We are reminded once more in this Gospel reading of the huge numbers of people who flock to Jesus. Jesus’ fame and popularity are extraordinary, while his mission proceeds at what we might think an incredibly fast pace. There is such need on the part of the people for salvation, no matter the extent of their consciousness as to how Jesus asks to save us all [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Sermon On The Mount | Beatitudes | Jesus Prayer | Rock Of Ages | Doing The Will Of God
Faith, then, is far from being a denial of reality – indeed it is the opposite; it is a meeting with reality, and where we are at our most real. Jesus asks us to be careful that our faith be not a kind of escapism. We are to ask ourselves how we are doing as Christians [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Jesus Prayer | Beatitudes | The Sermon On The Mount | Beware Of False Prophets | Sin And Christian Faith
There is a beautiful lesson in love, which is to test ourselves when we are offering gifts of love to our beloved/s, and this is by imagining that we actually don’t know the person or people to whom we are giving. This way, we can make sure that what we are doing is giving, rather than making an investment and expecting something in return [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Sermon on the Mount | Jesus’ Jewish Mission | Give Not That Which Is Holy Unto The Dogs, Neither Cast Ye Your Pearls Before Swine | Faith
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine. This is difficult text. The dogs, the pigs – these would be terms to describe the non-Jewish, yet in acknowledging this we are aware of Jesus’ ministering to everybody, gathering crowds of disparate people, and enjoining them to coexist peacefully, while he walked in the land of the Gentiles [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Sermon On The Mount | Jesus | Jewish Law | Judge Not | Cast Out The Beam Of Thine Own Eye
Jesus continues to preach the Sermon on the Mount with a further lesson in love and humility. Once more, Jesus teaches us about our proper relationships with God and with other people. This is a lesson against conceit and anger. It is a call to peace, such as can heal the divisions between people [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Peter’s Profession Of Faith | Jesus Announces The Passion | Christ Of God | King James Audio Bible
Today’s Gospel verses invite us once more to consider the true identity of Jesus. This scene is filled both with a sense of preconceptions and expectations, and with the over-riding knowledge of the new, which is the truth of Jesus. Additionally, we are asked by Jesus to declare the truth of our knowledge of who Jesus is. We are invited by Jesus to confess our Christian faith [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Sermon On The Mount | Jesus | Jewish Law And History | Consider The Lilies Of The Field | You Cannot Serve God And Mammon | Seek Ye First The Kingdom Of God
is astonishing to think that very, very few people in the western world do not live in a manmade environment. There may be acres upon acres of farmers’ fields and forests in front of us, and every acre is managed by people, often in situations of great anxiety as they worry about whether they might make some money from their work here. There is little in the way of wilderness remaining in our territories, and each day more is taken away. We may anticipate that, in very little time, all human beings will be living in an obviously man-made environment. It may be that our life on earth will become quite claustrophobic [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Sermon On The Mount | Jesus | Jewish Law | Treasures In Heaven | The Eye Is The Lamp Of The Body
No-one lies on his death bed wishing he’d bought more product – more disposable or semi-disposable consumer trash. It may be that when we are confronted with the thought of owning nothing, we may feel straight away that there are things we treasure, which we hope to hand on to other people. There are beautiful things, indeed of such beauty that we know we don’t finally possess those things – we could not hoard them; they will be passed on to other people, and who knows how many hundreds or thousands of years they might give people pleasure [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Our Father | The Lord’s Prayer | Forgive Us Our Trespasses | Simple Christian Prayer | Petition | Audio KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
In Matthew, Jesus teaches the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, as part of the Discourse on the Mountain, in which we are instructed in the correct ways of practising almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Certain tendencies of the Jewish converts are corrected, particularly a certain ostentation and vacuity in the manner of prayer, giving and fasting to which they were accustomed. When they are praying, Jesus orders his followers not to be like the Gentiles, who heap up long-winded but ultimately empty phrases in the vain and superstitious belief that this will impress God. True piety means looking to God with simplicity of heart and true love through the course of each day. Spoken prayer is good and necessary, but the words only count if they express the truth of our inner feelings [ … ]
Ash Wednesday | Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Giving, Prayer And Penance | Christian Faith | King James Audio Bible | KJV
