James's Weblog

Genesis 2:18 describes God making Eve as a "helper" (עֵזֶר) for Adam.

This particular word occurs 19 times in the Old Testament, and it pays to notice carefully what it does and does not mean elsewhere.

What was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and why was it a sin to eat its fruit?

Bruce Waltke is very helpful, on page 86 of his Genesis commentary (paid link):

One of the values of having a blog, is it gives me somewhere to put notes that will almost certainly not make it into the next sermon, but may interest some people. "If you're interested, for further reading,..."

Here's Bruce Waltke (paid link) on Genesis 2:

Doug Wilson is on fine form as he reflects on the popular Christmas Carol, Hark the Herald-Angels Sing.

Go read - it's worth it just for the list of possible biblical references within the carol. Indeed, just the other day someone had asked me where "sun (sic.) of righteousness" comes from.

I'm not sure anyone has taken the (alleged) implication Mayan prediction that the world will end on 21st December 2012 totally seriously. Actually, what the Mayans and others really thought about this is somewhat more complex, although unsurprisingly the media aren't terribly interested in nuance.

I've posted a couple of times before about the Mollom service I use to filter comments and e-mails from this site for potential spam.

Lately, the spam on this site has gone just crazy. Happily, Mollom has caught it all - I've not had one get through.

In case you can't see the numbers on the graph, here's how it's gone:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. (1 John 4:7)

Today, the Church of England's General Synod meets for 3 days; on the agenda for tomorrow is a debate and then a vote on "final approval" of the measure that could see women become Bishops in the Church of England.

A friend recently e-mailed me to ask for advice as he looks for a church to join in a new town that he'd moved to with his young family.

Part of what I wrote back may be of help to others, so I thought I'd paste it here.

Just seen on the BBC News site:

Sorry, Jeremy - no matter how good a job any doctors do, it will remain at 100%.

Does the Lord's Prayer give the structure of Matthew chapter 6?

The Lord's Prayer contains