“Pursue love” 1 Corinthians 14:1 Pursue – It’s all connected. Start anywhere in the Bible and pretty soon you will find that you have traveled over all the themes. Like a magnificently complex kaleidoscope, the words of Scripture are all connected. Each one leads us to another, often reminding us of other nuances and other…
“But by the grace of God I am what I am” 1 Corinthians 15:10 I am what I am – Would you be comfortable with this statement? Could you stand up alongside Paul and proclaim, “By the grace of God I am what I am”? That’s a remarkable claim. It implies that Paul is satisfied…
“I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” Hosea 2:5 Lovers – What is the principal imagery of the Hebrew root for “love” (ahav)? It’s action! In Hebrew, love is a verb, the description of my behavior toward another. …
“I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness,” Jeremiah 2:2 Wilderness – You can’t dip into the pages of Scripture very long without finding yourself in the desert. Over and over, God’s real character is displayed in some wilderness scene. It is…
“I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness,” Jeremiah 2:2 Devotion – Are you more in love with God today than the day that He rescued you from your life of tragic despair? Or have you become accustomed to His grace? Do…
“But you Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham, My friend.” Isaiah 41:8 Friend – You wouldn’t see it in English, but the connection is so important that it demands attention. Abraham is called the ‘ohev of God, a word that comes from the root ahav, to love. In Hebrew thought,…
“Love your neighbor and yourself alike” Leviticus 19:18 (translation by Martin Buber) Love – What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? Perhaps Martin Buber helps us peel away the layers of religious distortion by offering this translation. To love my neighbor is to act toward my neighbor with exactly the same self-preserving…
“Yahweh said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, from your homeland, and from your father’s house to a land which I will show you.”” Genesis 12:1 Show – The God of simple things. “Go forth”. The common verb for movement. Walking. God doesn’t ask the impossibly difficult from us. He can accomplish the impossibly…
“Yahweh said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, from your homeland, and from your father’s house to a land which I will show you.”” Genesis 12:1 Go forth – The first time that the Lord speaks to Abram, He gives a command to go. More than one hundred years later, Abraham will hear that…
“We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.” Luke 17:10 Ought – “Slaves we are” says the verse, the emphasis on our position, not our actions. So it continues, literally, “what we ought to do, we have done”. Position and duty. Nothing more. But this word (opheilo) tells…
