The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8 NASB Word – Yesterday we considered the possibility that the Bible is not like books written from a Western point of view. Yesterday we suggested that the Bible is a book about experiences with the holy God of Israel,…
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 NASB Shall have – In May of 2014 we looked at the important difference between Greek thought and Hebrew thought in this verse. Usually translated “you shall not have,” the Hebrew verb plus negative, lo-yihye’, reveals an important characteristic of Hebrew thought. The translation, “shall…
Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days. Proverbs 19:20 NASB Be wise – I have recently been reading the early speeches of Abraham Heschel. Fifty years ago his prophetic insight into our culture sounded the warning. Fifty years later it seems as though we didn’t listen…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16 NASB To the Jew first – Paul was not ashamed, but don’t cut his sentence short. He was not ashamed of the good…
What real value is there for a man in all the gains he makes beneath the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:3 NJPS Value – What’s the point of life? That’s the Teacher’s question. If all of life is nothing more than a test for righteousness, why doesn’t the all-knowing God simply scoop up those who will prove…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16 NASB To the Jew first – Paul was not ashamed, but don’t cut his sentence short. He was not ashamed of the good…
And YHWH Elohim formed Man out of dry, loose earth dirt, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living person. Genesis 2:7 (my translation) Breath – Once we realize that this word, hayim is plural, we are forced to ask why, especially since the preceding word, nishmat, is singular. …
My tears have been my bread day and night, while they continually say to me, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42:4 Hebrew text (Hebrew World) Where – “Tragic is the embarrassment of the man of faith.”[1] Do you experience the embarrassment of faith? Have you had the accusations of Job’s wife thrown at you? “If…
I was fortunate in my early twenties to spend some time with Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri. Those days made me realize that my faith required serious consideration and deliberate contemplation. At Oxford, I was privileged to have John Lucas as a tutor. His genius infected my thinking and made me wish for even greater insight….
“You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Matthew 14:31 Doubt – “There is no word in Biblical Hebrew for doubt; there are many expressions of wonder. Just as in dealing with judgments, our starting point is doubt, wonder is the Biblical starting point in facing reality. The Biblical man’s sense for the mind-surpassing grandeur…
