“The sum of Your word is truth,” Psalm 119:160 Making it True Truth – Yesterday we looked at this word, ‘aman, the root of many words about certainty. One Hebrew verb form of this root expresses causing something to be true. We could translate ‘aman in this form as “caused to be certain” or “caused…
“The sum of Your word is truth,” Psalm 119:160 What is Truth? – Pilate Truth – You must leave our post-modern paradigm behind. You must walk away from the conception that truth depends on your point of view. That was Pilate’s mistake. In his world, truth was relative to the situation. He stood in the…
“The sum of Your word is truth,” Psalm 119:160 The Best You Can Get Sum – The Hebrew word rosh has a very wide range of meanings. It can designate a person’s head, a chief, a leader, the source and even hair on your head. But here it is used as a metaphor to mean…
“The sum of Your word is truth,” Psalm 119:160 Words from a different World Word – What does God say? Words! But not the kind of words that we think of in our world. We think of words as symbols for the real thing. Our concept of “word” is essentially Greek. It is tied to…
“Then God said” Genesis 1:3 Getting Things Done Said – How do we get things done? The bottom line to most of our activity is that things get done by the application of some kind of force. Want to build something? Apply physical force. Want to buy something? Apply financial force. The human experience of…
“Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” Deuteronomy 6:4 What You See Hear – The great shema. Hear. In this pivotal text of the Old Testament, we are introduced to a different view of life. God’s paradigm is not our paradigm. Life is not based on WYSIWYG (What You See…
“By David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 25:1 Praying Life, Breathing Soul Soul – Hebrew is a language of concrete images. It is not like the Western European languages that we use; languages full of abstract terms without physical references like “time” or “omnipotent” or “omniscient”. Hebrew deals with tangible…
“By David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 25:1 The Context of Prayer Lift up – “To You, Yahweh, I lift”. The Hebrew verb is nasa. It has three categories of meaning: to lift up (literally), to bear or carry (used especially of carrying away guilt and sin) and to take…
“By David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 25:1 The Intimate Dialogue By David. To You – David’s poem must become personal before you can understand it completely. The power in his poetry is discovered only when his emotional intimacy stirs familiar feelings in us. Perhaps the first step is to…
“I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the LORD,” 1 Samuel 1:15 The Prayer of Silence Poured Out – According to many Jewish sages, the prayer of Hannah is the epitome of human prayer. It is the prayer of a heart overwhelmed by distress and devotion. …
