The Jealousy of God

March 20, 2025Posted inExodus
The Hebrew word for jealousy also encompasses the ideas of envy (Prov. 14:30) and zeal (Isa. 9:7). Envy is a vice because it wants what God has given to the neighbor and is sometimes willing to harm the neighbor to obtain it. Zeal can be either a virtue or a vice depending on its focus.…

Hebrews 13:7-17: A Chiasm of Exhortations

March 10, 2025Posted inHebrews
The book of Hebrews addresses Jewish believers who, under the pressure of persecution, were returning to their old faith. The argument of the book against such apostasy is that they will be abandoning the much better things accomplished by Christ and will be attaching themselves to things that have become obsolete and will vanish away…

How to Get Everything You Want by Praying

February 26, 2025Posted inPrayer
That may sound like a very unChristian thing, even a sinful thing, to suggest. If you want to get rich, to be free from all trouble, or to have whatever it is you your heart desires at the moment, then you will not find the answer here. Isn't it impossible then to get what we…

Distinctive Features of Psalm 80

February 17, 2025Posted inPsalms Commentary
Psalm 80 is a psalm of three movements or stanzas of unequal length. The first stanza (vv. 1–3) is introductory and calls on God to hear, stir up his strength and come to save Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh. The second stanza (vv. 4–7) asks God how long he will be angry with his people. The…

The Importance of Brotherly Admonition

February 14, 2025Posted inPsalms Commentary
One of the means our Lord has provided both to keep us from sin and to bring us back from it is brotherly admonition. The health of the church and its members demands it, but we seldom use it when we should. Probably there are many reasons for it, but I suspect that the main…

The Message of Leviticus

January 27, 2025Posted inLeviticus
If forced to decide, many Christians today would probably say that the book of Leviticus is the least important of all the books of the Bible. It is full of laws, and these laws are mostly ceremonial, about sacrifices, consecration of priests, clean and unclean animals, leprosy and so on. When I was a child…

Psalm 80: Restore Us!

January 20, 2025Posted inPsalms Commentary
Psalm 80 is a psalm of three movements or stanzas of unequal length. The first stanza (vv. 1–3) is introductory and calls on God to hear, stir up his strength and come to save Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh. The second stanza (vv. 4–7) asks God how long he will be angry with his people. The…

Psalm 47: The Peoples and the People

January 13, 2025Posted inPsalms Commentary
In the psalms some translations do not always render the plural of the Hebrew word am (people) as peoples. Yet the psalms maintain a significant distinction between the singular and plural of the word. When it appears in the singular, it refers to Israel, the people of God. When it occurs in the plural, it…

Psalm 89: Renouncing the Unbreakable Covenant

January 9, 2025Posted inPsalms Commentary
Psalm 89 is theologically rich. Its main ideas are God’s covenant with David and his lovingkindness and faithfulness as revealed in it, but there are many other ideas as well: the glory, power and righteousness of God (vv. 6–14), the fear of God (v. 7), the blessedness of God’s people (vv. 15–18), election (v. 19),…