Perrydox.com is devoted to the pursuit of truth, whether plain or paradoxical, whether simple or sublime, or simply absurd yet absolute.
PHall | December 17, 2014
If you knew death was quickly approaching, how would you spend your last days? Nehemiah has served as governor for 12 years (Nehemiah 1.1; 5.14; 13.6). The last chapter of this topical biography is saying good bye to its readers; and sounds like what a good last few days should be: filled with corrections, reflections […]
PHall | December 15, 2014
Have you prayed the Bible? Have you taken entire books or significant sections as an outline for your prayer? This is amazingly what we see the Levites doing in Nehemiah 9. They had just “read from the book of the law of the LORD their God for a fourth of the day and spent another […]
PHall | December 2, 2014
Opening our Bibles to Nehemiah 8 shows us that the Jews were opening their “Bibles” (8.1). The result is a revival. “Revival” is used today to describe an event instead of a result. Churches have “revivals” with no revivals. One curmudgeon suggested we shouldn’t call these special meetings “revivals” because a church can’t be revived […]
PHall | November 19, 2014
My High School English teacher often said of commas, “When in doubt, leave it out.” She didn’t realize she was also affirming a great hermeneutical principle to apply to Biblical authority. When members of the remnant tried to prove their priesthood, “These searched for their entries in the genealogical records, but they could not be […]
PHall | November 19, 2014
My friend, an ex-Satanist to whom I had taught Jesus, returned to his former master and threatened to cut off my head. For some of God’s servants, such threats are carried out. For Nehemiah, such terrorization comes through a death threat delivered by a “friend.” This threat comes under the veil of holiness and pomposity […]
PHall | November 13, 2014
Great leaders attract great enemies and are attacked by great means. One of America’s great leaders was Martin Luther King, leading a great cause of equality among the races. Studying history we learn he attracted great enemies such as J. Edgar Hoover, who stooped to blackmail to discredit and stop him. That was not the […]
PHall | November 6, 2014
Pardon me for this political rant, but this tirade crosses political parties. No doubt this diatribe is not only cross-cultural, but cross-national. There is a story that when Leonid Brezhnev became Premier of the Soviet Union, he showed his mother the lavish palace which now served as his home. She asked, “Do the Communists know […]
PHall | November 5, 2014
To whom should God’s people show more care? Should believers show equal care to believers and unbelievers? What about more to those outside the faith, evangelistically? Nehemiah 5.1-13 describes the disloyal treatment of Jews to Jews during the reconstruction of the city’s wall. Looking outward at the enemies, the remnant protected one another (4.6-23). Looking […]
PHall | October 29, 2014
That they prayed is recorded. What they prayed is not. Watching them work with tools and weapons in hand, leads us to an obvious conclusion. Unrelentingly, the enemy is furiously plotting against God’s people. Their goal is to fight against, and throw Jerusalem into confusion (Nehemiah 4.8). Under Nehemiah’s leadership “we prayed and stationed a […]
PHall | October 28, 2014
Not everyone wants others to succeed. Some wish and work for the failure of others for no good reason, maybe even for no reason at all. They are unreasonable in their reasoning. Sadly, they look at the achievement of others as indicative of their own personal failures. Evilly, they are envious of accomplishment. What should […]