No-shave-November has officially begun! (I do not plan for it to last long. It already itches so badly.)

Psalm 133:1-2 says “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down the collar on the robes.”

Augustine commenting on this verse said: “The beard signifies the courageous; the beard distinguishes the grown men, the earnest, the active, the vigourous. So that when we describe such, we say, he is a bearded man.”

As a great friend and brother just reminded me– “Beards are more serious than no-shave November, my friend.”

Yes, they are!

This past Sunday I preached on the last passage in Luke 8. The passage that has Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter and also healing the woman who was bleeding. You can hear the sermon here.

In verses 54-55, Dr. Luke writes “But taking her by the hand he called, saying, ‘child, arise.’ And her spirit returned, and she got up at once.”

The idea and the details of ‘her spirit returned’ are fascinating and glorious. Think about that for a bit!

Commenting on this statement, Matthew Henry said:

“This proves that our souls exist and act in a state of separation from the body, and therefore are immortal, that death does not extinguish the candle of the Lord, but takes it out of  a dark lantern. It is not, as Grotius observes, the temperament of the body, or anything that dies with it; but something that subsists by itself, which, after death, is somewhere else than where the body is. Where the soul of the child was in the interval we are not told. It was in the hand of the Father of spirits, to whom all souls at death return.”