People often assume that John and Peter were a couple of uneducated rednecks. Part of the reason is that they were fisherman. Today, rednecks like to fish, therefore Peter was a redneck… We should be careful in projecting modern American culture onto Peter, though. The skills that it would take to navigate the water with ancient technology may have taken more skill than we give him credit for. But, then again, the Bible does say Peter cursed and cursing is a skill that modern seafarers master without peer, sooo…[Read More]
Semitic languages
The Timing of Ezekiel’s Temple (Ezek 43:1-27; 44:15-31)
This is part of a series on Ezekiel’s Temple. I’d recommend first reading Spiritualizers, Revisionists, and Ezekiel’s Temple. Or not.[Read More]
Three reasons why you do not want Jeremiah 29:11 to be about you
Have you ever seen a conversation like this take place between two believers?
Believer 1: How is life going, Believer 2?
Believer 2: Oh, life is terrible! My dog left me and I stepped on a LEGO. Things will never get better. Blah blah blah.
Believer 1: Oh no. Be encouraged! The Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Believer 2: Oh, wow! You’re right! Everything is just swell. I think I’ll ride off into the sunset now.
Believer 1 has just quoted Jer 29:11. If we look at the context of this passage, I think we’ll find that he has actually misused this particular verse (though, I’m sure his intentions were good).
Now, Jer 29:11 is a source of encouragement for many believers and I don’t want to rob anyone of encouragement. So, I have compiled a list of three reasons why we should rejoice that this passage is not about us. If Jer 29:11 was indeed about us, then:
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“Satan” in New Testament Aramaic
Have you ever noticed how every now and then, New Testament authors will throw in an Aramaic phrase?
Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” (Mark 5:41 ESV)
And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” (Mark 7:34 ESV)
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34 ESV)
In these three verses, the Aramaic is complicated, so Mark follows Jesus’ quotes with translations. Consider the word, ephphatha. This would not have been a common saying. I mean, how many times have you told something, “be opened!” The readers probably didn’t know the word, ephphatha, so it makes sense that Mark notes that ephphatha means “be opened.” The same goes with sabachthani (literally, “you have forsaken me”). The average Greek-speaking Christian in the first century wouldn’t know these words, so Mark translates them.
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Joktan: The First Creole Speaker
I enjoy nondogmatic speculation on issues where the Bible isn’t entirely clear. Did Jews build the Trojan horse? Did Elijah use Ba’al’s myths against him? We probably won’t know for sure on this side of eschatology, but they are fun things to think about. They can also be edifying topics for discussion because they force us to analyze what is written in the Word and give it precedence over what isn’t written in the Word.
I have developed a hypothesis that Joktan was the first creole speaker in recorded history. This hypothesis begs a few questions: 1) What is creole? 2) Who was Joktan? 3) Why did Joktan speak creole? and 4) Are you sure?
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‘Murica
Happy 4th of July! Today, we are going to talk about where the word, “America,” came from.
America is named after the Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who went to Brazil about a decade after Christopher Columbus and discovered that it wasn’t Asia.
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