Psalm 85:10 'Lovingkindness and truth have met together.' What a word is this 'lovingkindness'!!!! It is rendered from the Hebrew wordhesed.In the King James Version, it has been translatedmercy,and that is not wrong, yet it seems to miss so much of the fullness of the concept contained in the blessedness of the idea, or concept, of such a thing aslovingkindness.In my...

This Week's Focus Passage: 1 Corinthians 6:11 'And such were some of you: but ye were washed.' This is the blessed conclusion at which our apostle, Paul, arrives in his significant litany of the past lives and offences of many in the church; many who were rescued by the grace of God from the bondage they were in to these sins. Let us review the context found in verses ni...

Psalm 74:9 'Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.' We may read in Luke 13:3, 5, the twice repeated asseveration of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He said to His auditory,Except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish. This was spoken firstly after His allusion to the folk whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and those who died under the tower ...

Matthew 27:54 'Truly this was the Son of God.' There are at least two great confessions from the lips of individuals to be found in the gospel narratives given us, and this attestation, found in our focus passage and ascribed to the centurion after that he had witnessed the convulsions that rocked the earth as the Lord of Glory 'yielded up his spirit,' (which convulsions...

Psalm 62:1 - 'My soul waiteth in silence for God only; from him cometh my salvation.' One of the modern 'translations' of the Scriptures,The Message, the very centuries they have given here, not a translation, but a paraphrase of what they think that the Psalmist, and thus of course the Holy Spirit, intended to communicate. If one is content with a paraphrase, there is...

Romans 8:28 'And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good.' In the 'Authorized Version,' the 'A. D. 1611,' best known as the King James Version, this passage from Romans 8:28 has been rendered, as follows: And we know that all things work together for good. This is, of course, not a complete sentence in any translation of which we are awar...

Matthew 21:45 - 'They perceived that He spake of them.' "They perceived that he spake of them;they plainly saw that they were designed by the son that promised to go into the vineyard, but did not; only talked of works, but did not do them: and that they were the husbandmen that acted the ungrateful part to the householder, and the cruel one to his servants, and would to...

Psalm 46: 'God is our Refuge and Strength.' One who has written '101 Hymn Stories,' adding at a later date, '101 More Hymn Stories,' is, quite apparently, excited to inform us that this hymn of Martin Luther, 'A Mighty Fortress is our God,' is based on Psalm 46. In fact, our own hymn book has the Scripture reference at the top of the page where this hymn is found,God i...

This Week's Focus Passage: Psalm 40:7 'In the roll of the book it is written of me.' Then said I, Lo, I am come; In the roll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God: Yea, thy law is within my heart. These beautiful and astounding words are, in all reality, the substance of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are the embodiment (...

This Week's Focus Passage: Leviticus 1 'Behold, the Lamb of God.' Our readers may read, in their own copies of the Word of God, in Genesis 22:1-2, of the 'proving' or 'tempting' of Abraham by Jehovah. It is rather startling to consider that God would require anyone to offer a human sacrifice, but this is precisely what we read in that particularly astounding passage: ...