Studies, reading plans and every single day within them, alongside devotionals and articles. Search by title, book of the Bible, passage or topic.
Devotional
…and pray before you do it rather than after. Jesus grew weary at Jacob's well in John 4:6, yet he is the one who offers living water so that whoever drinks never thirsts again. He knows the weariness of waiting from the…
Chapter study
…and both of them are kind. Then the final line moves from following to dwelling. The journey that began in a field ends in a house, and the shepherd never asks the sheep to leave it. What does Psalm 23:6 say is…
Chapter study
…with knowledge of sacrificial procedure, and is being bound by a man well past one hundred. On the plain reading of those details, he could have refused. The text leans toward the second. It does not say Isaac…
Chapter study
…it silently. What is not in doubt is the shape of the sentence: doing well and not doing well are set against each other, a danger is named, and Cain is told to rule. Genesis 3:16 The same pairing of desire and rule,…
Chapter study
…and they miss that everything from here to the end of chapter 17 may well be spoken while the group is walking through Jerusalem toward the Kidron valley and the garden. That detail changes how the vine image lands.…
Chapter study
…He calls their gift 'an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God,' the language of temple offering applied to a financial gift to a missionary. Giving, in Paul's theology, is worship. Then…
Chapter study
…Paul does not say the Spirit is available to you. He says the Spirit dwells in you, and that anyone without the Spirit of Christ is none of his. What does Paul say a mind set on the flesh is aimed at, compared with a…
Verse study
…beveit YHWH Hebrew The form can be read as 'I will return' or 'I will dwell,' from the same root shuv used of the restored soul in verse 3. The psalm's end and its middle share one verb. The destination is belonging,…
52 Week Journey
Scripture is honest that beginning well is not the same as finishing well. Kings who started with real devotion to God ended their reigns compromised, and disciples who once left everything to follow Jesus were still…
Dig Deeper
…that came from you, a sweet-smelling fragrance, an acceptable and well-pleasing sacrifice to God. The verse immediately before. Their gift is described in the language of the altar, and then Paul promises supply to the…
Dig Deeper
…these things. The garrison at the gate and the discipline of what you dwell on are not competing ideas. God's peace stands watch, and the believer stops feeding the fear. philippians-4-be-anxious-for-nothing Is anxiety…
Bible study
…our ability to explain or reproduce it; it is not proportional to how well we have analysed the problem.
Bible study
…and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 'Follow' translates radaph, to pursue, a word usually used of hunters. Goodness and covenant love hunt the believer…
Bible study
…are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Paul's assumed normal Christianity is Spirit-indwelt. There is no second tier of believer here. v.15 You have received the Spirit of…
Dig Deeper
…10:1, and in each case the complaint is the same: the vine was planted well and yielded wild or worthless grapes. Jesus is speaking into that history when He says I am the true vine. Whether the vine imagery was…
Dig Deeper
…than leaving them abstract. No condemnation, verse 1. The Spirit indwelling, verse 9. Sonship and the freedom to call God Father, verse 15. An inheritance, verse 17. Help in prayer, verse 26. A purpose that ends in…
Dig Deeper
…Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your heritage, who dwell by themselves in a forest, in the middle of fertile pasture land, let them feed; in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. A prophet praying…
Topic study
…a bank balance, a diagnosis that improves, a child who turns out well. None of these are evil. They are simply too small to carry the weight of a soul, and eventually each of them tells the truth about its own limits.…
Biblical concept
…heated jar. Grinding was done every morning, because flour did not keep well and the loaves went hard by evening. A woman's day began at the millstone, and the sound of it in a town meant life was going on as normal.…
Biblical concept
…8:6-13 God's covenant promises depend on people keeping their side well enough. The Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 15 is sealed by God alone, with no matching obligation placed on Abram in that scene, and Jeremiah 31…
Biblical concept
…judgement of what opposes God and the arrival of the new city where he dwells openly with his people. Scripture never asks its readers to calculate the date of this day. It asks them to be ready for it. The day of the…
Biblical concept
…that God's reign had arrived was therefore heard as political as well as spiritual, which explains both the crowds and the opposition. Josephus, Antiquities and Jewish War Records Roman administration of Judea and the…
Biblical concept
…the feast, and the dancing by their light. The Mishnah was written down well after the temple stood, so the practice it records cannot be dated precisely to the years of Jesus' ministry. text John places this saying…
Biblical concept
…believed in him were to receive. Genesis 26:19 Isaac's servants dig a well and find a spring of living water, an ordinary phrase for flowing water as opposed to water stored in a cistern. Scripture later takes this…
Place in Scripture
…cannot contain God (1 Kings 8:27), and Jesus tells the woman at the well that the hour is coming when worship is not fixed to this mountain or Jerusalem (John 4:21-24). The mountains are appointed meeting places, not…
Biblical concept
…to the whole world. New heavens and a new earth are promised, with God dwelling among his people. Isaiah 65:17 God promises through Isaiah that he will create new heavens and a new earth, so complete a renewal that the…
Biblical concept
…now. If the dead are not raised, he says elsewhere, people might as well eat and drink for tomorrow they die. Believing resurrection is real is meant to steady how a person spends their life, their risks, and their…
Word and phrase
Righteousness in Scripture is relational as well as moral. It means conformity to God's standard and standing accepted before him, and Romans 3 says all have fallen short of it. Romans 1:17 speaks of a righteousness of…
Biblical concept
…Nobody flags down a lifeboat because they are already swimming well. Romans 10:9 puts the response in the plainest terms available: confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, and that is receiving what God has…
