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Daily Bible Verses | The Gospel Of Saint Luke

Parable Of The Prodigal Son | Parables Of Jesus

The parable of the prodigal son is among the most famous of the parables which Jesus teaches us. Indeed the phrase ‘prodigal son’ is familiar to English speakers who might not tend to read the Bible very often if at all. In the parable of the prodigal son, the story Jesus tells is so homely and familiar to our lives, and to our most basic human and family instincts, that even without the deeper meanings as we interpret the parable, it would be powerfully moving to hear as a tale of estrangement and difficulty followed by forgiveness and reconciliation through love [ … ]

Parable Of The Pharisee And The Tax Collector | Parables Of Jesus

This is among the most perfect of the parables to listen to during Lent – indeed, it has resonances that must extent to each and every time we receive the Eucharist. We are simply not worthy. And God’s mercy extends to us nonetheless. The prayer of the Pharisee is false. It is not true prayer. We see him, standing there in the presence of God and congratulating himself, as if he does not need God for his redemption, as if he can redeem himself [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Kingdom Of God And The Kingdom Of Satan | Jesus The Exorcist | Audio KJV

Jesus has performed miracles and his redeeming power over the devils which possess people is clearly apparent; Jesus’ power over evil is manifest. The people marvel, and yet their hearts are hardened to the truth of Jesus. Rather than see with their eyes and understand, they reject the truth of Christ. They retreat to within the evil that holds them captive, which prevents them from seeing the truth of Jesus. They mutter and grumble and gossip, actively seeking to suggest the worst possible and false interpretation of what they have witnessed. They have seen the work of absolute good. They choose to accuse this good of being evil. They do not rise to the message of Christ [ .. ]

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree | Parables Of Jesus | King James Audio Bible | KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ

The Galileans Herod has had killed have not behaved any better or worse than other people; they were not worse sinners than whose to whom Jesus addresses his words. God does not always punish sinners in this life. Accidents and acts of brutality may constitute no particular moral judgement. We are sinners. We stand in need of God’s mercy. We must repent [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Parable Of Lazarus And The Rich Man | Hell And Judgement | Christian Charity | Audio KJV

Jesus speaks in parables when he has something important to communicate. The meaning of a parable may seem obscure or in need of explanation. Jesus does give interpretations of the parables to his disciples. We are encouraged through the parables to see our world in new and perhaps unexpected ways. The parables encourage us to think more deeply about Jesus’ teaching. They are, above all, a challenge – even an anarchic challenge – to everything we think we know [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Sign Of Jonah | Circumcision Of The Heart | God And Mission | True God From True God

The crowds gather to see and to hear Jesus. Among them, as Matthew relates in his Gospel (Matthew 12: 38-42), are the scribes and Pharisees, who ask for a sign from Jesus to prove his divinity. Jesus refuses to confirm his preaching with dramatic signs. It is his teaching Jesus wishes the people to hear. Through seeking to taunt Jesus, and through their unbelief, the scribes and the Pharisees express the hardness of their hearts. Christ is present to them and they refuse to see. Christ is speaking to them and they refuse to hear. Through the Gospel, we have witnessed Christ’s miracles. And we are called to hear his word. ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.’ [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | The Narrow Gate | Christ’s Judgement | King James Audio Bible KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus

Christ’s journey from Galilee to Jerusalem is an ascent, literally, that occupies the central third of Luke’s Gospel. When the journey begins, it is made explicit that this is a journey toward the cross: ‘And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem…’ (Luke 9: 51) Christ’s teachings as he and his disciples travel are cued to the sense of steady, deliberate movement toward the Passion [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Can The Blind Lead The Blind? | Jesus’ Sermon On The Plain | God Is Love | King James Audio Bible | KJV

We are called to self-knowledge by Jesus. It can be strange to realise that we have been looking at life, and other people, through the filter of our own prejudices, our own mental baggage, the accumulation of our individual and less than perfect history. Our experience, good and bad, and the impact of our experience constitute in large measure the glasses, the spectacles, through which we see the world and regard other people [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | The Good Treasure Of Our Hearts | Jesus’ Sermon On The Plain | Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled | God Is Love | King James Audio Bible | KJV

It is as if to say: nothing that we hold in our heart of hearts is secret; nothing that we think is invisible; all that we are exists and is active in our relationships with others. Just as God sees through to the core of our being, so we inevitably share all we are with all other people in our lives, influencing their lives because they are in communion with us [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Love Your Enemies | Jesus’ Christian Way Of Perfection | Sermon On The Plain | God Is Love | King James Audio Bible | The Golden Rule

We learn so much about our true relationship with God and with other people in these Gospel verses. Perhaps we might say rather, we are reminded of so much, because these are Christian truths we have long been taught and have long known, but which often are neglected and forgotten. We are recalled in these Gospel verses to Christian truth [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Beatitudes And The Woes | Sermon On The Plain | Blessed Are Ye | Reward In Heaven | King James Audio Bible KJV | Prayer With Jesus

