1 Corinthians 7:7 English Standard Version (ESV) I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

Praise God that we have so many men and women of God that have dedicated their lives in studying every aspect of their gifts to bring us insights in areas that we are not gifted in ourselves.

I am not a linguist. I have a hard enough time with just English. When it comes to finding meaning in the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, I’d miss out on a lot of good information if it were not for the love that others have for their own gifts.

We live in the information age where so much information is available to us at the touch of our finger, literally. My index finger clicks the mouse on links to those sources every day. Information is readily available, maybe too available if you think about it.

There is so much information out there that we must caution ourselves to be sure our resources are sound in the Word if that is what we are to study. I rely on just a few trusted sources but in doing so, I come back to the only source that is worthy of my trust, the Holy Spirit.

Seeking information for information’s sake will fill our brains but is that what is needed to further this relationship we have with our God? If our goal is just information, then we will please ourselves to the point we ignore what is needful for the feeding of our soul.

I spent years studying alone the works of a very prolific theologian because his approach to the Word of God fit my personality. It fed my problem, it did not fix it. It took a long time to come to an understanding that his faults were my faults and I was ignoring my own problems by feeding on information only.

John 6:35 English Standard Version (ESV) Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Psalm 119

English Standard Version

Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet

Aleph

Before the first verse of Psalm 119, which is a very long psalm, we will find a marker identifying each section. In this case it is Aleph. Just for curiosities sake, since I did not know what it meant, I looked it up in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

Aleph: a’-lef (‘): The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is nearly soundless itself and best represented, as in this Encyclopedia, by the smooth breathing (‘), but it is the direct ancestor of the Greek, Latin and English “a” as in “father.” In either case this beginning of the alphabet happens to be near the very basis of all speech-in one case the simple expiration of breath, in the other the simplest possible vocal action-the actual basis from which all other vowels are evolved. It became also the symbol for the number one (1) and, with the dieresis, 1,000. It is the symbol also for one of the most famous of Greek Biblical manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus.

Nearly soundless. Open your mouth slightly and exhale. That is the sound of breath, the first indicator of the existence of life. When you call 9-1-1 because of a medical emergency the first thing the operator asks is “Are they breathing?”

Genesis 2:7 English Standard Version (ESV) then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Our system for finding scriptures is numerical. Romans 3:30 tells us God is One which implies that the Triune God is in harmony, of one mind, in agreement. Here in Psalm 119 the identifiers are not numerical, they are alphabetical. The first letter tells us of something significant in what God does by breathing life into the scriptures.

Praise God for all the resources that came before us.