Having graduated from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary early this month, here are a few of the things I’ve gained. This is my second post. They are out of order, except for the last few.
#10
It’s extremely helpful to know Hebrew when it comes to reading peoples’ tattoos.
The other day I glanced down at my new friend’s tattoo. Her name is Camille. Her tattoo looked almost exactly like the one below, except it didn’t have the little vowel dots, known as “vowel pointing.”
It spelled out a three-letter word. S – L – H would be the Anglo equivalents. I thought about what it might mean for, well, I don’t know, probably 3 minutes. Finally those long classes spent poring over Hebrew text came back to me. “Selah,” I said to her. “That’s cool.” She looked at me as if I was some kind of mystic, like I had just read her future. Nope. It was just those handy #seminaryskills.
We talked about Hebrew for a few minutes and about the concept of Selah. It is used in the Psalms as a directive, as a musical term meaning “pause.” That’s a concept we could use in our world, whether or not we’re reading the Psalms.
And hopefully we are reading the Psalms, meditating deeply on them, praying them, taking them to heart, and writing them on our soul.
Try reading through Psalm 8 a few times, slowly. Seriously. Just try it.
ben videtich 