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Exodus 34:6, “Compassionate,” or in Hebrew, “rakhum.” This word also appears as a noun, “rakhamim” or “compassion.” Both of these words are related to the Hebrew word for womb, “rekhem.” Compassion in the Hebrew Bible, is centered in a person’s core. The word invites us to imagine a mother’s...

What does it mean to redeem something? If we own something, it belongs to us, but things can get lost or stolen, then somebody else ends up possessing what is rightfully ours. How do we get our possession back? We could show some sort of proof of ownership or we might need to purchase it back or...

1 John 4:7-12, ATONING SACRIFICE. God made a promise to Abraham. Somehow, instead of wiping out human beings, he was going to commit to saving them and restoring them and healing them and redeeming them and if God goes back on his promise, then he is not good and he’s not just. It’s this paradox...

Is God merciful or vengeful? In Genesis, God chooses one family, the Israelites, from among the nations, he promises that he’s going to rescue the whole world through this family. But Genesis ends with the family of Abraham in Egypt. Exodus chapters 1-18, God rescues Israel from slavery in...

Exodus 34:6, God is slow to anger, this might surprise some people. Isn’t the God of the Bible mostly angry, striking people down for their sins? In Hebrew, the phrase “slow to anger” is “long of nose.” What does God’s patience have to do with a long nose? The common biblical Hebrew way to say...

Why do humans care so much about justice? The Bible has a fascinating response, humans are set apart from all other creatures as the image of God. God’s representatives, who rule the world by “their” definition of good and evil, and this identity is the bedrock of the Bible’s view of justice...

“Sin” is the translated Hebrew word “khata” or the Greek word “hamartia,” the basic meaning of sin isn’t religious at all, khata simply means “to fail” or “miss the goal.” Like when the Israelite tribe of Benjamin trained a small army of slingshot experts, they could sling a stone at a hair and...

Now, humans aren’t spiritual beings, they are made of the dirt, like the animals. But God calls humans to become something more, he elevates them to live and rule in Eden, the place where heaven and earth are one. They are invited to eat from the tree of life. This tree is an image of receiving...

In the Bible, the idea of holiness, it’s really describing how God is the creative force behind the whole universe. God’s the one and only being with the power to make a world full of such beauty and life, and with all these abilities, they make God utterly unique, which is the meaning of the...

Humans, by the ways that they do what they’re doing in the world, their existence is as a pointer, to bear witness to the Creator. The image of God isn’t separate from glorifying God, but the point of an image is to point to a reality of what it represents. Humans are meant to reflect something...

Exodus 34:6, loyal love, it translates the Hebrew word “khesed,” which is hard to translate into any language, because it combines the ideas of love, generosity and enduring commitment, all into one. Khesed describes an act of promise-keeping loyalty, that is, motivated by deep personal care...

In the book of Proverbs, we meet the brilliant teacher, she’s smart about everything, work, relationships, sex, spirituality. She has incredible insights, things we wouldn’t see on our own. She would be the perfect friend to have around, when we need really specific advice. What makes her so...

The story of the Bible begins with God creating a beautiful world and then sharing it with all of his creatures. God appoints Adam and Eve to rule the world on his behalf. God gives them access to his wisdom and life, but then tells them that there’s one tree they can’t eat from, because it will...

If we read the New Testament, we will noice that the most common title people use to describe Jesus is “the Christ,” that is “the Messiah,” but surprisingly, Jesus almost never used that word to describe himself. Instead, Jesus called himself “the Son of Man.” The Son of Man, what does that...

Being around Christians, we’ve probably heard of the idea of having a personal relationship with God, which could mean different things in the Bible. Having God as a friend or your father or maybe your teacher. But there’s one particular way that the Bible talks about this relationship that we...

Jesus offers eternal life, but what does Jesus mean by eternal life? Jesus adopted this phrase from the Hebrew Scriptures. In English, it’s translated “eternal life” or sometimes “everlasting life,” but the phrase translated from Hebrew is “life unto the age.” The Hebrew word for age is “olam”...

There’s a story in the Bible about a garden, where God and humans live together and the biblical authors want us to see this garden as a type of temple. The top is the most sacred place, the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence is most intense and that’s where we find the tree of life. What’s...

Faith is both thinking and responding to good reason that something is changing, it’s actually living in light of that reality and as we do so, it puts us in touch with the substance or the reality of the thing that we’re hoping for. We experience this reality of that biblical faith, it begins...

Exodus 34:6, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness, this last characteristic of God is the Hebrew word “emet” which can be translated as “faithfulness” or even “truth,” it’s related to another word “amen” which is an untranslated Hebrew...

Acts chapter 28:16-20, Paul is in the middle of his court trial, and it is not going well, out of this very dark situation, Paul appeals to Timothy, who is still on assignment in Ephesus, he asked Timothy to come be with him in prison so Paul can pass on to him the church planting mission he...