The Keener Way

  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6 This fourth blessing of Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount draws many similarities to Psalm 42, a song of the sons of Korah, which begins with those long familiar lines, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after you, O God." Psalm 42:1 BSB And it seems pretty straightforward. Be hungry and thirsty for righteousness, and you will be satisfied. But let's explore the word 'righteousness'. Growing up, it always seemed like kind of a vague concept. It comes up frequently enough in scripture to gather the idea that it's about being upright, being morally pure, being good, etcetera. In a general sense, the keeping of the law. Which is a fairly intense undertaking, considering that Yeshua said, "except your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Obviously, this is something that...

  This past week, I've been doing a challenge set by my church's pastor. Each day, choose a random passage of scripture, study it, and try to find an attribute of Adonai's character. In five weekdays, that is five attributes. Its been a fascinating study so far. But it really got interesting when one morning, I decided to study Job 38. A little poke inside me said "no, do Job 42." I looked at Job 42 and thought, "But i don't want to do Job 42. YHWH is rebuking Job's three friends. If I study that, I'm gonna almost have to study the whole book, to really grasp why he was angry with their counsel. That's the way my mind works." But the voice insisted. "Job 42". And I'll be honest, the study was worth it. I only did a very general overview of the whole book, but I came out of it with some enlightened thoughts. Here is a (very) rough and abridged version of the argument between Job and his companions.   Eliphaz (my god is fine g...