Category: Luke
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Translating puns
…an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD. Lev 1:9 This phrase “sweet savour” shows up repeatedly in the first several chapters of Leviticus, variously translated as “sweet aroma”, “pleasing aroma”, “soothing aroma”, “pleasing odor”, “sweet fragrance”, etc. In the Hebrew, it is reach nichoach (pronounced rey’-akh nee-kho’-akh—the kh is like the ch in […]
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The Implanted Word
Jesus points to the shema‘, the Hear, O Israel, as the greatest commandment, “You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” All the rest of the Law and Prophets is an expansion […]
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War and peace
Deuteronomy 20 lays out laws concerning warfare, but this isn’t Sun Tzu. It doesn’t deal with strategies or techniques or troop organization. It begins with the priest addressing the people to fear not because God is with them. He is Immanuel. He is the Man of War that rides out and conquers the enemies of […]
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Decreation, recreation, and covenant renewal
Genesis 6 sets up several patterns that show up repeatedly throughout scripture and throughout history. The first is a pattern of compromise. The line of Seth, through whom the covenant extended as a replacement for faithful Abel, began to compromise and take wives from among the descendants of unfaithful, murderous Cain. The line had become […]
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Sun of righteousness
For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise […]
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Chosen in Him
And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, […]
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Not one stone
If the disease breaks out again in the house, after he has taken out the stones and scraped the house and plastered it, then the priest shall go and look. And if the disease has spread in the house, it is a persistent leprous disease in the house; it is unclean. And he shall break down the […]
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Humble servant
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep […]
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Blood curse
God pronounced a blood curse on the royal family of Judah in Jeremiah 22: Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot, a vessel no one cares for? Why are he and his children hurled and cast into a land that they do not know? O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! […]
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There will your heart be
Vapor of vapors, says the Preacher. Vapor of vapors! All is vapor. – Ecc 1:2 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, […]