As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
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The author of Hebrews chose as his go-to text the “Old Greek” of the OT, but not exactly what scholars mean when they say “LXX.”1 His singular use of Psalm 40:6-8, especially its translation of Psalm 40:6 as “a body you have prepared for me.” As Thomas Constable notes,
“Imagine a friend told you that her baby is sick and may die. You’d feel shock and grief…Would anything change if the friend then replied, ‘Thank you, we’re hoping Fluffy pulls through’?” - Breakpoint
“Never view the world circumstances or any events with a temporal viewpoint. Recognize that God is constantly seeing the big picture while we normally see what is taking place day by day.” - P&D
“the Textual Confidence Collective … discuss whether the ideas of Westcott and Hort really control the current practice of New Testament textual criticism, and short the answer is, ‘No’ ” - Mark Ward
Nowhere in the New Testament do we find either a command to baptize infants or even an instance of babies being baptized. No verse hints at this practice in the first century church.1 So, Christians who hold to this ritual try to forge a link between Jewish circumcision and Christian baptism. The lone New Testament passage they can find that could possibly be read to make this connection is Colossians 2:11–12.
“the ‘consequentialist’ or ‘utilitarian’ approach (e.g. of Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill), views the morality of a decision or action, based upon the anticipated result of that decision or action. It seeks to quantify the ‘highest good, for the greatest number,’ thereby reducing all ethical considerations to a ‘pleasure/pain’ calculus.” - Common Good
“Confessions is well-written and rewards re-reading, but ultimately it is good because it is true. It is a book by and for the restless soul, which is every soul.” - Word by Word
There is no shortage of passages exhorting Christians not to sin.1 So it is no surprise that John also acknowledges in his first letter that Christians can sin.2 It might be surprising, then to discover that John says that “All those who are born of God sin they do not do.”3 John adds that they do not, “because His seed abides in him.”4
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(Luke 4:16-30 with Isaiah 61:1-2)
Jesus applied Isaiah 61:1-2a (below) to Himself. At first, this garnered praise from the synagogue crowd, but their praise quickly turned to scoffing. The Isaiah passage reads:
“n Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, Lucy S. R. Austen harmonizes Elisabeth’s public writing with the journals and letters Austen had access to, which I feel is the strength of this book.” - P&D
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