Read Proverbs Slowly. Take a Year Over It
This morning, at Trinity Church Scarborough, we continued our preaching series in the book of Proverbs, looking at Proverbs 25-29.
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Old Testament
Afterlife in Genesis
Is the idea of an afterlife new to the New Testament? In fact, there is hope of life after death even as far back as the Joseph narratives in the book of Genesis.
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Some jottings on reading Proverbs as Christians
At Trinity Church Scarborough, we're preaching through Proverbs throughout the autumn.It's not a book I've ever studied in any detail, so I've taken a step back, read a few things others have written, and collected thoughts I've had over the years as I've read through Proverbs as part of my own personal Bible reading. I wanted somewhere to jot down the things I've learnt, so I can refer to it later, and thought this public space would be good as it may help others too.
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The shepherd's hand
Image Credit: The shepherd's hand
Here's a detail I've just noticed, and rather love.
Psalm 95:7 in the NIV reads as follows:
"For he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock under his care."
Take that phrase "flock under his care" and look more closely.
וְצֹ֣אן יָד֑וֹ
Literally "the flock of his hand".
The message of the so-called Joseph Narratives
I'm a big fan of Bruce Waltke's commentary on Genesis. He does a great job at holding together two tasks that are vital. It's easy to lose one whilst trying to do the other. He both pays attention to the narrative craft of Genesis, and at the same time tracks the overall storyline of Genesis and what the book as a whole is communicating.
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Zedekiah and the king of Babylon: Eye to eye
Zedekiah, king of Judah (597-587 B.C.) consistently expected that God would bring a last minute reprieve, and he and his people would not be conquered by the Babylonians. He underestimated the sin of his people, and he underestimated God's power to deal with that.
For this reason, the prophet Jeremiah consistently has to warn him that there will be no reprieve. Into exile they will go.
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BHS Hebrew Bible Table of Accents
This is one of those posts I'm putting here because I know I'll look for this again, and if it's on my own website I can search and find it quickly. It might also help someone else.
Tucked inside The BHS (Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia) is a small piece of paper, containing the Tabula Accentuum (table of accents). On one side is a list of the accents deployed by the Masoretes when annotating prose, and on the other side the ones they used when annotating poetry.
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Reintroducing the Psalms
I wrote a longer post in 2010 that gave some thoughts on the book of Psalms and how we read them.
Today, I've been working on some notes to equip our small group leaders to lead a Bible study in Psalm 31. This comes as part of a series of Bible studies that look at passages that speak on the theme of prayer.
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On the public reading of Scripture
Paul wrote to Timothy: "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching." (1 Timothy 4:13)
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Why Ezekiel 40-48
Free Bible Images
A thought on why Ezekiel 40-48 are such important chapters.
The other day I was reading 2 Chronicles 6:36-39, the prayer that Solomon prays when he dedicates the new temple he's just built. If the people are exiled, they can pray towards the city and the temple and God will hear.
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