It is a striking moment. Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, has come to visit Jesus. He does so secretly, by night, his whole reputation at risk. He must not be seen to be associating with Jesus, and yet he is compelled to seek Jesus and to ask him the questions he has. Nicodemus acknowledges Jesus as a teacher and master: Rabbi. He knows that Jesus’ teaching is truth and needs to speak with him more. Nicodemus would know every word of the teachings of Moses and the Old Testament [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Sunday Week 2 | Divine Mercy | Jesus To The Disciples | Doubting Thomas | King James Audio Bible KJV
Jesus visits the disciples, where they meet in a locked house, to bring them faith and reassurance, and to entrust them with their evangelical mission to spread the good news about Christ throughout the world. Christ’s is now a glorified body. A locked door is no obstacle to him. He is no longer bound by the limitations of space and time. In Luke’s Gospel, we are told how the disciples are, understandably, frightened by the appearance of Jesus. They think he must be a spirit. Now, to reassure the disciples and help them to know the truth of his resurrection, Jesus offers his body to them. This, he lets them see, is Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and, as he promised, has risen from the dead [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Saturday Week 1 | Easter Saturday | Jesus Helps His Disciples To Believe | The Resurrection | King James Audio Bible | KJV
In his brief, summary account of Jesus’ appearances following his crucifixion and resurrection, Mark stresses the disciples’ disbelief and their reluctance to accept the fact of the resurrection. Mary Magdalene first tries to share the good news. The disciples do not believe her. The two disciples, who are probably the two who meet Jesus on the way to Emmaus (cf. Luke 24: 13-35), are similarly not believed when they tell of what they have witnessed. Finally, Jesus appears to the eleven apostles, upbraiding them for their lack of belief, before he goes on to command them to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation. The question of belief is closely tied to the mission to evangelize given to the apostles [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Easter Friday | The Miraculous Catch Of Fish | Jesus Appears To His Disciples In Galilee
This is an amazing encounter! The disciples have returned to Galilee, where their story with Jesus began. It was natural for them to return home, while awaiting further instruction from Jesus. It is natural also for the disciples to wish to engage in their old and familiar work. It seems a typically spontaneous gesture of Simon Peter when he declares: ‘I am going fishing!’ Things have changed, though. Through their time with Jesus, the lives of the disciples have changed [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Easter Thursday | Jesus Appears To His Disciples In Jerusalem
The disciples who encountered Jesus on their way to Emmaus have returned in haste to tell the disciples in Jerusalem what they have heard and seen. Jerusalem has long been a city special to God. It is the Holy City. The Church of Christ is described, in the New Testament, as the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the new Jerusalem [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Wednesday Week 1 | Easter Wednesday | The Road To Emmaus | Jesus Walks Beside Us | King James Audio Bible
This is a dark time, and, as Luke writes his Gospel, it is a dark time for the Christian communities. Jesus has been crucified. Well then, so the logic of the Old Law states, Jesus could not possibly have been the Messiah. Except he was. Luke writes primarily for the communities of Greece, mostly pagan converts. There has been the great persecution of Nero. Jerusalem has been destroyed in the year 70 by the Romans [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter Season To Pentecost | Tuesday Week 1 | Jesus Appears To Mary Magdalene | King James Audio Bible
Mary Magdalene, out of whom seven demons were cast, has remained faithful to Jesus, providing for him through his ministry and staying with him through his death on the cross. Now, while the disciples go back to their homes, Mary remains by the tomb, weeping for Jesus. Her love and sensitivity have led her to be greatly concerned about Jesus. She longs to take care of his body [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Easter/Pentecost | Monday Week 1 | Easter Monday | Jesus Meets Mary and Mary | Chief Priests Bribe The Soldiers To Lie
In Matthew’s Gospel, the truth of Christ’s victory over death is told in an apocalyptic language, laden with symbolic meaning. There is a great earthquake, the angel descends from heaven to roll back the stone of Christ’s tomb, his appearance like lightning, his clothing white as snow. The guards are terrified, becoming like dead men, and the angel announces to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, mother of James, that Christ is risen, that they must go and share the good news with Jesus’ disciples [ … ]
Jesus Washes The Disciples’ Feet | The Last Supper | Holy Week | Holy Thursday | Christian Faith | Love | Be Clean From Sin | Washed Pure By God | The Devil Satan
John speaks of the Last Supper in a different way from the Synoptic Gospels. He omits, for example, the institution of the Eucharist, because the other Gospels and Paul have already spoken of this in their accounts of the Last Supper. Through chapters thirteen to seventeen, John gives an extensive account of Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper, in which Jesus builds on his teachings so far and leads his disciples to a greater understanding of the love that they must share and of the way ahead [ … ]
Treachery Of Judas | Disciples’ Desertion Foretold | Tuesday Of Holy Week | King James Audio Bible
