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 | Jesus Walks On Water | Jesus Stills The Contrary Wind | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Immediately following the feeding of the 5000, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, Jesus tells his disciples to get into a boat, so that they may get away from the multitude, while Jesus himself remains to disperse the multitude, and then to go alone into the hills, to a mountain, to pray [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | First Miracle Of The Loaves And Fishes | A Multitude In A Lonely Place | Jesus Teaching
Jesus has invited the disciples to come away with him to find a lonely place, where they might rest. The pressures of the apostolic ministry have been so great, there has not been time even to eat. Jesus and the apostles have gone away from the crowds in a boat, but the people have seen them leave and have run ahead to find them, arriving at the place before Jesus does. Jesus, then, changes his plans. The rest period is not to be. Jesus feels compassion for the spiritual needs of the people. They need the teaching Jesus is able to give to them. They are as sheep without a shepherd. This need is paramount [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Jesus Begins To Preach | The Kingdom Of Heaven Is At Hand | Christmas Gospel Readings
Jesus’ public ministry begins as John the Baptist’s concludes, John being imprisoned by Herod for speaking out against the immorality of Herod’s sexual relationship with his brother’s wife. Mission comes with danger, and John the Baptist was not afraid. Nor now is Jesus. Indeed, Jesus begins to preach with the very same words with which John had warned the people to beware of their sins: Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Follow Me! | Philip And Nathaniel Are Called | Jesus’ First Disciples | The Apostles | Christmas Octave
Today, Jesus has decided to walk to Galilee. There is a wonderful sense of lively movement as Jesus moves from place to place during his ministry, as one rounding up the sheep of Israel. Jesus finds Philip and he gives Philip his vocation, saying to him: Follow me. Through Jesus’ lifetime, we read in the Bible of great crowds flocking to Jesus, and of great processional events, as well as the constant travelling with Jesus of his closest companions. There is movement, direction, purposiveness, through which the disciples grow closer and closer to Jesus, their living faith always developing as Jesus fits them to become shepherds of men [ … ]
Solemnity Of Mary, The Mother Of God | The Shepherds Find Jesus, Mary And Joseph | Christmas Octave
We discover in these verses of the Bible two distinct and complementary impulses which are at work in our relationship with God, exemplified by the shepherds and by Mary [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Advent & Christmas | In The Beginning Was The Word | Christmas Day | Christmas Octave | Saint John’s Gospel KJV
The opening passages of John’s Gospel affirm key, central truths concerning the nature of Christ. He is the Word, the perfect, ideal and original Word giving meaning and life to all utterance. We sense here the influence of classical Hellenic philosophy on the developing understanding of Christ through the first century. And, from the very first verses of his Gospel, John affirms the divinity of Christ. Christ is with God, the Father, and he is God. God the Father and God the Son are distinct and too of one being; they are consubstantial [ … ]
Who Were The Different Kings Herod? | Bible Stories Disentangled
King James Audio Bible | KJV | King James Version King Herod There were several individuals named Herod who played significant roles in ancient history, particularly in the history of [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Feast Of Saint John, Apostle & Evangelist | The Beloved Disciple | Christmas
Today’s Bible reading from the Gospel of St John speaks of the beloved disciple, and from earliest times we have identified this disciple with John. It is strange, however, that this identification is not made in the Gospel. It may be that in so readily equating the beloved disciple with John, we miss out on an important truth of the Gospel, which is that we are all beloved disciples – this title is not that of John only; it is open to us all [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Feast Of Saint Stephen | King James Audio Bible KJV | Advent And Christmas
There is an extraordinary contrast between yesterday’s celebration of the birth of Jesus, and today’s of the first Christian martyr, Stephen, stoned to death because he had to the courage to believe in Jesus, and would not be cowed into silence by the repressive actions of the Jewish authorities [ … ]
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 Advent & Christmas | Genealogy Of Jesus | Matthew’s Gospel
