“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 NASB Naked I shall return there – Do we truly understand Job’s response to calamity? Are we prepared to have our lives stripped to the bone simply because God…
He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities. Leviticus 16:16 NASB Which – How would…
Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 NASB Perfect – Yesterday we considered some of the behavioral implications of the translation of teleios as “perfect.” Today we need to look at the deeper theological implications. It all begins with Parmenides. Parmenides, a 5th Century BCE Greek philosopher and…
“Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” Jonah 3:9 NASB Who knows – Does God change His mind? The king of Nineveh certainly hoped so. So should we. What hope can we have if the will of God is inflexibly fixed from eternity past?…
“If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Genesis 4:7 NASB Master – “To be sure, we sin. Each of us has a yetser, an impulse to evil,…
You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? Matthew 7:16 NASB Fruits – Of course we all know that the real test of faithfulness to God is found in the fruit of one’s life. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering; all that good stuff we…
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 NASB In the beginning – We just can’t get away from the opening verse, can we? Genesis 1:1 stands as a clarion call for everything that’s different about the Hebrew worldview. Not only does it soundly deny all of the opening ideas of…
May uprightness, wholeness, preserve me, for in You do I hope. Psalm 25:21 Robert Alter translation Uprightness – “Two problems of ot theology concern the verb tāmam: self-righteousness and perfectionism. Illustrating the former, David expresses the resolve, ‘I will walk within my house with a perfect (tōm) heart’ (Ps 101:2b KJV, ASV margin and RSV…
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; Romans 8:29 NASB To become conformed – Are you being transformed into the character and behavior of Yeshua? Before you answer, you might want to carefully consider what…
During family holidays we do jigsaw puzzles. I like the easy ones, the ones that have pictures that don’t take forever to figure out. But the trend is toward the complex. Have you ever tired to do one of those three-dimensional puzzles? Or a puzzle that is a picture of a big blob of coffee…
