The boastful will not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do injustice. Psalm 5:5 NASB Injustice – The God of love hates something—ʾāwen. Maybe we don’t think about the “loving” God as a God who hates, but we need to. Why? Because the ethical foundation of the creation isn’t the work of a “Santa Claus” God. …
For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil can dwell with You. Psalm 5:4 NASB No evil – Mercy is important. In fact, mercy is essential. Without it, we would all be ruined. Why? Because there’s another side of the mercy coin. That other side of the coin is wrath, judgment,…
Listen to my words, Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God, for to You I pray. Psalm 5:1-2 NASB My cry for help – I’m feeling discouraged these days. It just seems like the forces of evil in this world are so overpowering, so ubiquitous, that righteousness is…
Leaving Funchal today to cross the Atlantic
and do not give the devil an opportunity. Ephesians 4:27 NASB Opportunity – “Opportunity” isn’t quite what the Greek text implies. Paul’s word is topos, i.e., place. It’s a topographical term. “Don’t give the devil any space.” “In common usage this word means a. ‘territory,’ ‘land,’ ‘area,’ ‘locality,’ b. ‘district,’ ‘town,’ ‘dwelling place,’ and c. ‘place’ in…
Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, Ephesians 4:26 NASB Angry – At last we’ve returned to the citation in Psalm 4:4 (26 October 2025). Now we’ll have to look at the Greek background of Paul’s vocabulary and then determine how his rabbinic orientation modifies the term. First,…
Therefore, ridding yourselves of falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are parts of one another. Ephesians 4:25 NASB Ridding yourself of falsehood – Speak the truth! Ah, not always so easy, is it? We don’t typically outright lie. We just modify things a bit to fit the occasion. We don’t want to offend. We don’t…
and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:23-24 NASB In the spirit of your minds – What comes first—the chicken or the egg? What comes first—a change in thinking or a change…
that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, Ephesians 4:22 NASB Old self – You could hardly be serious about your Christian faith without having heard at least one sermon on the transition from the old self. Conversion…
But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, Ephesians 4:20-21 NASB Christ/ Jesus – It’s easy to correct the translations of “Christ” and “Jesus.” Just replace these with “Messiah” and “Yeshua.” Is that all that’s necessary? Well, not quite. …
