Earth Is Crammed With Heaven-Live Barefoot!

 Yesterday as I was going through my "verse of the day" type calendars for the month of May. The one with a focus on mother's sent me to 2 Timothy 1:5 "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well." Vocabulary and word study is predominantly what my study time is focused on. It has a way of opening up the Word of God and drawing me in as I meditate on its meaning(s). Yesterday, the word for dwell stood out to me.  Let me back up a little to say that there are certain passages of Scripture that take up permanent residence in my mind. I may not have them memorized but the topic and the teaching is there. John 15 contains one of those passages. It's the "abide" chapter, where Jesus tells His disciples (and therefore us) to abide in Him and He will abide in us. Some translations will say "remain".  Whenever I read this verse, I conn...

The Hebrew language always fascinates me with the way it breathes new meaning into old stories, making them new. For the past day or so, the Lord has had me in the early chapters of Genesis. Originally the lesson was on the Hebrew word for "name" being "shem." And how in Hebrew there's the understanding that it isn't just what someone is called, it's a " one word summation of the totality of a person " to quote Chad Bird. In Hebrew thought it was also about prophecy and how whenever a child was given a name, it would reflect their parent's hopes for the child's nature and future destiny. It's interesting the name Noah chose to give his eldest son, was simply "Shem" who was the progenitor of the Semitic people from whom God's chosen people came. Strong's says the name "Shem" is "often associated with the concept of " renown ," reflecting the importance of legacy and reputation in biblical na...