In these Bible verses, from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives to his people instruction regarding the three traditional works of mercy of the Jews, namely almsgiving, prayer and fasting. A key message is that, when we pray, when we fast and when we give charity, this is not supposed to be because we wish to be seen as pious by other people. Jesus satirizes those hypocrites who wish to be glorified by other people for their fasting, their giving of alms and their prayers. They sound a trumpet in the streets and strike extravagant attitudes in the synagogues. They visibly mortify their bodies and pull dismal expressions. Jesus portrays such hypocrites as ridiculous. Their piety is not to do with their love of God; it is to do with their wish to be seen as ‘pious’ by their fellow man. And such will be their reward [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Love Your Enemies | Neighbours In Christ | Christian Faith | Spiritual Healing | Love Revealed By Jesus
The Sermon on the Mount continues with Christ’s call to reconciliation and forgiveness. Jesus urgently wishes the Jews to be at peace among themselves, and he implores his listeners not to aggravate the Roman oppressors, whose utter brutality in suppressing dissent would indeed ultimately destroy Jerusalem. (We should remember that, prior to AD 70, thousands of Jews could be crucified at just one go to suppress insurrectionary threats.) Just as God’s love is for everyone, so we should see everyone as being our neighbour. This is the truth of the teaching of Levitus (19:18): ‘You shall love your neighbour.’ [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Sermon On The Mount | Jesus | Jewish Law | Eye For Eye, Tooth For Tooth | Turn The Other Cheek | Faith Healing | God Is Love
When we are offended or injured, Jesus teaches us not to demand pay-back, an eye for our eye, a tooth for our tooth, but rather to forgive, and where there was hatred, to bring instead to the situation the opposite of hatred, which is love [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Jewish Law | Sermon On The Mount | Jesus’ Jewish Heritage | Transformation | Christian Faith And Prayer | Swear Not At All
In Jesus’ time, the swearing of oaths was common, and the casuistry surrounding such oaths was intricate. There were what we would now term loopholes – ‘perfectly’ legal ways of doing wrong. The letter of the Law, rather than the spirit, had proliferated – the whole of the Sermon on the Mount concerns this subject – and thereby our knowledge of the will of God had been deliberately obscured [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Sermon On The Mount | Adultery, Fornication And Divorce | Sin | Miracle Healing | Inward Purity | Purity Of Thought
Through these verses of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus directs us to consider and take to heart not the outward show of the Law, the behaviour which other people can see, but rather the inward spirit – our thoughts, our mind, the invisible part of ourselves, which is visible to ourselves and to God [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Jesus’ Teaching | The Fullness Of The Law | Peace And Love In Christian Community | Audio KJV
As we progress through Lent, we listen to Christ’s teaching of the limitations of the Old Law and the complete fulfilment, transcendence and renewal of the Law which Christ, through his life, death and resurrection, gave to us. As St Paul will teach: through the Law, there can be no salvation; salvation is for us through Christ alone [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Fullness Of The Law | Jesus And The Ten Commandments | Jewish Scripture | Audio KJV
It is the Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord has presented the crowd with the Beatitudes. We have been taught to know the gateway to heaven. These are the great Christian truths to which we aspire [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Sermon On The Mount | Salt Of The Earth, Light Of The World | Christian Prayer | Faith | Neighbours In Christ
This is an extraordinary scene. Many, many people are gathered with Jesus to hear his teaching, which is the Sermon on the Mount. The people will not all be friends; there will be different, sectarian groups, and rivalries between them. Some of those gathered to listen to Jesus will be suspicious of others. Nor can the people yet understand what is happening here, just who and what Jesus is. The people have flocked to – see someone, hear someone, someone new and extraordinary, someone perhaps who can answer their needs. Their coming to Jesus is an expression of hope and longing. Who knows what thoughts there must have been as people looked around to see all those others gathered. This is a vast company of strangers [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Sermon On The Mount | Beatitudes | King James Audio Bible | KJV
The Beatitudes form our gateway to the Sermon on the Mount, the first of the great five discourses which are recounted in Matthew’s Gospel, and a beautiful invitation to be with Jesus, a programme by which we may live a Christian life. Moses ascended a mountain to be with God and to bring the Law back to the people. Now Jesus ascends this mountain and draws the people with him, both his disciples and the multitude, and here he reforms and brings new life to the Law, teaching with authority as only he can [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Saturday Week 7 | Follow Me | John Concludes His Gospel
