Category Archives: Bible study

How to pray for government leaders: a biblical model (Psalm 72)

Talk to God. Praise God ALONE. Prayer for the leader is focused on the leader’s serving the good of the poor of your people.

You, me, them: the moral mindset of Psalm 26

Worship and prayer depend on a certain self-location vis-à-vis the divine “You” and the profane “they/them.” In the attached display of the ESV text of Psalm 26 I have used blue highlighting for the divine “You,” green for the worshipful and morally resolute “I,” and yellow for the profane “they/them.” It would be a mistakeContinue reading “You, me, them: the moral mindset of Psalm 26”

How to know if you are a demon (Luke 8:26–39)

It can be hard to know if you are a demon but you can watch for telltale signs. If the person you inhabit wears no clothes but goes about fully exposed—each body part or even more embarrassingly every soul and spirit part plainly visible to all around, unseen only by himself—then you might be aContinue reading “How to know if you are a demon (Luke 8:26–39)”

Why doesn’t reasoning (with people) work?

What is wrong with their (and our) heads? Why do truth and reason not persuade us?

Gestalt shift: Jesus and the woman in Simon’s house

Isn’t it funny how you can look at something, and look at it, and look at it, and see the same thing, and then again look at it and see something completely different? I guess we’ve all stared at drawings like Wittgenstein’s duck/rabbit, or the old woman/young maiden drawing, or the one that at oneContinue reading “Gestalt shift: Jesus and the woman in Simon’s house”

This is my story, this is my song: the story we enter when praying Psalms 95–97

In the book of Psalms, the entries in the 90s are grand, profound, and glorious. Is this because the reader who enters into them gets grand and glorious feelings, or because the aesthetic quality of their poesy is high, or because they refer to realities that are objectively awesome? (And I realize that “objectively awesome”Continue reading “This is my story, this is my song: the story we enter when praying Psalms 95–97”