Up until this point, Luke has told us several times that Jesus taught the people, but he has not told us what Jesus was teaching. This is the first time that Luke in his Gospel shares with us the teachings of Jesus. Jesus gives four blessings, four Beatitudes, and four curses. We are drawn to the heart of Jesus’ teaching, and must sharply reflect on what we are taught here [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Miraculous Catch Of Fish And The Calling Of The First Disciples | Fishers Of Men | King James Audio Bible KJV

Luke’s Gospel places the calling of the first disciples after the fame of Jesus has already spread across the region. Simon Peter listens to Jesus’ words, then he experiences the miraculous catch of fish, and then he throws himself down before Jesus, acknowledging his sins and placing his life in Jesus’ hands. This is Simon Peter’s call. He gives away everything he has to follow Jesus [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | The Purification Of Mary And The Presentation Of Jesus In The Temple | Simeon’s Prophecy | Jesus Was Jewish | Up Family And Faith

The first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke are more than history, as we now understand the term. The narrative captures core truths of the events which took place upon the birth of Jesus. They serve as a mirror in which we discover the meaning of the birth of Jesus and recognize that Jesus came to fulfil the promise of the Old Testament. They reflect the longing of the human heart as we find out about Jesus. To the Christians of Luke’s time, the infancy narrative of Luke’s Gospel offered a lesson in how to persevere in adversity as the Old Law gave way to the New. The attitude of Mary is a model to us all, as we welcome Jesus into our own lives. We marvel just as Joseph and Mary marvelled. Mary’s obedience teaches the way [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Christian Faith | The Baptism Of The Lord | Sin And Prayer | Jesus Is Baptized

Today’s Bible reading celebrates two complementary affirmations of Jesus’ true identity, of Jesus’ divinity. The first is of John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way toward Jesus, teaching people an initial baptism of repentance, with water, such that they might be initially prepared to receive the Lord. The second is of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, the divine affirmation, that of heaven, the Father’s voice visiting Earth and the Spirit descending, as heaven bows to Earth, the Father to acknowledge His beloved Son as His Own [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Jesus Preaches In Nazareth | Jesus Fasts And Reveals Himself | Fulfilment Of Prophecy | Audio KJV Bible | God The Son | The Spirit Of The Lord Is Upon Me

On the Sabbath, the day of rest and prayer, the Jews would gather in synagogues to recite the Shema and the eighteen blessings, which would be followed by readings from the Book of the Law, the Pentateuch, and from the Prophets. In today’s Gospel verses, Jesus has returned home to Nazareth, where, in the synagogue, he volunteers to read [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses Advent & Christmas | The Benedictus | Canticle Of Zechariah

For the first Christian communities, almost all of them Jewish, the Benedictus would have been a song of joy, thanking God for His fulfilment of the promise of ages: God has visited his people and redeemed them. The faith of those early Christians is strong as they look back along the road they have travelled since Abraham, and forward to a time of peace, light, salvation [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses Advent & Christmas | Birth And Circumcision Of John The Baptist | Neighbours In Jesus Christ | Jesus Was Jewish

John the Baptist is born into a small and close-knit community, in which all Elizabeth’s neighbours and family relations rejoice with her at the gift of new life the Lord has bestowed on her. This is clearly a good and healthy community environment, and this will be important to John’s formation, howbeit the people are, as small communities can often be, quite conservative in their ways, such that when Elizabeth tells them the child will be called John, she causes something of a fuss, because this is an unusual thing to do: ‘There is none of thy kindred called by this name,’ her friends complain to her [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses Advent & Christmas | The Visitation | Christian Faith | Jesus Prayer And Happiness | Blessed Mary, Mother Of God

Mary has expressed complete obedience to the angel Gabriel and to the will of God, declaring herself the handmaid of the Lord. Now she shows her love and compassion for her cousin and friend as she travels with haste to visit Elizabeth, who, she has learnt from Gabriel, is miraculously pregnant, despite her age [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses Advent & Christmas | Gabriel Visits Zechariah | The Birth Of John The Baptist Foretold

Elizabeth – Mary’s cousin – and Zechariah are of noble ancestry. They have spiritual nobility also, following in all of the commandments and ordinances of the old Law in such a way that they are righteous before God. Zechariah is a priest, moreover. He serves God in the Temple, at the centre of Jewish society and faith. His son John the Baptist will go out to the wilderness to preach, but his journey starts here [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Prayer And Vigilance | Watch For The Son Of Man | End Times | Kingdom Of God | Jesus Is Coming Soon