Peter has been instructed by Jesus as to his mission in life, and his destiny. Now he turns to see John approaching, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, who leant on Jesus at the Last Supper, and Peter asks Jesus about what will happen to him in his life. John is the one Apostle who not martyred. According to St Irenaeus, he lived into the reign of Trajan (AD 89-117), and rumours had circulated that John was not to die [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Friday Week 7 | Feed My Sheep | Peter’s Primacy
Jesus has told Peter that he is to be the chief among the Apostles, the primate of the Church. During the Passion, Peter denied Jesus three times. It is perhaps for this reason that Jesus now gives Peter three opportunities to declare his love for him, three times to atone for his triple denial. Each time, Jesus responds with the command to lead the Church: ‘Feed my lambs… Feed my sheep.’ Peter and his successors are to be shepherds of the whole Church, imitating Jesus as Jesus declared himself to be in the parable of the Good Shepherd [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Sunday & Thursday Week 7 | Prayer For Christian Unity | The Priestly Prayer Of Jesus Concludes
Through these Bible verses, Jesus concludes his Priestly Prayer before his disciples. Through his prayer to his Father, Jesus is also saying goodbye to the disciples. He is about to endure his Passion. These words are Jesus’ last testament before he is glorified. Jesus has asked for the Father’s guidance and help for the disciples. They are called to be united in faith as they preach the Gospel and endure the hardships and hostility of the world. Now Jesus extends his prayer to include all Christians to come [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Wednesday Week 7 | They Are Not Of The World | The Priestly Prayer Of Jesus Continues
The Priestly Prayer of Jesus continues. In these Bible verses, Jesus asks his Father to guard the disciples. Jesus says that he himself has kept them safe while he has been with them. Only Judas Iscariot has been lost to him, and this was known in advance by God and foretold in Scripture; the other disciples have been prepared for the betrayal, in order to help them not to lose heart [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Tuesday Week 7 | The Priestly Prayer Of Jesus | Eternal Life In Jesus | Glory
The Priestly Prayer of Jesus concludes the discourse of the Last Supper. Immediately afterwards, Jesus will be arrested, betrayed. Jesus prays to his Father in a very moving way. He offers to the Father the imminent sacrifice of himself, praying that his sacrifice may be acceptable to the Father, that his holy human nature may be glorified. Jesus’ prayer is spoken aloud, so that his disciples and we also may receive his last testament, as Jesus intercedes on our behalf with the Father [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Monday Week 7 | Do You Now Believe? | Christ Overcomes The World
The disciples enthusiastically acknowledge the divinity of Jesus, proved to them in these Bible verses by Jesus’ knowledge of their thoughts, which only God could know. Jesus has indeed spoken plainly to the disciples. Now it may be with some reproachfulness that he asks them: ‘Do ye now believe?’ They have spent such time with Jesus, have witnessed signs and miracles, and now they accept his teachings and express their faith in him [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Saturday Week 6 | Ask And Ye Shall Receive, That Your Joy May Be Full
Jesus continues to prepare his disciples for the joy of his Resurrection and for the mission of the disciples, to evangelize, bringing to people all over the world the good news of Jesus Christ, of our salvation. Because they have believed in Jesus, they may ask what they wish of the Father in the Son’s name. In the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of the miracles worked by the disciples, these the signs and wonders which they are empowered to perform in order to help people to believe [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Friday Week 6 | Rejoice! A Pregnant Woman’s Labour Pains Bring Her Great Joy
In the Old Testament of the Bible, the image of a woman giving birth is often used to express great pain. It is also often used, especially by the prophets, to signify the birth of the new messianic people – see, for example, Isaiah. Jesus recalls both the pain of the Old Testament and the hope and fulfilment expressed through the prophets. The new birth is imminent. Through the sorrow and pain of the crucifixion, we are called to God [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Ascension Of The Lord | We Are Risen Through Jesus Christ
The disciples receive the universal apostolic mandate, commanded by Jesus to take the good news to the whole world, to preach to everyone. This apostolic mission applies to the Church to this day. It applies to the whole Church, laity included. All members of Christ’s body share the Christian vocation to lead others to faith in Christ, to be instruments or vehicles of salvation for others. We are to take the good news to everyone, through our words, through our works, by example [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Wednesday Week 6 | The Holy Spirit Will Come To Glorify Jesus
We have heard Christ’s teachings, the clearest declarations of his divinity as God the Son, and his parables; we have witnessed his signs and miracles; and we have suffered and rejoiced through his death and resurrection. We know too that it is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that we are called to believe, and enabled to do so [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Tuesday Week 6 | Christ Will Send The Holy Spirit | This World Is Judged
