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Bible reading for May 3 --4 May 3 -- Song of Solomon 8 and Hebrews 8 May 4 -- Isaiah 1 and Hebrews 9  ================    "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD." (Song of Solomon 8:6)  FINAL CHAPTER (ch 8). The couple's love continues to grow and mature. For a good summary of this concluding chapter see Constable's notes here . One note on the "little sister" (6:8-10)... This a poetic expression of the Shulammite's older brothers protecting their sister's purity in her earlier years. The Bible teaches the primacy of the family in guarding the purity and sexuality of the children. It is not the place of the schools or government or media to override parents in their role of teaching children about God's design for human sexuality. Our culture is seriously perverted in this regard.   THE POWER OF LOVE. Wh...

Hearing the echoes .  Each year I read the Bible at a slower pace, but then about every third year I read through the entire Bible at a faster pace.  (I often use an audio version, which helps me hear the Word while I drive or take walks.)  The change of pace is good, but there is also another purpose: you cannot clearly understand any part of the Bible until you understand the whole of it. There are many details you may not fully grasp until you know how to connect them to the whole. There are themes, images, commandments, events, types, etc., that won’t make sense until you see how it fits into the whole testimony of God.  Hence, flying over the whole body of Scripture gives us a larger view.  So also you can then “hear the echo” of any these themes or images elsewhere in Scripture. There are many authors to the books of the Bible, but there is one divine Author behind it all. There are two examples of this in Numbers chapter 10… The trumpets. Go...

"...that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'" (Acts 17:27-28 ESV) "Because of this intimate relationship, God can be named in the terms of His creatures, and He can be spoken of anthropomorphically.  The same Scripture which speaks in the most exalted way of God's incomparable greatness and majesty, at the same time speaks of Him in figures and images which sparkle with life.  It speaks of His eyes and ears, His hands and feet, His mouth and lips, His heart and bowels.  It ascribes all kinds of attributes to Him -- of wisdom and knowledge, will and power, righteousness and mercy, and it ascribes to Him also such emotions as joy and grief, fear and vexation, zeal and envy, remorse and wrath, hatred and anger.  It speaks of Hi...

"I believe that the whole universe, heaven and earth, air and seas, and the divine constitution and history of the holy Scriptures, be full of images of divine things, as full as a language is of words..."   ~ Jonathan Edwards, Typological Writings , Yale Vol. 11, p. 152.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples;  I will sing praises to you among the nations.   For your steadfast love is great above the heavens;  your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.   Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!  Let your glory be over all the earth!   (Psalm 108:3-5 ESV; see also Psalm 36:5; 57:10-11) I love stepping outside in the morning and looking up at the clouds in the sky. Or in the evening I'll take a walk and enjoy a beautiful sunset, with streaks and colors of light illuminating the clouds.   One thing clouds always remind me of is that God's steadfast love and faithfulness is gloriously high above me, infinitely surpassing any of my earthbound needs and concerns.  His love is greater than my sin and higher than any problem I face. His steadfast love and faithfulness is inexhaustible. We can never run out of his faithfulness nor reach the end of the love which he has toward all who are in Chr...

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us. Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal. Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God. Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”   Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like...

And [Jesus] said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.   (Luke 24:25-27 ESV) JESUS TRUE AND BETTER (by Tim Keller)... Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us. Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal. Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God. Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I ...

"A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, 'It is finished,' and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19:29-30 ESV) The Apostle John in his gospel adds a detail not mentioned by the other gospel writers-- that the last drink offered to Jesus was extended on a woody stalk of hyssop. (Hyssop is an aromatic perennial which grows in Palestine, being an herb in the mint family.) The gospel of John, though very readable to Greeks of the first century, was written by a Palestinian Jew and has many Old Testament references throughout, usually in the form of images (like the vine, the shepherd, the stone water pots, etc.) rather than direct quotes from the OT like Matthew. There are also elements of irony, such as Jesus speaking of the temple, referring to himself rather than the building, as his hearers presumed. The mentioning of ...