All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. Ecclesiastes 1:8 NASB Wearisome – Why is this book even in the Bible? It’s so pessimistic! What kind of spiritual message can be gleaned from writing that basically says nothing really matters, that death swallows up everyone, and there is really no solid evidence of anything…
“Utter futility!—said Koheleth—Utter futility! All is futile!” Ecclesiastes 1:2 JPS Utter futility! – Tom Clancy isn’t correct. The sum of all fears is not nuclear holocaust. That possibility might make some sense given the enormity of human evil, the insatiable quest for power, and the technological ability to exterminate. But when you read the novel,…
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…
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! Psalm 1:1 NASB Walk/stand/sit – Undoubtedly Watchman Nee’s influential Christian book Sit, Walk, Stand found its genesis in a verse like this. Perhaps you, like me, read it when…
One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Titus 1:12 NASB Cretans – Crete has an ancient history. Home to the Minoans, significant to the Mycenaeans, and a major port island in the Roman Empire, Crete plays a role in the Mediterranean for thousands of years. …
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 NASB Shall have – In May of 2014 we looked at the important difference between Greek thought and Hebrew thought in this verse. Usually translated “you shall not have,” the Hebrew verb plus negative, lo-yihye’, reveals an important characteristic of Hebrew thought. The translation, “shall…
I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; Romans 7:9 NASB I died – In 1977, Krister Stendahl changed everything about the way Christianity understood Paul.[1] You probably didn’t know that; in fact, you probably never heard his name. What he started is now…
O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger. Psalm 38:1 NASB Rebuke – How long is your fuse? How long can you hold out before that deep anger about the injustice in life explodes? Oh, I don’t mean all the social injustice we observe every day. I mean that sense…
to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. Jeremiah 1:2 NASB In the days of – Theology is the progeny of Hellenism. What I mean is that theology—thinking about God—is not a Hebrew idea. The Hebrew idea is behaving according to…
to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. Jeremiah 1:2 NASB In the days of – From Moses to Malachi God sent prophets to provide His people with His point of view. But something happened about 2500 years ago. The prophetic…