Jesus continues to teach his disciples, presenting to them the true meaning of his Passion and crucifixion to come, and also consoling the disciples: Jesus tells his disciples that his imminent death on the cross is necessary; it is through the crucifixion that he returns to the Father, and will then send to the disciples the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Counsellor, the Comforter, to be with them forever [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Monday Week 6 | Action Of The Holy Spirit | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
The disciples who have consistently been with Jesus are charged to bear witness to Jesus. They have been with him from the beginning, have seen his signs and miracles and have heard his teaching, both public and to the disciples alone. In these Bible verses, Jesus continues to prepare the disciples both for the Passion and also for their mission, to bring the gift of Christ to the whole world, and he tells them of the hardships they must then endure, which for all but one of the Apostles, John, will result in martyrdom [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Saturday Week 5 | A Hostile World | Faith And Martyrdom
Through these Bible verses, we are called upon to consider the persecution of Christians. Jesus speaks both of his own time, and of the time of the Apostles, and of time to come, including the present day. The persecution of Christians is a live issue at present in the Middle East, through the intolerance of some people and their leaders. In living memory, we recall the oppression and murder of Christians by totalitarian regimes. As we look back through history, we find so many of our saints are martyrs [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Thursday & Friday Week 5 & Sunday Week 6 | The Law Of Love | The New Commandment
In our Gospel verses this Thursday and Friday, and also Sunday (B), Jesus develops on the parable of the vine and the branches with an injunction for us to be at one with each other, as with Jesus and the Father, through love. The love to which we are called is of a special quality. It is divinely inspired and a reflection of Jesus’ love for us, itself a reflection of the love between the Son and the Father. This is the new commandment [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Sunday Week 5 & Wednesday | Parable Of The Vine And The Branches
In the Old Testament, the chosen people of Israel have been compared to a vine. We may think, for example, of Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7 – Audio Bible Verses Spoken Word), in which God complains that, despite the care he has lavished upon it, his vineyard has only produced wild grapes [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Tuesday Week 5 | Peace I Leave You, Peace I Give You | King James Audio Bible | KJV
In these Bible verses, Jesus begins his farewell to his disciples, and the chapter closes with the words: ‘Rise, let us go hence.’ The natural continuation would then be the verse which opens chapter 18: ‘When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.’ However, Jesus continues to teach his disciples through chapters 15 to 17. We are aware, then, of the rearrangements which seem to have taken place as John composed his Gospel [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Monday Week 5 | Promise Of The Holy Spirit At Pentecost
Chapter 14 of John’s Gospel gives us a beautiful example of the ways in which the disciples learnt from Jesus. There is clear, honest and responsive asking of questions on matters the disciples are confused about, which Jesus readily answers, guiding them as a friend and teacher toward truth and faith. The relationship between Jesus and the disciples is very beautiful, and stands as a guide to how we should understand our own relationship with Jesus. He is our Lord, he is our teacher. He is also our friend [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Saturday Week 4 | Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask In My Name, That Will I Do
We have known the Father through the Son. Indeed, Jesus now tells the disciples that they have actually seen God the Father. This is the vision of faith, and of our knowledge, as Jesus tells us that he is in the Father and the Father in him. The unknowable, in this life to our natural senses, has become a knowable truth of faith [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Friday Week 4 | I Am The Way, The Truth And The Light | In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions
Jesus sees that what he has so far said to the disciples during the Last Supper has left them troubled. His speaking of Peter’s imminent denial must have been especially upsetting. In these verses, Jesus now reassures the disciples. They will come to heaven, just as we all may. ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ No matter our shortcomings, through faith we can find that there is a place in heaven prepared especially for us [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Thursday Week 4 | Know The Father Through The Son | Serve One Another
Jesus speaks of Judas’ treachery. The evil one has for a time been worming his way into Judas’ soul and Judas has given himself up to evil. Judas has ‘lifted up his heel’ against Jesus. The verse suggests a brutal act of violence, and so it is; this is the violent enmity of a friend; it is a terrible betrayal. The verse recalls Psalm 41/40 [ … ]