Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 2

Instruct these people as follows, yehôvâh had said to Moses: ‘You are about to cross the border of your relatives the descendants of Esau [Jacob’s brother], who inhabit Seir.  They will be afraid (yârêʼ, וייראו; Septuagint: φοβηθήσονται, afraid) of you, so watch...

Romans, Part 84

For I tell you, Paul continued writing to believers in Rome, that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God’s truth to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and thus the Gentiles glorify God for his mercy.[1]  These are two seemingly...

Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 1

Then we left Horeb, Moses said, and passed through all that immense, forbidding (yârêʼ, והנורא) wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.[1]  The word forbidding gives...

Romans, Part 83

But we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not just please ourselves.[1]  I assume that the weak (ἀδυνάτων, a form of ἀδύνατος) referred back to the one who is weak in the faith (ἀσθενοῦντα [a form of ἀσθενέω] τῇ πίστει).  The weak person...

Romans, Part 82

I took a tangent from Paul’s teaching in the previous essay—I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean in itself[1]—to convince myself it was in line with Jesus’ teaching in Mark 7 since his criticism rang in my ears.  In Revelation Jesus...

Romans, Part 81

As I worked on this essay I read an article by Jeffrey Fleishman, How an angry national mood is reflected in pop culture.  Two sentences really resonated: 1) “Our screens and phones fume with righteousness;” and 2) “Our shared humanity has been...