This is the third day of Holy Week. Through these verses of John’s Gospel, Jesus experiences great emotion, great sorrow, as he prepares for his betrayal and passion. He has given everything to Judas. He has washed his feet along with those of the other disciples. He shares an intimate and important meal with him. Judas has been one of the closest with Jesus for three years. Even now he shows compassion and does not name his betrayer to the other disciples. Instead he says: ‘One of you shall betray me.’ [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Sanhedrin Plot Christ’s Death | Jesus | Jewish Passover Preparations | Fear Of The Romans | Pharisees | Christian Faith | Audio KJV
Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the seventh sign, or miracle, of John’s Gospel. We know more through this sign of our own resurrection. Jesus has power over death. Jesus is life and he gives us life [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | An Attempt To Stone Jesus | Jewish Law And Blasphemy | God The Son
It is a tragedy that, as we approach Holy Week, the divisions between Jesus and his people the Jews become sharper, and what is more, that the Jews – a generic term in John’s Gospel for those Jewish people who have rejected Jesus Christ – seek to condemn Jesus in the name of God. By invoking the name of God, they are in fact rejecting Him. We see the Jews placing themselves in an impossible position. Nonetheless, Jesus patiently continues to reason with them, asking them to see and to believe [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Before Abraham Was, I Am | Divinity Of Jesus | God The Son
The more we love God, the better we come to know him. Jesus continues to assert his knowledge of the Father, and too his eternal coexistence with the Father from before all time [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Truth Will Set You Free | Jesus Teaches To The Jewish | Sin And God | Prayer, Faith
We are asked to consider the truth about ourselves and to consider the truth of freedom: what does it really mean for us to be free? [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Woman Taken In Adultery | He That Is Without Sin, Let Him First Cast A Stone
Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives on a number of occasions to pray. It is good for us now to witness Jesus praying. When we pray, we pray with Jesus and according to his example [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Different Opinions About Jesus | Temple Authorities – Scribes, Pharisees | Jesus Christ
There are people now who choose to think of Jesus simply as an extraordinary man, a wise man and a performer of miracles, and not as our saviour the Son of God. There were and are those who think of Jesus as a great prophet, whose mission was to reject Jewish sectarianism, and insurrection, and unite the Jewish people, to enable them to survive the Roman occupation while being true to God, to maintain the Kingdom in their hearts despite the presence of the occupying pagan and Gentile power [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Jesus In Jerusalem | The Feast Of Tabernacles | Jesus And Temple Judaism | Jesus Is The Christ
John’s teaching of the journeys Jesus makes is more complete than the other Gospels. According to the other Gospels, Jesus travels only once to Jerusalem, when he goes to be crucified. According to John, Jesus travels at least two or three times to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. This gives us the approximation of the duration of Jesus’ public life as being three years [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Jesus Christ The Son Of God | Bearing Witness | Scripture, Signs And Miracles | Audio KJV | Faith
The Jews – often in the Gospel of John a generic term for those who reject Christ, or those who are so muddled, contentious and sectarian among themselves that they threaten the continuity of themselves in the Law – do not reject Jesus for any good reason. They do so rather because they cling to what precious little they have, within their prison walls, and so they deliberately blind themselves to the universal, and universalizing, truth which Christ brings. Jesus knows this. Nevertheless, through justice, he must give to the Jews this additional opportunity to listen to his teaching and recognize the truth of who he is. We may imagine that Jesus is truly desperate for the people of God to put aside their differences and truly be with God [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Authority Of The Son of God | God The Father / God The Son As One | Jesus Is God | Audio KJV | The Christ
Jesus explains certain aspects of the truth of his relationship with his Father. He explains that he is consubstantial with the Father. He is not created as we are; he is the Son; he has life in himself. On earth, Jesus is the mirror of the Father. It is through Christ that we may approach God. God the Father and God the Son share one being. The Father and the Son are equal [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Jesus Heals A Paralyzed Man | The Angel And Waters Of The Pool | Faith Healing | Sabbath
The Church Fathers teach that the pool by which the sick people wait is a symbol of baptism. It is striking to consider that, for the paralyzed man, there is healing to be found here, and too that the mode of healing at this pool is generally capricious and not available for all. We are made aware through this passage of the Bible that our healing through Jesus is for all [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Jesus Heals An Official’s Son | Faith Healing | Jesus’ Miracles | Audio KJV | God’s Mercy
The official who approaches Jesus would have been a man of high rank, living in Capernaum, which was a town with a customs post. He comes to Jesus with faith, and yet his faith is, to begin with, imperfect. The official thinks that Jesus must come to his house, a journey of twenty miles, to heal his son. Jesus tells him that, through the faith he has shown, his son is already healed [ … ]
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 Greatest Commandment | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ | Love Your Neighbour As You Love Yourself | Kingdom Of God
