My soul is down in the dust.Give me life according to your word. Psalm 119 is an interesting–and biblical–combination of human action and dependence on Divine action. Verse 25, the first verse of the third section, is on the dependence side of the scale. If you’re trying to formulate theology, the variety here might be…
Deal fully with your servant,So I may live and keep your word. There are numerous translation questions, including differences of opinion about precisely what the word I translate “deal fully with” actually means in this context. Another good option is what Bob MacDonald does in Seeing the Psalter: Grow your servantI will live and keep…
I was recently interviewed by fellow Energion author Steve Kindle regarding my newly released book God the Creator: Toward a More Robust Doctrine of Creation. The video is below. Preview / Retailers
This is again from the Daily Bible Study series. One complaint I have about the reading is that they will split up chapters and even give the verses out of order. This is not, unfortunately, according to some coherent theory about the history of the text, so far as I can tell, but seems to…
This is a day late, but the text for Sunday, the key text for the lesson, was the creation story of Genesis 1. This is a summary of what I taught, and some notes on what I didn’t. For obvious reasons, we discussed Hurricane Dorian. By Sunday morning we were pretty sure we would not…
As I continue my posts on the Daily Bible Study readings for this week’s Sunday School lesson, I come to what may be, for many, a somewhat more troubling passage. It’s not that the passage mandates no work on the seventh day of the week, though that bothers some, but more that the penalty for…
Hebrews 11:1-3 begins thus: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV). Most of the words here are at least a bit controversial. It may be easier to understand the passage if we accept that the writer is not trying to define “faith” or the Greek word “pistis,”…
This is to go for the reading for the week of August 26-31, 2019 in the Daily Bible Study series. What Was It Like? This is especially related to the reading for August 29, Psalm 33:3-9.
I’m continuing with comments on the scripture passages for this week from the Daily Bible Study, which my Sunday School class uses as curriculum. This passage, like most of the passages this week, links God’s Word (whether in words or not) with creation and justice. We are to praise God because his word holds true,…
Continuing my notes on the daily passages from this week’s lesson, I’m looking at Proverbs 3:13-20. I assume it’s clear to all that the subject is creation. We again find ourselves looking at God’s revelation through God’s work. I like to emphasize the importance of not just reading words from the Word of God, as…
