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Eight Divine Names in One Glorious Passage

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by Andrew Wilson 8 divine names Hebrew terms for God appear across the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah brings them all together. If you were a child of Christian parents in the 1980s or 1990s, there is a decent chance that at some point you memorized the Hebrew names for God. Like Jehovah Jireh, which means “the Lord will provide” (Gen. 22:14). Or Jehovah Rapha: “The Lord heals” (Ex. 15:26). Or Jehovah Nissi: “The Lord is my banner” (17:15). There are eight such names altogether. (Besides the examples from Genesis and Exodus, they appear in Leviticus 20:8, Judges 6:24, Psalm 23:1, Jeremiah 23:6, and Ezekiel 48:35.) Learning these names—and in my case singing songs about them (with gradually accelerating Jewish melodies)—was just something we all did. Ever since, I have been unable to read the passages where Scripture introduces them without thinking of the names themselves, the songs they inspired, and the stories that gave them meaning. Clearly they made q...
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Jesus and meekness

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Jesus both taught and lived out meekness Adrian Rogers Jesus harnessed the “Sons of Thunder” Brothers James and John were angered at the people in a Samaritan village that refused hospitality to Jesus: “And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them’” (Luke 9:54-56). Jesus entered Jerusalem on a colt Had Jesus chosen to ride into Jerusalem on a war horse, He would have been coming to save one race (the Jews) from domination by another (the Romans) …for a time. His choice of a lowly colt, the foal of a donkey, was appropriate to His mission to save the entire world from sin…for eternity. (Read Matthew 21:1-5.) Worth noting, this was an animal that had never been ridden before. Anyone else t...
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Repentance is a gift

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... The Bible is clear that repentance is a gift (Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25). Prodigals can come to their senses only because God gives them the gift of repentance. Those who are spiritually dead do not resuscitate themselves (Eph. 2:1–10). Not understanding that repentance is a gift is one of the ways people are most confused about repentance. They view it as something they must produce in themselves or others rather than a gift to be unwrapped. ... Here is the whole article
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When Jesus Takes the Lead (and restores)

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Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and WALKED. (John 5/8-9 NKJV) The remains of the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-9) are in Jerusalem today, just north of the Temple Mount. Excavations have discovered that it had five porches, just as John described (John 5:2). This pool was surrounded by a multitude of hurting humanity. They waited for an angel to come down and stir up the waters – believing that the first person in the water after the stirring would be healed. We don’t know if the promise of healing was real or merely a hopeful legend; nevertheless, people believed it. Coming to a well outside Sychar, Jesus sent His disciples into the village to get some food. When the disciples left, Jesus had an amazing conversation with a Samaritan Jesus asked the lame man an unusual question: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6) Jesus knew that not every sick person wants to be healed,...
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The radically "New Man" {dictionary}

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from "the lectionary" blog pre The following excerpt is intended to assist those who wish to better understand the restored status of the New Testament and the new status of believers, which is radically distinct from the Law and Jewish traditions. Apostolic terminology is under constant attack due to the biases found in postmodern culture and politically motivated theological trends. Surprisingly many people believe that Christian identity is somehow a "reformed" form of Judaism. But that is not the case: living in Christ is an identity and a sense of belonging, a spiritually extraordinary "brand new" status & ID — not some kind of religion or philosophy. This ongoing distortion can only be countered in a concrete way, through linguistic and cultural instruction, by contrasting it with the original status given from heaven—which the apostles themselves achieved through hard work, much suffering, and persecution. Kainos ...
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