Studies, reading plans and every single day within them, alongside devotionals and articles. Search by title, book of the Bible, passage or topic.
Chapter study
…slowly, twice if you can. Notice how little the narrator explains. Moses tells this story with long silences, and the silences are part of the writing. Then observe before you interpret, and interpret before you apply.…
Chapter study
…Jewish and Christian tradition has long associated the Torah with Moses, and Jesus refers to the writings of Moses (John 5:46-47). The events belong to the earliest period of the biblical narrative, before any dating…
Chapter study
…Jesus describes in John 15:15. Exodus 33:11 The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend, another Old Testament picture of this same intimacy. Jesus is the one who bridges the gap between master…
Chapter study
…had watched grain winnowed on a threshing floor, and who had heard from Moses that life and death were set before them as two ways. For the first hearers this psalm was a doorway. Before a single lament or hymn was…
Chapter study
…lack' (Exodus 16:18). Nobody in that story got rich. Everybody got fed. Moses later summarises forty years with the same idea: 'thou hast lacked nothing' (Deuteronomy 2:7). The word therefore arrives in Psalm 23 already…
Dig Deeper
…is no substitute for Him, because He is the substitute. Exodus 20:20 Moses tells Israel God has come to prove them, so that His fear may be before them. Testing and reverence belong together. 1 Samuel 17:39 David tries,…
Dig Deeper
…rainbow given after the flood (Genesis 9:12-13) and the signs given to Moses. It does not by itself tell us whether the sign was on Cain's body at all. A reading that must be named and rejected The mark of Cain has been…
Dig Deeper
…throughout the Old Testament as the family trade of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Amos and David. The Bible itself tells us this, so it needs no outside support. It also shows shepherds sleeping with the flock, counting…
Reading plan
…and the superscriptions also name Asaph, the sons of Korah and even Moses. That matters for how you read: you are joining a chorus of very different people, a shepherd king, temple musicians, worship leaders, all…
Verse study
…it for moments that cost something. Jacob says it in Genesis 46:2, Moses at the bush in Exodus 3:4, Samuel in the night in 1 Samuel 3:4, Isaiah in the temple in Isaiah 6:8. In each case the word comes first and the…
Verse study
…Jesus describes in John 15:15. Exodus 33:11 The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend, another Old Testament picture of this same intimacy. Jesus is the one who bridges the gap between master…
Verse study
…lack' (Exodus 16:18). Nobody in that story got rich. Everybody got fed. Moses later summarises forty years with the same idea: 'thou hast lacked nothing' (Deuteronomy 2:7). The word therefore arrives in Psalm 23 already…
Verse study
…God provide, and he immediately speaks about a provision still ahead. Moses adds that the saying was still current in Israel's own day. Generations of people who had never met Abraham used his sentence to describe their…
Devotional
…Exodus 34:6 The sentence Jeremiah is quoting from. God names Himself to Moses as merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Every later mercy text in the Bible reaches back to this self…
Verse study
…sign or token, used of the rainbow, the sabbath and the signs given to Moses. Purpose given, description withheld The verse says the sign was so that anyone finding him would not strike him. That is its whole stated…
Devotional
…answered together, and said, "All that Yahweh has spoken we will do." Moses reported the words of the people to Yahweh. WEB This vow comes before the Ten Commandments are given in chapter 20. Israel commits to obedience…
Devotional
Exodus 16:19-20 Moses said to them, "Let no one leave any of it until the morning." Notwithstanding they didn't listen to Moses, but some of them left some of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and became foul;…
Devotional
…request in the world. He answers with Deuteronomy 8:3, quoting Moses's explanation of the manna in the wilderness. The point of the original passage was that Israel's hunger was allowed so they would learn dependence on…
Devotional
Joshua 14:11 I am as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, to go out and to come in. WEB Caleb speaks these words at eighty-five, decades…
Devotional
…he does. The law of liberty is not a lesser standard than the law of Moses; James calls it perfect, and links blessing directly to continuing action rather than to the moment of hearing. The letter as a whole presses…
Devotional
…just a personal talent. Amen. Bezalel is named specifically by God to Moses in Exodus 31:2, and Oholiab is given to assist him in verse 6, along with wisdom given to all who are able, to make everything commanded…
Devotional
…but I say to you, are often misread as Jesus contradicting the law of Moses. In each case He is contrasting shallow interpretations with the law's actual depth: not merely refraining from murder but dealing with anger…
Devotional
…we all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. WEB John does not set law and grace against each other as though the law were bad. He shows a…
Devotional
…chesed appears in Exodus 34:6-7, part of God's own self-declaration to Moses after the golden calf: 'Yahweh... abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands.' Psalm 136 is, in effect, a…
Devotional
…in the eighth century BC but describes God permanently. Exodus 3:5 Moses is told to remove his sandals because the ground is holy, the same category of otherness attached to a place where God is present. 1 Samuel 2:2…