Most of the signs Christ describes to his listeners in the eschatological discourse had already been realized by the time Luke’s first audience would have heard his Gospel. There had been, and were, wars, persecutions, family conflict, and Jerusalem with the Temple had been destroyed. The Christians of Luke’s time listening to these Gospel verses, of today and since Tuesday, could then have been encouraged to know that they were very close to Christ’s full revelation, his apocalypse, and so have courage to bear persecutions and other great challenges of the early Church [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | The Lesson Of The Fig Tree | Kingdom Of Heaven | Kingdom Of God | Jesus Christ Is Coming Soon

Just as Jesus’ listeners know how to interpret signs in nature, the trees beginning to bud and shoot new leaves as they come to life in spring, so Jesus tells them that, when they see and experience the upheavals described by Jesus in our Gospel verses of the past few days, they will know that the Kingdom of God is near [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Great Tribulation In Jerusalem | Son Of Man | Apocalypse | Kingdom Of God | Jesus Christ Is Near

The Christians living in Jerusalem wanted no part of the Jewish Rebellion and, remembering Jesus’ prophecy, fled Jerusalem as the Romans advanced. They avoided the slaughter, and for this there arose enmity between Christians and those Jews who adhered to the old Law. There was a parting of the ways. The Jews went to rebuild their religion, led by the Pharisees and along exclusive lines, never more to be centred on Temple worship. The Jewish Christian Church which had been in Jerusalem waned – the Temple had been of great importance to Jerusalem Christians also. Henceforth, the Church would become more and more of the Gentiles [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Persecutions Of Christians | Martyrs For Jesus In The Garden Of Gethsemane | King James Audio Bible | KJV

Jesus teaches us to be bold and to have faith and confidence in the light of persecutions. His listeners are told that, when they are accused, the Spirit will be with them, guiding their words such that they become a living testimony to Jesus. The Christians’ accusers will be unable to answer their words then – the force of their witness will be irresistible [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | The Eschatological Discourse | Destruction Of The Temple | Kingdom Of Heaven | Kingdom Of God

In Luke’s account of the eschatological discourse, the apocalypse – from the Greek for revelation – is clearly envisaged as beginning in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. The natural world is portrayed as being in a state of turmoil, and this reinforces for the listener the impact of what will be – has been by the time of Luke’s writing – a political event.  The Jewish rebellion and the sacking of Jerusalem will be brutal and bloody [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Resurrection Of The Dead And The Sadducees

The Sadducees are explicitly held up for criticism in the Gospels less often than the Pharisees, even though they provided the elite which ran the Temple. This is partly because, with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, the Sadducees were wiped out as a force in Jewish religious life and politics. The Judaism which survived, to regroup and forge a new identity, was that of the Pharisees. Consequently, when there were rivalries between Jews and Christians, it was the Pharisees with whom Christians would find themselves in conflict, and this would colour the memory of earlier times [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Jesus Cleanses The Temple | Towards Advent | Jesus Christ Is Love | God Is Love

One thing that emerges here is how understanding of Christ’s meaning develops and matures with time and through recollection. The people have flocked to hear Jesus’ teaching, and in Jerusalem he has a very attentive audience – of ‘all’ the people. Jesus continues, however, to speak in a veiled way, his parables deliberately concealing a part of his meaning, relating to his own divinity, to his accomplishing the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, and the great self-sacrifice to expiate our sins he is called to make [ … ]

Daily Bible Verses | Jesus Weeps Over Jerusalem | That Jesus Wept Meaning He Prayed For The Loss And The Futility | King James Audio Bible KJV

Jesus is so very sorry for a city and a people he loves that he must weep at the sight of Jerusalem. Here is the centre of Jewish faith, while the Jews are the people to whom he has directed most of his teaching, and they are the first chosen people of God [ … ]

Parable Of The Pounds (Talents) | Parables Of Jesus | Kingdom Of Heaven | Kingdom Of God

Jesus’ listeners continue to think that Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem there to inaugurate an earthly, political Kingdom of God, to expel the Roman power and restore an only ever briefly realized independent nation state in the Promised Land. Jesus speaks this parable, which is similar to the parable of the talents, in order to teach his disciples that they are not very soon to see an instant transformation in the world and that they have a lot of work to do. Their calling is not to be to lord it over others; it is to serve and do the utmost with the gifts they have received through walking with Jesus, to magnify the faith and preach the Gospel to the whole world [ … ]

Parable Of The Unjust Judge | Parables Of Jesus | King James Audio Bible KJV | Powerful Prayer With Jesus

Jesus teaches his listeners the parable of the unjust judge in order to affirm for them the efficacy of prayer. If even this unrighteous judge will grant the widow’s request, he tells us, how much more will God vindicate his elect, and speedily. We are called upon by Jesus to live a life of prayer – to express and to strengthen our faith through prayer and to channel our ever enriched faith into further prayer. This is the way to orient our lives to God [ … ]

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