by Mark Hamilton | Jan 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
One of the major images of God in Scripture is that of judge. Yahweh is the God who evaluates and settles accounts, rectifying all the injustices of the world and bringing order where, before, chaos reigned. As I’ve noted before, it’s a hard image for...
by Mark Hamilton | Dec 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
One of the greatest truths about human existence is that it is painful. Not always, not to the same degree for all, not always pointlessly. But to live is to experience pain. Despite our culture’s almost pathological fear of pain and the extraordinary lengths...
by Mark Hamilton | Dec 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
Psalm 24 is one of the best known in the Psalter, thanks in part to Handel’s Messiah, which gives us a beautiful choral arrangement of the last few verses. But the majesty of that oratorio can mask an important piece of the psalm, namely, its inquisitive nature...
by Mark Hamilton | Dec 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
There are famous words, and very famous words. Psalm 23 offers the latter. One of the best known and most beloved of all the 150 songs in the Psalter, this one is at once familiar and strange: Strange because it mixes two powerful images (shepherding, or rather...
by Mark Hamilton | Nov 30, 2010 | Uncategorized
Last night, I sat in a piano recital in which my son and seven other college piano majors played some of the most gorgeous pieces ever written (Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and some others). They were intense as they brought together months of work and passion...
