Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope, 1 Timothy 1:1 NASB Our hope– We tend to pass over opening verses like this one because we have been trained to look for the theologically important applications in Paul’s letters. So we jump fairly quickly to verses like 1:8 and 1:15…
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15 ESV Friends – “What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and…
O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55 NASB Death – thanatos. The end. Dead. Finished. Qohelet is right. Without a resurrection, the rabbis provide a stark assessment: “We know nothing about death, nothing beyond the one fact that we shall ‘die’—but what is that, to die? We do not…
for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. Acts 18:28 NASB Refuted – The Greek term here is a real combination. It brings together a preposition, a particle and a verb to produce diakatĕlĕgchŏmai. The three parts are important. First, dia is the preposition for “through,”…
but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20:31 NASB Jesus is the Christ – Of course, we need to correct the theological overtones here. John is writing, by his own admission, to demonstrate that Yeshua…
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Hebrews 5:7-8 NASB Loud crying and tears – Do you pray…
He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Revelation 22:20 NASB Come, Lord Jesus – erchou kyrie Iesou is the Greek text. But we would be sorely mistaken if we thought that John was writing about a Greek Messiah. When John expresses the desire for Yeshua HaMashiach to return quickly, he is…
Whoever believes that Jesus is the [a]Christ is [b]born of God, and whoever loves the [c]Father loves the child [d]born of Him. 1 John 5:1 NASB Born – Today we leave all the indications of marginal notes in the text. The NASB has four notations (a, b, c, d) that explain that the Greek text…
but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. 1 Thessalonians 2:2 NASB Gospel of God – In one of his excellent lectures on Paul, Dwight Pryor notes that the Pauline expression…
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2 NASB Is at hand – John the Baptist spoke words that his audience understood. The question is whether or not we understand them. Oh, we’re familiar with the words, of that there is no doubt. But for us they are a call to personal…
