Proverbs 12:18, “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” As those created in the image of the one who creates reality by His word, our words also have real power to alter what is around us….especially regarding the internal world of others. […]
John 4:14, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirst again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The one who drinks the water that Jesus freely gives—the water who is the Holy Spirit,
John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome [comprehended] it.” An interpretive question we must ask when we come to this passage is what we understand “κατέλαβεν” (translated either “overcome” or “comprehend”) to mean. The word appears again in John’s gospel only in 12:35 where the meaning seems to
Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Test me and know my anxious thoughts! See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” If we have known God in Christ by the Spirit, we will not try to “hide” any aspect of our life
Exodus 33:20, “…man shall not see me and live.” When Moses asks to see YHWH’s glory on Mount Sinai, the Lord responds by telling Moses that he cannot see His face, since to see the face of God means death for a sinful human. However, John tells us that—with the incarnation of the self-declaring Word
Luke 11:34, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.” “Eye” here means something like “perspective” or “mindset” or “way of perceiving and assigning value to the world.” Jesus is
John 19:14, “Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover.” John mentions no account of Jesus’ Last Supper with His disciples. He does, of course, recount a lengthy discourse Jesus had with His disciples at a supper (13:1-2), but we never get a traditional account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper
Philippians 4:8-9, “Finally brothers, as much as is true, as much as is honorable, as much as is just, as much as is pure, as much as is lovely, as much as is admirable, if anything is virtuous and if anything is praise worthy, think on these things. And that which you have learned
John 20:27-28, “[Jesus] said to Thomas…’see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” Sometimes we read this passage and think that Jesus presents His wounds to Thomas as proof that He really has been raised from
Romans 3:21, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.” The Law leaves us on the the “outside,” as it were, of God’s righteousness….It sets up a temporary veil of ordinances that preserves God’s people from destruction, but simultaneously bears
Isaiah 2:2, “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of YHWH shall be established as the highest of the mountains…and the nations shall flow to it.” John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Jesus is
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Psalm 97:9, “For you, O YHWH, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted for above all gods.” YHWH is exalted above all other gods, and we see this most clearly when YHWH incarnate is lifted up (exalted) as the wrath absorbing sacrifice for His people. The bloody wood of the cross
1 Corinthians 2:10, “…even the depths of God.” The phrase, “these things” 1 Corinthians 2:10 refers to the wisdom of God, given by God, through which God is known and the soul is saved, namely, the wisdom of God revealed in the redemptive work of the crucified Christ. The crucified Christ as wisdom and power,
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Job 1:21, “the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” I started reading Job this morning and was freshly struck by the words of Job 1:21…scripture is often like a mold, forged by God, into which He invites us to pour the molten anguish of
John 17:11, “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” In 17:6 Christ says that He has manifested the Father’s Name to those whom the Father has given Him. Now in verse 11 He asks that those same ones
John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3 is one of the most paradigmatic verses for me in all of scripture….it overflows with implications for all of life and informs pretty much everything I do and create…So with
Romans 6:3-4, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in
Song of Songs 8:6, “…love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.” During the “poetry” section of my morning readings, I’m working through Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs, which I like better). There’s long been debate on
Romans 3:26, “…it was to show God’s righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” In reading through Romans 3 this morning I was once again struck by how Paul emphasizes what the cross tells us about GOD as
Hebrews 2:9, “…we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor BECAUSE OF the suffering of death…” And if the death of God the Son has been turned to the crown of His honor, what suffering will not be made to serve
