Today, I was curious about the meaning of a name - Bernice (Pherenike, Veronica). The name means "bearing victory." I was curious if there was a Hebrew version of this name. If not, I was at least curious to learn what the Hebrew translation would be for these Greek words ( Read more... )

Haven't been able to sleep well for a while. Ugh. So it took me a while to get started this morning. And I've been having weird dreams...some good, others bad ( Read more... )

Christians call Jesus the Christ. What does it mean to call him "the Christ"?

The word Christ means "anointed" in Greek. The Hebrew word for "anointed" is Messiah. So when we use the words Christ or Messiah, we're referring to an anointed one, and in particular, the anointed one that God had promised in the Old Testament. Where is the Anointed ( Read more... )

Lately, this is the pain on my heart - that the words I pray sound nothing like the words God speaks to me. Should not my prayers sound like those of the saints of old (Psalm 89:5)? Should I not consider "the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith?" (Matthew 23:23) Should I not praise God for who He reveals Himself to be? ( Read more... )

This morning I was curious to see if there were any psalms composed during the period of 1st Samuel. I skimmed through the poem headers and found a few. It's incredibly refreshing to read these in context. In my ignorance of Jewish history, I have an unfortunate tendency to gloss over the book of Psalms aimlessly and randomly. Each psalm seems ( Read more... )

I'm looking forward to catching up on my chores so I can begin some new reading. Lately, I've been considering the beauty of fellowship with God and practical ways that I can give the LORD a larger portion of my heart. I'm eager to read through the book When People Are Big and God Is Small and to consider what other things may be crowding God out ( Read more... )

Very brief summary notes for reference from 1st Samuel, chapters 16-31. ( review the notes )

"While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head." -Mark 14:3 ( Read more... )

I read a little of 1 Samuel today and was struck by what David said as he went out against Goliath. The phrase sounded familiar because I recently encountered something similar spoken by a prophet later on in Israel's history:

1 Samuel 17 "...the battle is the LORD's..."
2 Chronicles 20 "...the battle is not yours, but God's."

Sorted, color-coded tables of Old Testament references found in Matthew. I didn't include references where the contextual text made no mention of a prophecy, command, or other Old Testament passage. (Examples would be Jesus' quoting of Psalm 22 in Matthew 27 or the people's quoting of Psalm 118 in Matthew 21 ( Read more... )