Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. Psalm 63:3 NASB Better – Let’s correct the syntax. ki-tov comes first. “Because good” Your ḥesed me ḥayyîm. The last phrase (me ḥayyîm) adds the “than life” part. Min is the preposition of comparison, in this case ki-tov me becomes “better than.” But min…
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, Romans 8:6 NASB Life and peace – Returning to Paul’s great exposition of life in the Messiah, we have learned that “the mind set on” is really the single Greek word phrónēma, a word that encompasses…
The words of Koheleth son of David, king in Jerusalem Ecclesiastes 1:1 JPS Words – I love the line from the movie The International where the old Communist officer, now a sage, says, “There is a difference between truth and fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” I don’t know who wrote that line for the…
Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. Exodus 2:23 NASB Cried out– Do you suffer from the Egyptian disease? Does the Church in the…
Irn shrpns irn s n mn shrpns nthr Proverbs 27:17 Shrpns – Can you read this verse? It’s only missing the vowels, but vowels are the units of the sound system of a language that form the nucleus of a syllable. You can’t speak without them. But you can read. Why? Because you read the vowels into the consonants. The consonants are merely the framework for engagement. They hold up the house while you go about…
You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5 NASB Behind and before– What does it feel like to have God’s hand heavy upon you? Does it feel comfortable? Gracious? Or do you feel as if you can’t move? Pressed? Coerced? Curbed? In this verse, the emphasis comes first, and in this…
You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5 NASB Behind and before– Do you want to be free? Free to determine your own way? Free from the expectations of others? Free to explore who you really are? Free to choose God? Then get ready to be constrained! Human freedom is not the clear path…
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image…
We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 ESV Loved – A few years ago I wrote an article about seeking the perfect love. I’m publishing it again with a few additions because I need the reminder. Maybe you do too. The idea of romantic love, invented in the Enlightenment and perpetrated by this culture,…
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10-11 NASB The Dead Pool – “Being conformed to His death.” Now, what in the world can that mean? The only way to be conformed to…