Jesus has discussed the resurrection of the dead with those who question him. He has spoken truly and in accordance with the Old Testament teachings of the Bible. The scribe who now asks Jesus his question is clearly a just man; he is not seeking to test Jesus but rather to learn from him and discover the truth. Jesus sees this and makes time to speak to the scribe quite plainly. The scribe accepts what Jesus has to say and we hear of Jesus’ message sinking into his heart [ … ]
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 [ .. ]
Prayers To Saint Gabriel The Archangel | Love Revealed Of Jesus Christ | Christian Prayer With Advent | Annunciation Of The Lord
The Archangel Gabriel is prominently featured in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Gabriel’s first appearance is in the Gospel of Luke, where he appears to Zechariah to announce the birth of his son, John the Baptist. Zechariah questions the angel, and Gabriel responds with the famous words, ‘And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.’ (Luke 1:19) [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Synagogue In Nazareth | Christ Preaches Isaiah | Jesus And The Prophets | Audio KJV
Christ has come to Nazareth, where he was brought up, and on the Sabbath day has entered the synagogue. He has been given the book of Isaiah to read. The passage he chooses is this (Isaiah 61) [ … ]
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 [ … ]
Parable Of The Wicked Tenants | Parables Of Jesus | Parables Of The Kingdom | Daily Verses Lent | KJV Audio
Jesus offers the parable of the wicked tenants as part of a larger discourse in which he responds, in the Temple, to the challenge of the scribes and the elders of the people concerning his authority. The parable leads the entrenched Jewish authorities to see the truth for themselves and yet still to reject the truth about themselves. Though their lives could have been enlightened by the parable, they refuse conversion and rather seek to arrest Jesus. They have the option to choose good; they choose evil [ … ]
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 [ … ]
The Temple | Jerusalem | Judaism | Jesus | First / Second Temple Judaism | Solomon | Herod | Destruction | Jesus | God
Second Temple Judaism refers to the religious and cultural practices of the Jewish people during the Second Temple period, which lasted from the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 516 BCE until its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. During this time, Judaism was marked by the development of various religious movements and the emergence of important religious figures such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Judge Not And You Will Not Be Judged | Christian Faith | Forgiveness | Audio KJV | Jesus
We are called once more by Jesus to seek perfection as our acts of mercy imitate, insofar as we are able, the mercy of God. We are taught again of the inseparability of our relationship with each other in the body of Christ, in the brotherhood of man, and of our relationship with God [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Effectiveness Of Prayer | The Golden Rule | Christian Faith And Charity | Audio KJV | Love In Jesus
Our prayer must be true to God. It is natural to petition God for what we need. It would indeed be arrogant to ‘go it alone’ and not humbly to share with God our needs and to ask Him for help, as if He were not our Father and we His children and creation. We are called by Jesus to acknowledge that all we have, we have through God. And we are called to develop our conversation with God through a life of prayer [ … ]
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 For Lent | Judgement Day | The Son Of Man Shall Come In Glory | Thirsty, Naked, Sick : Healed, Clothed | Saved In Jesus | Son Of Man
The parables which comprise the eschatological discourse – following the Sermon in the Temple and, on the Mount of Olives, to Christ’s disciples privately – are completed with Christ’s announcement of a rigorous last judgement. The structure of time will be complete. Those who have been true to Christ and his teaching will be admitted to glory. Those who have failed, who have remained in sin, will be forever excluded. There will be justice. Just as we will have implicitly judged ourselves, so Christ will judge [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Christ Is Tempted By Satan | The Devil | Christ Begins His Ministry | Angels | Christian Love | King James Audio Bible | KJV
The temptations of Christ in the wilderness follow immediately upon his baptism by John, the descent of the Spirit upon him and the declaration of Christ as the Son of God. Jesus has offered himself to perform what is now our first act of Christian initiation, to be baptized. When we are baptized, we are born again in Christ, and we recall the rite practised by John as we imitate Christ. As we embark upon Lent, once more following Christ’s example, we are called to renew our baptismal promises through the acts of penitence we make, once more following Christ’s example [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | The Calling Of Levi (Matthew) | A Feast For Sinners | Pharisees, Publicans, Jesus | Prayer, Faith | KJV
It was a sin for Levi to collect taxes for the occupying Roman power. His company would be anathema to the Jews. In calling Levi, in giving him a vocation, Jesus is calling a sinner to leave behind his former self to follow him [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Lent | Shall The Children Fast? | Christian Faith | Christ’s Church | Jesus Christ The Bridegroom | Audio KJV
Many of the Jews of Christ’s time, including the disciples of John the Baptist, followed complicated rituals of fasting and purification, elaborated to the point where they could obscure genuine piety. It is noted that the followers of Christ do not follow such rituals. This must have seemed particularly strange to the followers of John. After all, John foretold Christ’s coming and saw that he was the Messiah as he began his ministry. Later, John’s uncertainty is such that he will send from prison to ask Christ if he is indeed the one who is to come. The reality of Christ present and the manner of his ministry must have been confusing and troubling to the Jews [ … ]