The Plumbline

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. (Psalm 8:1) It has been a while since I have spoken about the various names of God in scripture, but this psalm opens with two different names used for God - LORD and Lord. Sometimes it is easy to miss the subtle differences because we just 'read over' them. When we stop for a moment to consider what is being said by the use of the various names of God, we can begin to see the true meaning of the passage. LORD is God's 'covenant name' used in the Hebrew language. We might think of this as the 'Old Testament' name referencing his entering into 'covenant' with the Israelite nation. Another term for LORD is Yahweh or Jehovah. The meaning: I am who I am, or I am that I am. God is, has been, will always be the God of the universe - there is no other who compares with him, no other worthy of worship and honor. Yahweh (LORD) references God's creative power. Thin...

I have read through scripture a number of times but have always struggled a bit with how God could 'get angry' and still be a merciful and kind God. My guess is that I am not alone in this quandary. What I have deduced is that God gets 'angry' when people sin - sin gets his anger stirred up. He is slow to anger, but that doesn't mean his patience can be taken for granted. God is the judge of human character - not us. We would like to sit in judgment on occasion, but we are not qualified to judge simply because we have this sin nature at work within each of us.  Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. (Galatians 6:7-8) Whenever we think we are above the judgment of God, we are in a very troubling place. We may want to take...