Perrydox.com is devoted to the pursuit of truth, whether plain or paradoxical, whether simple or sublime, or simply absurd yet absolute.
PHall | March 27, 2014
Everyone knows someone with cancer. Hearing the word “cancer” makes us fear the worst. Survival rates vary from the almost hopeless (pancreatic, 6%) to the almost guaranteed (prostate, 99%). Very possibly, many died undiagnosed in darker times, simply wasting away. Modern medicine is making amazing progress. Cancer no longer is an automatic death sentence. Hezekiah […]
PHall | March 19, 2014
Prayer is humbling. If it isn’t, we aren’t doing it right. After giving up on his own false solutions and defenses, Hezekiah turns to God in prayer. First, he asks Isaiah to pray (2 Kings 19.1-4). Isaiah responds with God’s answer of salvation (19.5-6). Then Hezekiah kneels before God Himself and prays (19.14-19). God’s answer […]
PHall | March 13, 2014
Augustine advised, “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” A Chimney Corner Scripture advises, “God helps those who help themselves.” After good and bad works, after praising God, plundering the temple, paying off Sennacherib, seeking an alliance with Egypt, rebuilding the wall, building a water tunnel, asking Isaiah […]
PHall | March 6, 2014
Pinocchio is a beloved story, at least Disney’s version. I doubt many are familiar with the original; Pinocchio kills the nagging cricket with a hammer. Why do we love Disney’s version? It’s a tale of redemption. It is a whale of a tale. Wood I lie to you! Like that fictional morality tale, Jerusalem’s Deliverance […]
PHall | January 28, 2014
Ben-hadad, a pagan, is king of Aram, the enemy of Israel. He gets sick and is told, “The man of God has come here” (2 Kings 8.7). King Ben-hadad tells his servant, Hazael, to “Inquire of the LORD through” Elisha by asking him “Will I recover from this sickness?” (8.8). He also sends a massive […]
PHall | January 23, 2014
Have you have heard the story of missionaries being saved by an angelic band? It takes various forms but they all have similarities: The murderous, native wretches are scared away by a visible – to them only – guard of armed angelic soldiers; while Christians are praying. One story has 26 protectors, another says hundreds. […]
PHall | January 14, 2014
The Bible is filled with unnamed heroes. This nameless woman’s story sounds familiar, but that is how the Bible is inspired. God keeps telling the same stories with different characters. One reason is to show He is the God who controls history, including the written account leading up to Jesus. The comparison of Elisha to […]
PHall | January 7, 2014
God hears our prayers even when we are not praying to Him, even when they are not said to Him. That sounds strange, because who else would we pray to? The Northern Kings are all idolatrous, some worshipping Yahweh through idols; others worshipping strange gods through idols. Ahaziah is the son of the worst, Ahab […]
PHall | January 4, 2014
Everyone wants to stand on top of the mountain of triumph. No one wants to slide down into the valley of depression. But with every mountain, there is a valley. One of God’s greatest prophets, a man equal in the Jewish mind to Moses, one who appears to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, is […]
PHall | January 3, 2014
One of the most famous American droughts was the Dust Bowl from 1931 to 1939. In 2012, 42% of the country experienced severe, extreme or exceptional drought, the largest such percentage since the mid-1950s. The 2002 drought in Colorado brought the lowest water flow that the state had seen in 300 years. The 1988 North […]