Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law…
and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them. Exodus 1:14 NASB Bitter – The biblical world is a world intoxicated with God. Our usual subject-object dichotomy evaporates. We are no longer the neutral observers cataloging and…
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; Hebrews 12:4 NASB Resisted– Are you resisting sin? Are you striving to follow the Way? Is it working? Ah, maybe not as well as you would like. The problem isn’t lack of understanding. The problem is intensity in motivation. And that doesn’t…
I was mute and silent, I refrained even from good, and my sorrow grew worse. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned; Psalm 39:2-3a NASB Sorrow – We investigated this verse on September 6. Here it is again, just so we can keep working verse by verse through this psalm. Listen! Silence is a good…
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 NASB Have sinned– Let’s reconsider Paul’s declaration. If sin is basically disconnection (i.e., disconnection from the source of life—God—and consequently from His creation including other people), then Paul is declaring that each and every one of us experiences, at some level, a sense…
I was mute and silent, I refrained even from good, and my sorrow grew worse. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned; Psalm 39:2-3a NASB Silent– Listen! Silence is a good thing, right? Don’t we long for an escape from the din around us? The traffic, the elevator music, the indecipherable human clamor of…
“And in the greatness of Your excellence You overthrow those who rise up against You; You send forth Your burning anger, and it consumes them as chaff.” Exodus 15:7 NASB Burning anger– God is mad! Watch out! That’s what Moses is talking about in this verse. The Hebrew verb is ḥārâ, “to burn (of anger).” The verb is always…
When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. Psalm 32:3 NASB Silent – David knew the truth about being silent. We might think his verse in the psalms is about his sin, but this is a general truth that applies to any action or event that isolates us from others and…
“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18 NASB Reason – “ . . . the prophet is not a philosopher of logic, but a philosopher of…
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Romans 7:24 NASB Set me free – Just for the moment put aside Augustine’s exegesis claiming that this verse is the expression of Paul before he became a Christian. Historical analysis demonstrates that Augustine’s conclusion is wrong. At the…