Christ is to be saviour of all mankind, in accordance with the promise to Abraham, and he is to bring an everlasting kingdom to the Jewish people, as prophesized to King David. He is identified right at the start of Matthew’s Gospel as the son of David and the son of Abraham. From one perspective, the genealogy then presented confirms these truths and roots Christ in a line that is itself a record of salvation history, which in the birth of the Son of God reaches its climax [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses For Advent | Christian Faith | Prayer | Jesus Teaching in the Temple | By What Authority? | King James Audio Bible KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Today’s verses hold a message for those early Christians of the time when the Gospel was being written. Those Christians faced persecution at the hands of the Roman authority. It would have been reassuring for them to hear of how Jesus challenged authority, helping them to find the courage to keep their faith [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses Advent & Christmas | Elijah As John The Baptist | Christian Social Justice | Kingdom Of God
The disciples Peter, James and John have just witnessed the Transfiguration on the mountain. They have seen the glorified Christ, and now they are puzzled, because they have been taught that Elijah would come before the Messiah. These are the verses from the prophet Malachi, which are the last words of the Old Testament:
Daily Bible For Advent | First Sunday of Advent | Mark’s Gospel | True Faith | Christians Be With Jesus | Prayer | Let Us Watch
Our first Sunday Bible reading for advent picks up on themes from previous weeks. This now is Mark’s recording of the Sermon in the Temple, and we have here too, at the conclusion of the sermon, a declaration of Christ’s coming, of the parousia, of Christ the King. One key message remains: Beware, keep alert, watch; no one knows when this moment of full revelation will be save the Father. Meanwhile, in this present world, live wholly with Jesus [ … ]
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 Passion | Jesus Christ Before Pilate | Christ The King | Kingdom Of God
It is the time of the Passion. Jesus has been arrested and the Jewish leaders have asked Pilate to judge Jesus and order him put to death. Pilate now speaks with Jesus. Jesus’ life is in Pilate’s hands. The lives of all the people in the world are in Jesus’ hands – the crucifixion must happen; the figure of Christ on the cross, which has towered over the Gospels, must be realised, the sign of our redemption and the sign of truth [ .. ]
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 | Conversion Of Zacchaeus | King James Audio Bible KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
In Jericho, we approach the end of Jesus’ journey. It was in Jericho that the long road of exodus of forty years in the desert ended. For Jesus and his fellow pilgrims, this is the last stage before the ascent to Jerusalem. Jesus’ mission on Earth is soon to be complete [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Apocalypse | Coming Of The Son Of Man | Kingdom Of Heaven | Kingdom Of God | Eschatological Christian Faith | Parousia
Mark’s account of Christ’s eschatological discourse reaches its climax with an apocalyptic vision and Christ’s announcement of the imminence of the parousia, the second coming of Christ, who is now called, following Daniel, the Son of man [ … ]
Healing Prayer | Jesus God And Man | Jesus’ Prayer | Our Gethsemane | Spiritual Healing | God The Father, God The Son
As Jesus offers prayer to God the Father we may find ourselves trying to fathom just what it might mean for Jesus to have been God incarnate, God the Son humbling himself to be born human [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Scribes And The Poor Widow’s Mite | Jesus In The Temple
In Jerusalem, in the Temple, Jesus continues to teach his disciples, and to correct their understanding of what is truly of value in God’s eyes. The disciples continue to think in very worldly and material ways; they are still the same men who, on the occasion of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, asked the Lord: ‘Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?’ It seemed a lot of money to spend [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Bartimaeus, The Blind Man Of Jericho | King James Version | Audio Bible
The blind man, Bartimaeus, hears the noise of Christ’s passing and has to ask to find out what is happening. The clamour of the crowds following Jesus must have been striking and intense. This is a great, jubilant procession. Christ is passing by and too he is leading the way for us [ … ]
Psalm 91 KJV | Nunc Dimittis | Night Prayer
Let us bless ourselves as we seek refuge in the night’s sleep, our day’s labour done. Let us be be safe in Jesus. Let us pray. May our prayer come to God.
It is perfectly done to accompany a reading of this psalm (91/90) with a recital of the nunc dimittis, and indeed fully to pray compline – the night prayer.
Such prayer lends itself to peace and silence – a restful sleep [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Sign Of The Times | Prince Of Peace | King James Audio Bible | KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
The crowd listening to Jesus know how to ‘read’ nature in order to predict the weather. They are accustomed to this level of being and recognize the signs there. The crowds’ prescience stops at this level, however, the level of practical, everyday matters, and does not extend to a deeper contemplation and understanding of the spiritual reality with which Christ confronts them [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | A Life of Humility and Service | Is It Lawful For A Man To Put Away His Wife? | Jesus’ Teachings On Love
Jesus has told his disciples about the Passion to come for the third time, as they journey to Jerusalem, and still this grizzly series of events, of mockery, scourging and death, is quite beyond the disciples’ comprehension. It is a great testimony to the apostles’ honesty and humility that, in recounting the Gospel, they do not seek to conceal their early weaknesses; these men chosen by Jesus have yet to be transformed through grace, to become the great pillars of the Church. Now further weakness is recalled, as the disciples reveal their ambition to have a powerful and prestigious position when the Kingdom comes [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Seventy Return From Their Mission | King James Audio Bible | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ | KJV
The seventy have been sent ahead of Jesus to prepare the way for Jesus; they have been sent to the towns and places – the ‘cities’ of the Gospels are for the most part small towns and villages – to which Jesus intended to travel. These disciples have been sent in a spirit of poverty, told by Jesus to trust in God, and so as a corollary in human hospitality. The disciples have borne the message that the kingdom of God is imminent. In humility as in poverty, they have been sent by Jesus as evangelists. In Bible verses, we witness the first missionaries, swelled with good news, return to Lord Jesus to share the joy of the initial, explosive success of their work of evangelizing [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Follow Jesus | Kingdom Of God | King James Audio Bible | Old Testament Prophecies Of The Kingdom
It is not for us to adapt Jesus to our lives; it is for us to conform our lives to Jesus. This is a lesson of these Gospel verses. Once we have heard the call of God through Jesus, there must be no umming and ahhing, no by now secondary considerations interfering in our new relationship with Jesus. Our life should now be his. As and when it is proper, all else will follow. If it isn’t appropriate, then it won’t [ … ]
Meditations On The Love Of Jesus Christ | Ministry Of Jesus | Prayer To The Sacred Heart Of Jesus | Faith And Peace Of God
O most loving Sacred Heart of Jesus, as I meditate on your love revealed at the Last Supper, I am humbled by your act of service in washing the feet of your disciples. Help me to have a servant’s heart and to always be ready to serve others. May your words of comfort and assurance be with me always, especially in times of trial. Help me to remember your ultimate sacrifice on the Cross and to love others as you have loved me. Amen [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | Woe Unto You, Scribes And Pharisees, Hypocrites | Ye Are The Children Of Them Which Killed The Prophets | Jesus Christ | Jewish Temple Authorities | King James Audio Bible KJV
Jesus’ critique of the scribes and the Pharisees continues in today’s Gospel verses. The accusation is constant: they are hypocrites. The imagery in part remains constant: these hypocrites put on outward shows of purity, and yet their hearts are corrupt and their behaviour is corrupt. This imagery now develops. Woe unto you! For you are as painted tombs, all white and purportedly pure and true on the outside, while within the dead flesh rots. In their souls, the scribes and the Pharisees are unclean. Ironically, they are in themselves a violation of the laws of purity. In their hearts, the scribes and the Pharisees carry spiritual death [ … ]
Love Revealed By Jesus Christ | Reflections On The Love Revealed Of Jesus | God Is Love | Audio Bible | KJV | King James Version
Love is the most fundamental and universal human experience. God is love. God created us through Love. Yet love can be elusive and mysterious. It is a word that encompasses a wide range of meanings, from romantic passion to familial affection, from altruistic service to spiritual devotion. In its essence, love is an expression of our deepest longings for connection, belonging, and fulfilment [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | A Prophet Is Not Without Honour, But In His Own Country | Jesus Of Nazareth | Jesus’ Family
It is all too common in our time to see a beautiful gift or initiative rejected by those who are set against anything new and good. Imagine a child standing up in the midst of a small community filled with hatred, whatever form that hatred might take, and that child saying that there is an alternative to hatred, called love. That child could possibly be killed for so doing [ … ]
Daily Bible Verses | The Demoniacs In The Country Of The Gergesenes | Jesus’ Power Over Satan | Miracle Prayer Healing
Jesus has crossed the Sea of Galilee, entering into Gentile territory. The King James Version speaks of the country of the Gergesenes, however ‘Gaderenes’ or ‘Gerasenes’ are more usually spoken of in other ancient sources. The two main towns in the area were Gerasa and Gadara. The events reported in these Gospel verses could have happened close to both of the towns [ … ]
Life Of Jesus In The Gospels | How Can We Meet Jesus Through The Gospels? | Historical Jesus | Jesus Through Faith | Audio KJV | King James Audio Bible
Christian Art | Life Of Jesus In The Gospels | King James Audio Bible KJV The Gospel Of Saint John 14: 1-7 | King James Audio Bible YouTube: Connection With [ … ]
What Are The Ten Commandments In The Bible? | The Decalogue | How Did Jesus Speak Of The Commandments And Of Jewish Law?
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue, are a set of religious and moral imperatives believed to have been given by God to the Israelites and recorded in the Hebrew Bible. They are traditionally understood to provide a code of conduct for the faithful to follow, and are of great significance in Judaism and Christianity. According to the biblical account, God delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses on tablets of stone on Mount Sinai, which he then brought down from the mountain and presented to the Israelites [ … ]