Biblical concept
…which is why the shepherd passages in the prophets read as political as well as pastoral. Greek ποιμήν poimen shepherd The word behind good shepherd in John 10 and behind pastor in Ephesians 4:11. The office in the…
Biblical concept
…power, but the Father already names him beloved Son at his baptism, well before the resurrection, so the resurrection confirms and displays the sonship rather than beginning it. Matthew 3:17 Romans 1:4 Because Jesus is…
Biblical concept
…lying to the Spirit and lying to God as the same act. The Spirit indwelling believers, bearing witness with their spirit that they are children of God, producing fruit and giving gifts, is the ongoing presence of God…
Biblical concept
…God and fully human. Colossians 2:9 says the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily, and Hebrews 2:17 says he was made like his brothers in every way. Genesis 3:15 God tells the serpent that the seed of the woman…
Place in Scripture
The temple was the place God chose for his name to dwell, built by Solomon on the pattern of the tabernacle. Its architecture taught distance and access at once: courts, a holy place, and behind a veil the holy of…
Biblical concept
…than achieving something. consensus Vines were pruned hard to fruit well, and cut wood was burned because vine wood serves little other use. The images in John 15 were ordinary work to the men who heard them.…
Biblical concept
…flesh, the plainest word John could use for a real human body, and dwells among us, literally pitches his tent among us, the way God's glory once filled a tent in the middle of Israel's camp. John says plainly that he…
Biblical concept
…on land that could have grown grain. Vines take years before they yield well, so planting one was a statement that the family intended to stay. It also had furniture that Isaiah lists: a wall or hedge, a watchtower for…
Bible question
…to say. That is a deliberate mercy to people who feel they cannot pray well. Jesus prayed a prayer that was not granted as asked In Gethsemane he asks that the cup pass, and adds nevertheless not my will. The Son of God…
Bible question
…to him from the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We heard this voice come out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. We have the more sure word of prophecy; and you do…
Bible question
…and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. WEB Three passages together give the promise, its measure and its timing. Read them before any explanation, and notice how carefully each one is…
Bible question
…for the word that follows, showing growth includes subtraction as well as addition. epichoregeo Greek to supply abundantly, to add lavishly Behind 'add' in 2 Peter 1:5 is a word originally used for a wealthy patron…
Bible question
…by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. WEB A renewed mind proves what God's will is. Guidance comes through a transformed way of thinking rather…
Bible question
…protect them through sound teaching. 2 Peter 2:18 For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error;…
Bible question
…study ends in obedience, not information. The Bible records readers as well as writers, and shows what careful and careless reading look like. Ezra, who set his heart to it Ezra 7:10 Ezra worked with a people who had…
Bible question
…is usually grown in the delay rather than in the fulfilment. Waiting well is not passivity, it is the main work of faith. The promise Abraham trusted reached its end in Christ, in whom all nations are blessed (Galatians…
Bible question
…of a day? Lord, let me speak with you in the middle of my work as well as behind a shut door. Can I be angry or complain in prayer? Scripture preserves many prayers of complaint and confusion, which shows what God is…
Bible question
…a ruler, a teacher of Israel. Jesus does not tell the woman at the well in the next chapter that she needs to be born again in the same terms, though she needed the gospel too. The new birth is aimed squarely at…
Bible question
…from his table, and they went. I want to follow you, and I know myself well enough to say that I will need you to make me into someone who can. Show me the one thing I am holding, and give me grace to let it go today. I…
Bible question
…and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient. WEB Jesus takes anxiety…
Bible question
…a vineyard, 1 Kings 21:4. Paul learned contentment while abounding as well as while hungry. Being content means accepting poverty and staying quiet about need. Scripture commands care for the poor, Deuteronomy 15:11 and…
Bible question
…that fear is unbelief and nothing more, and they now feel guilty as well as afraid. Others have read the fear of the Lord and cannot see how it fits with do not be afraid, so both phrases lose their force. Isaiah,…
Bible question
…families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land. WEB Hear God's answer to loneliness before any explanation of it. Psalms 68:5-6 A father of the fatherless, and a…
Bible question
…life is, which is why covetousness is treated as a misunderstanding as well as a sin. 2 Corinthians 9:7-8 Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart; not grudgingly, or under compulsion; for God loves…
Bible question
…foreigners and animals. Rest in Scripture is a matter of justice as well as refreshment. 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: “If anyone will not work, don’t let him eat.” For…
Bible question
…and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient. WEB Read the command and the…
Bible question
…21:3 I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. WEB Heaven should be…
Bible question
…the tent but does not end the person, who already has a promised dwelling waiting. 2 Corinthians 5:2 For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven; The groaning is…
Bible question
…is the diet of faith. Hebrews 11:6 Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. WEB Without faith it is…
Bible question
…a work that earns forgiveness. Scripture speaks of it as God's gift as well as our act, which changes how it is sought. Luke, recording Peter's sermon a crowd in the temple in Jerusalem, shortly after Pentecost the…
Bible question
…while overlooking things it does. A clear definition brings relief as well as conviction. Others cannot see why sin should be a serious matter at all, since much of it seems to hurt nobody. Scripture's answer is that…
The Sunday Study
Verse-by-verse teaching with historical context, and a prayer to close. Nothing else in the email.