Let him sit alone and be silent since He has laid it on him. Lamentations 3:28 NASB Since – Like good Hebrew exegesis, we start at the end to discover the beginning. No sense beginning at the beginning since Hebrew has a way of turning the tale upside-down at the end. So let’s start where it ends in…
Let him sit alone and be silent since He has laid it on him. Lamentations 3:28 NASB Since – Consider these words from Buechner: “What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought.”[1] Aren’t they so true? Most…
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 NASB Naked – Job was right. We come into this world with nothing. We leave with nothing. What happens in between birth and death is the interaction of the…
In the beginning God . . . Genesis 1:1 (various translations) God – Over the last decade I haven’t engaged very much with the typical arguments for the existence of God. There’s plenty of material written about these classical arguments, mostly to no avail since I don’t really know of anyone who was ever convinced…
Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you. Hebrews 13:24 NASB Italy – From 27 BCE to 180 CE, the Roman Empire experienced relative internal peace. There were still wars with hostile regions, but tradition suggests that the period was less militarily aggressive than either the centuries before or…
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.2 Peter 2:1 NASB Destructive heresies – The second chapter of Peter’s second letter reads like a prosecutor’s opening argument. These people, says Peter, do nothing right. They…
When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Job 1:5 NASB In their…
When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. Job 1:5 NASB Perhaps –…
“Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.’” Leviticus 19:2 NASB You shall be holy – How we have abused this verse! It is cited in Matthew (5:48 in the Greek version, not exactly what it says in Hebrew). …
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil. Job 1:1 NASB Turning away – Finally, a participle. To this point Job’s character has been described with adjectives (as we would expect). Now we come to a participle, an action description of the…
