I said, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth as with a muzzle while the wicked are in my presence.” Psalm 39:1 NASB In my presence – Listen! We’re surrounded by wickedness. Pick up any newspaper. Turn on any news channel. Listen to the gossip and rumors. …
I said, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth as with a muzzle while the wicked are in my presence.” Psalm 39:1 NASB Will guard– It always begins at the beginning. The first occurrence of šāmar is at the creation of Man. “Then the Lord God took the man and put him…
For the choir director, for Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. Psalm 39:1 Hebrew text numbering, NASB translation [For the rest of this year, we will investigate Psalm 39. We will play a great game of connect-the-dots as we attempt to understand whyDavid wrote these words for a song. Now that you know where we’re going,…
I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, Psalm 88:4 NASB Down to the pit– “Modern man’s greatest fault, Kierkegaard maintains, is his total self-reliance. It is his nineteenth-century delusion that he has progressed beyond his ancestors. This conceit derives from egotism. There is but one…
While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. John 17:12 NASB Would be fulfilled– Yeshua claims that the betrayal of Judas (son of perdition) is the fulfillment of…
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. 2 Timothy 2:4 NASB Entangles himself– ĕmplĕkō, from ĕn (preposition—“position” or “relation”) and plĕkō (to twine or braid). Think: strands in a rope. Hard to separate. Weakened when divided. Paul’s military metaphor makes…
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:25 NASB Assembling together– Does a community have a shelf life? Can a group exist only for so long before internal and external pressures force its demise? Have you experienced the decline…
“Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” John 8:24 NASB Believe– John uses the Greek “believe” in one form or another ninety-two times in his gospel. It is never once a noun. Pisteuo is a verb, a verb…
Doing wickedness is like sport to a fool, and so is wisdom to a man of understanding. Proverbs 10:23 NASB Sport– What makes you laugh? Seriously, what do you laugh about? According to Solomon, the fool laughs at doing wickedness. The NASB attempts to capture the idiom with the translation “sport,” but the word is sehoq, a…
And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife. David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. 1 Samuel 25:42-43 NASB Ahinoam– My name is Bond, David Bond. Or so the script might have gone if it…
