I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; John 14:16 NASB Another Helper– Shall we make an attempt to understand this verse in the context of orthodox Galilean Jewish living in the first century? Or shall we just accept the usual Christian doctrinal rendition? Is…
Remove the false way from me, and graciously grant me Your law. Psalm 119:29 NASB Remove– Okay, I admit it. I make lots of mistakes. I do know a few things, and sometimes I get them right, but most of the time these little adventures into the language and culture of ancient people is just the best…
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; Philippians 3:10 NASB Know– Do you struggle with certainty? Do you want to know for sure what to believe and what not to believe? Are you plagued with the discovery that what you used to think was absolutely true doesn’t…
and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, “I know,” he cannot discover. Ecclesiastes 8:17 NASB Cannot discover– “No longer one simple, consequential story, history divides into the age…
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, Jeremiah 1:4 NASB The word of the Lord – By now, I hope, we know that Hebrew is messy. Many of the sentences in the biblical text have multiple levels of meaning, are subject to nuances that cannot be captured in English (or any other language) and act more…
We take a little break from our examination of Psalm 31 to provide this from Sefer Hasichot 5749, vol. 2, pp. 509-511; Likkutei Sichot, vol. 22, p. 10. Truth is simple, it has no clothes, no neat little box to contain it. But we cannot grasp that which has no box. We cannot perceive Truth…
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness 2 Timothy 3:16 NASB Scripture – Sometimes the truth overpowers paradigm assumptions. Sometimes men who stand theologically apart nevertheless see the same revelation. Jacques Ellul and Abraham Heschel both come to the same conclusion when they consider…
You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God or accept correction; truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth. Jeremiah 7:28 NASB Perished – Almost the end of the year (as far as the pagan world is concerned). Almost. Just enough time to…
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Exodus 20:2 NASB Brought you out – Israel Finkelstein makes some challenging points in the book, The Quest for the Historical Israel. He notes that archeology is not in the business of exegesis. Exegesis is the process of…
All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the LORD weighs the motives. Proverbs 16:2 NASB Motives – The NASB and other English translations gloss the Hebrew word in this verse. Why? Because the context of the verse requires some changes to make sense in English. But in Hebrew the…
