哈巴谷書 {ha1-ba1-gu3-shu1}Old Testament – Minor Prophets There’s nothing minor about the prophet Habakkuk and nothing inferior about his prophecies. “Minor” is simply a description of the book volume (3 chapters) as compared to the “major” ones such as the Book of Isaiah (66 chapters). A total of 12 Minor Prophet Books including Habakkuk were placed…
Category: Pronounce
Ecclesiastes
傳道書/传道书 {chuan2-dao4-shu1}Old Testament – Wisdom Books Slow down for this: [ih-klee-zi-AS-teez]Or, start with “easy as tees”, then “ecleasy as tees” Ecclesiastes comes from the Greek word, Ἐκκλησιαστής, which translates the Hebrew title of this book, קֹהֶלֶת (qoheleth). All of them mean “the Preacher” or “傳道 {chuan2-dao4}”. Here’s something fun, if you take the first 8 letters from Ἐκκλησιαστής, you get ἐκκλησία,…
Live Like a King
We have established that it’s not all glamor to be a king, especially that of God’s people. Some kings appreciated the magnitude of their responsibility and trusted in God as such. They found their reward in God, in life, and in remembrance as the ones who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord” in…
Tales of Two Kings
Solomon marked a critical turning point in Israel’s history. His reign was celebrated for its enormous wealth, glory, and extravagance. He built the First Temple of God. Sadly, the kingdom split right after his reign. And kings’ names became much less friendly to pronounce. Let’s start with the two kings right after Solomon: his son Rehoboam and his enemy Jeroboam. Rehoboam [ree-uh-BOH-uhm]羅波安 {luo2-bo1-an1}Son of…
Founding Fathers
Once upon a time, God made a promise with one man, a man without any apparent merit; a fallen man like all others; a man doomed to repeat the generations of failure of mankind, yet He promised him anyway. That was the promise of “Stars and Sand“, which testifies that God loves because He is love, and promises…
The Almighty Name
Ask any Chinese believer “Who is the God of Israel?”, and the answer would easily be “耶和華” {ye1-he2-hua2}. No surprises there, as His name can be plainly read from the pages of the Old Testament. But if we ask an English speaker the same question, we might get “Jehovah” or “Yahweh”, yet we can’t find either in…
Know Thy Enemies
Well, maybe not exactly THY enemies, but certainly those of Israel. Even before Israel became a nation, it had plenty of enemies, and things did not get better from there. We of course understand that the presence of enemies by no means implies the absence of blessing or God. Naturally, it serves us well to know…
Nebuchadnezzar II
尼布甲尼撒二世 I know, what a way to start, right? Short and easy are not necessarily memorable. It’s often the strange (Sorry Nebu) that wins our mind. So, let’s break it down:Nebu chad nezzar, as in “NEt-book-cadaver-NEt-razor“尼布甲尼撒 {ni2-bu4-jia3-ni2-sa4} I’ll call him “Nebu” for convenience, no offense. Nebu is mostly famous in the Book of Daniel, being…
1 and 2 Thessalonians
帖撒羅尼迦前/後書{tie3-sa4-luo2-ni2-jia1-qian2/hou4-shu1}New Testament – Epistles Pronounce as [the-suh-LOH-nyuhns],as in “theft-Lisa–LOW-onions“ Thessalonians were people from Thessalonica (current day Thessaloniki). In Acts 17, we see that Apostle Paul and Silas managed to stay in Thessalonica for only about three weeks before being chased out by some jealous locals. In three weeks, they planted a church that later grew so strong…
*iah
In the Old Testament, you can find many books that are named after prophets. Among these prophets, many of their names end with –iah. This is actually quite a common theme in Hebrew names, because -iah originates from a Hebrew word for God’s name, יָהּ (Yah). Their names happen to mean something about God. For example, Jeremiah…