Matthew 2:4-6 — from Bible Gateway’s Verse of the Day
Galatians 4:4-5
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”
Isaiah 7:14
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Deuteronomy 18:15
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.”
From DSC:
This is not only a beautiful, powerful, popular hymn, but it is a creative, multimedia-based expression that brings glory to God! On a personal note I’ll never forget this hymn, as it was sung at my Grandpa Christian’s funeral years ago.
“Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
Questions for God from behind bars — from redletterchristians.org by Morf Morford
Excerpt:
What question would you ask God? I was naive enough to raise that question in my class at the county jail. These guys; felons, addicts, forty year old high school drop-outs, had some remarkable insights about who a believable god should be – and what He should be able to do – and how – or whether – it mattered that anything like God existed. Dinosaurs, injustice, seemingly unfair or exploitive actions by others – especially adults toward children – and why it was so much easier to be bad than to be good.
…
I left the worksheets behind and came into the jail with a large sheet of paper that I could stick to the bare wall and some markers. I had no lesson plan, no materials, no agenda. I took a big gulp and entered the jail with prayer and my blank sheet of paper. I asked the inmates what they needed to talk about.
A devotion for Wall Street — from www.redletterchristians.org (a blog by Tony Campolo & friends) by Shane Claiborne; with a special thanks going out to Mr. David Goodrich for posting a URL to this item via LinkedIn
Excerpt:
A reporter recently asked me, “As a Christian leader, does your faith have anything to say about Wall Street?” I said, “How much time do you have?”
The Christian message has a lot to say to Wall Street.
Theologian Karl Barth said, “We have to read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.” For too long we Christians have used our faith as a ticket out of this world rather than fuel to engage it.
In his parables, Jesus wasn’t offering pie-in-the-sky theology… he was talking about the real stuff of earth. He talks about wages, debt, widows and orphans, unjust business owners and bad politicians. In fact Woody Guthrie breaks it all down in his song “Jesus Christ”. The song ends with Woody singing, “This song was written in New York City… If Jesus were to preach what he preached in Galilee, they would lay him in his grave again.”
…
From the Start here page at RLC.org:
The goal of Red Letter Christians is simple: To take Jesus seriously by endeavoring to live out His radical, counter-cultural teachings as set forth in Scripture, and especially embracing the lifestyle prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount.
Ironically, it was a secular Jewish country-and-western disc jockey in Nashville, Tennessee who first suggested that title. During a radio interview with my friend Jim Wallis, that deejay declared, “You’re one of those Red-Letter Christians – you know, the ones who are really into all those New Testament verses that are in red letters!” When Jim said, “That’s right!” he answered for all of us. By calling ourselves Red Letter Christians, we refer to the fact that in many Bibles the words of Jesus are printed in red. What we are asserting, therefore, is that we have committed ourselves first and foremost to doing what Jesus said.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.
Infographic of the day: What are the darkest parts of the Bible? — from fastcodesign.com by Suzanne LaBarre; also Openbible.info
Openbible.info charts the Bible according to positive and negative sentiment–with some surprising results.
Excerpt:
What you end up with is a snapshot of the relative cheeriness–or gloom–of different sections in the Bible. As the designer tells it:
Things start off well with creation, turn negative with Job and the patriarchs, improve again with Moses, dip with the period of the judges, recover with David, and have a mixed record (especially negative when Samaria is around) during the monarchy. The exilic period isn’t as negative as you might expect, nor the return period as positive. In the New Testament, things start off fine with Jesus, then quickly turn negative as opposition to his message grows. The story of the early church, especially in the epistles, is largely positive.
In short, it gives you a bird’s-eye view of the tone of each book, something that’s easy to miss in a line-by-line reading. You could also use it as a guide of sorts to the darkest, juiciest parts of the Bible.
“Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”
Also see:
