And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:2 ESV Have not – How we agonize over this verse! Paraded before the cringing audience in the pews, preachers hammer believers for…
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:8 ESV Philosophy – Paul warns us about the enticement of philosophy, but we seem to have completely ignored his alarm. I don’t…
In the days of Herod, King of Judea, there was a certain priest . . . Luke 1:5 NASB In the days of – Is your faith based in God’s acts in history or does it rest on your experience with God today? Maybe that isn’t a fair question since it supposes a dichotomy that…
And these are the generations of Terah: Genesis 11:27 (translation J. Green) These are the generations – We are familiar with the Hebrew term toledoth, in this verse, e’le toldoth. We investigated the problem with the spelling of this word. We’ve noted that the toledoth pattern is the structural framework of Genesis and the deliberate…
I YHWH and none else, forming light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil – I YHWH do all these things. Isaiah 45:6-7 (translation: M. Buber) Creating – Where did evil come from? Such a simple question. Such an enormously difficult answer, if there even is an answer. One of the greatest impediments to…
and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Galatians 1:2 Churches – When you read the Bible, do you pay attention to the proper context, culture and historical circumstances behind the text? Or do you read the Bible as if it was written for you yesterday? This is not a…
One of the most ingenious inventions of modern real estate economics is the timeshare. Timeshares are designed to provide a slice of unreality for anyone who has a reasonable credit line. What most people could never hope to afford completely, they can pretend to afford in slices. A timeshare is my one week of affluence. …
Our Father in heaven Matthew 6:9 Our Father – The usual interpretation of this opening phrase focuses on fatherhood. Questions are raised about how we can understand God as Father if we lack examples of human fathers. This is, of course, a monumental problem in our culture today. With more and more children raised in…
