A Danger of Knowledge
I catch myself reaching for the verse, the correction — the thing I know that they apparently don’t. A look at the danger Paul names: knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
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Both Eyes Open
Close one eye and the room goes flat. Reading and study are the two eyes we bring to the Bible — and the depth is in the two together, not in either alone.
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The Mask and the Mirror
To “observe” the commandments has quietly come to mean perform them. But the word means to watch — to see. That single shift is the difference between a mask and a mirror.
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Why Isn’t It Called the Tree of Death?
Why is it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — and not, simply, the tree of death? Two trees at the center of the garden, and their names don’t match the way you’d expect.
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Do You Know the Voice?
You can know a voice on the phone before a single word means anything. What if Scripture could be heard the same way?
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The Right Tool for the Job
Concordances and lexicons: the right tool for one job, the wrong tool for another. One Greek word — epithumia, rendered both “desire” and “lust” — shows why.
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When Words Move
I picked up the first English dictionary, printed in 1604, and couldn’t read half of it. One word stopped me cold — and it’s all over the Bible.
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An Entire Message
A wedding runs out of wine. Jesus says “not yet” — then does it anyway. Two odd snags in one short story. What if they were put there on purpose?
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We Weren’t There
Strip the familiarity off a baptism and it’s a strange thing to do to someone — laid all the way back until the water closes over the face, held under, then lifted out. A staged death, with a rising on the end of it. And the claim underneath it is stranger still: that it’s his death, and we’re joined into it — even those of us who weren’t there.
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What the Floor Teaches
We keep waiting to wake up one morning with it all finally figured out. No one ever does. We learn this the way we learned to walk — by hitting the floor, repeatedly, and getting back up. Turns out the floor has a few things to teach that staying upright never could.
