But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive study is wearying to the body. Ecclesiastes 12:12 NASB Excessive study – One of my readers wrote, “I will be honest and say that from time to time – particularly when you get into ‘philosophical mode’ and use terms…
I will cry to God Most High, to God who accomplishes all things for me. Psalm 57:2 [English] NASB Who accomplishes all things – Poetry is difficult to understand. Just ask my Italian students who are studying Walt Whitman or Edgar Allen Poe. Poets like to manipulate the language, strike unusual parallels, twist resonance, and bend meanings in…
How blessed is the man who fears always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity. Proverbs 28:14 NASB Fear always – How can a man be blessed if he is always afraid? This just doesn’t seem to make any sense. If perfect love casts out fear, and we are exhorted to enter…
Hopefully the sun is setting on all those past ghosts and what’s left is a beautiful finish. Topical Index: regrets
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, Philippians 3:13b NIV Forgetting what is behind – Isn’t it nice to know that Paul was so focused, so spiritual, that he could forget everything that was in the past and just concentrate on what would be in the future? Don’t you wish you had such…
Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” Genesis 38:16a NIV Sleep with you – Okay, so we’re past the scandalous nature of this event. We think of it religiously as if it’s about inequity, and, of course, ultimately, about the…
Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” Genesis 38:16a NIV Sleep with you – Of course, the Hebrew doesn’t use our modern circumlocution. The Hebrew text reads, “let me come in to you,” perhaps a bit too graphic for our…
“May the Lord reward your work, and may your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” Ruth 2:12 NASB Reward – It’s such a shame that the translation of this Hebrew word into English leaves us without all the deep connections it should imply. Take a look…
When brothers live together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall have relations with her and take her to himself as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. Deuteronomy 25:5 NASB The duty – We…
My God, I cry out by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but I have no rest. Psalm 22:2 NASB Cry out – Who’s responsible? That’s what we want to know. If I’m crying out day and night, if I feel the desperate emptiness of God’s absence, if I’m fixated on His reply,…
