David’s Michtams

        The Hebrew word “michtam” comes from a root that means “to carve or engrave”.  It is used in the superscription of six psalms—16, 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60—to identify the genre of these compositions.  Given the fact that the five psalms clustered…

Dealing with the Wound of Betrayal

       Unlike Psalms 52 and 54, there is nothing in the superscription of Psalm 55 that hints of the exact historical context of this Maschil.  That David has been recently betrayed is unmistakable: “my heart is severely pained within me…horror has overwhelmed me…it is…

The Folly of Atheism

       A fundamental and egregious intellectual flaw of atheism is that unless an atheist is omniscient (all-knowing), he cannot legitimately say, “I know that there is no God.”  Only an omniscient being would have the necessary and adequate body of knowledge to know whether…

Atheism’s Dirty Little Secret

       A number of years ago I read a fascinating book by R. C. Sproul titled If There is a God, Why are there Atheists?: A Surprising Look at the Psychology of Atheism.  The thesis of the book is that people have chosen atheism…

How David Dealt with Betrayal

     Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21).  Because of Doeg’s malicious and false insinuation to a paranoid king, the entire city of Nob—“both men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen and donkeys and sheep”—was so completely destroyed that…

The Bad and Good News about Betrayal

       From the time of his youthful conquest of Goliath until his death as king about fifty years later, David’s life was associated in some way with the highest levels of Israel’s government.  His initial association was in serving in King Saul’s court as…

A Profitable and Pure Religion–Part Three

“If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to…