[Mad Dawg]

So now that I'm established as a nit-picker, let me pick this nit:

How many tenses are there in Aramaic? How easily can one make tense interpretations beyond the reach of cavil or dispute?

To me one of the charms of Hebrew is that it gets away with only two clearly distinct tense forms. So when I read, say, the Beatitudes I feel time kind of smooshing together. The distinctions between and among "already" realized eschatology, "not yet" delayed eschatology, "partially already/partially not yet proleptic eschatology" seem to waver before my eyes.

Just as being powerful sometimes looks like an infant or a crucified man, so also being blessed brings persecutions with it, so is not exactly what we had in mind when we saw "Makarioi" the first time. "Blessed" today might look like what a lot of people call "cursed".

And I will be cursed if I don't buy food for the various critters who rely on me.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your testimony and insights!

Truly though, a blessing cannot be measured as comfort; the ones most honored in the "hall of faith" passage of Hebrews 11 are not the ones who were miraculously rescued or comforted (emphasis mine):

And others had trial of [cruel] mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and [in] mountains, and [in] dens and caves of the earth. - Hebrews 11:36-38

Count it all joy! To live is Christ, to die is gain!

The first shall be last and the last shall be first.