Devotional
Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” WEB Moses asks what to say when Israel asks for God's name. The answer is not a title…
Devotional
…the man in Mark 1:44 to go show himself to the priest and offer what Moses commanded, keeping the healing inside the law's own process rather than bypassing it. Some manuscripts of Mark 1:41 read moved with anger rather…
Devotional
…Your timing. Amen. The bitter water at Marah, turned sweet by a tree Moses throws into it in verse 25, comes right before this declaration. The physical provision and the naming of God as healer are linked in the same…
Biblical concept
…by God alone passing between the pieces while Abram slept. Exodus 24:8 Moses calls the blood sprinkled on the people the blood of the covenant, the pattern Jesus later applies to himself. Jeremiah 31:31-34 The clearest…
Word and phrase
…fullest Old Testament description, when God proclaims his own name to Moses after Israel's failure with the golden calf. He calls himself merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth. This is not…
Biblical concept
…It is the founding event of Israel's calendar. Exodus 12:1-13 God gives Moses and Aaron the instructions for the very first Passover on the night before the exodus itself, before it becomes an annual feast, when the…
Biblical concept
…and Mark 10:45 calls his life a ransom for many. Exodus 6:6 God tells Moses he will redeem Israel with an outstretched arm, the first time the word is used of God himself acting as redeemer, out of slavery in Egypt.…
Biblical concept
…says our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Exodus 14:13 Moses tells Israel, trapped between Pharaoh's army and the sea, to stand still and see the salvation of the LORD. The pattern is set at the very…
Biblical concept
…shepherded him his whole life (Genesis 48:15). Exodus and wilderness Moses is keeping his father in law's flock when God speaks from the bush (Exodus 3:1), and God leads Israel out like a flock (Psalm 77:20). Kingdom…
Biblical concept
…and Exodus 40 says the glory of the LORD filled it so completely that Moses could not even enter. John reaches for that picture on purpose. He says the Word pitched his tent among us, using a verb built on the word for…
Bible question
…pleads for the child's life and the child dies in 2 Samuel 12:16-23. Moses asks to enter the land and is told to speak of it no more in Deuteronomy 3:25-27. In each case God answers the man while denying the request.…
Bible question
…of fire which will devour the adversaries... He who disregarded Moses' law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think he will be judged worthy of who has…
Bible question
…The Bible preserves material that embarrasses its own heroes Moses' anger, David's adultery, Peter's denial and Paul's dispute with Barnabas are all recorded. This is not how propaganda is written. Trust is a matter of…
Bible question
…barely spare, Philippians 4:14-18. Exodus 16:4 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether…
Bible question
…Israel had substituted for it. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 30:12-14, where Moses told Israel the commandment was not too far off, not in heaven or beyond the sea, but very near them, in their mouth and in their heart, that…
Bible question
…the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us.' Moses draws a clean line between what God has disclosed and what he has kept, and assigns responsibility only to the first category. Proverbs 16:9…
Bible question
…False prophets warned against in the Old Testament Deuteronomy 13:1-3 Moses warns that even a prophet with a sign that comes true must be rejected if he leads people after other gods, showing the test was always…
Bible question
…is the key that unlocks the whole of Scripture Luke 24:27 'Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.' Jesus reads the entire Old Testament as…
Bible question
…was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. Moses tells Israel that the wilderness itself was the teacher, revealing what was already in their hearts. Difficult seasons function the same way for…
Bible question
…with an abstract requirement. He moves immediately to himself: as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal…
Bible question
…is a way of knowing God rather than a way of dreading him. Exodus 20:20 Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won’t sin.” WEB Moses tells…
Bible question
…and records what God said to them. Joshua taking over from Moses Joshua 1:9 He was told to lead a nation into a land held by fortified cities, replacing the only leader Israel had known. Haven’t I commanded you? Be…
Bible question
…exactly this ache. Loneliness in Scripture usually leads somewhere Moses in Midian, Joseph in prison, Paul in Arabia, John on Patmos. Isolated seasons in the Bible are frequently preparation rather than punishment,…
Bible question
…to believe we will. The disciples recognized the risen Christ, and Moses and Elijah were recognized at the transfiguration though they had died centuries before. Matthew 17:3-4 Peter recognizes Moses and Elijah at the…
Bible question
…to cross over. Luke 16:31 Abraham answers that if people will not hear Moses and the prophets, 'neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead,' pointing directly to the fact that Scripture itself, not a…
Bible question
…more than twenty times, moving from Abel through Noah, Abraham, Moses and beyond, deliberately accumulating weight so that by the end the reader feels surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the phrase the writer uses…
Bible question
…8:9. John 1:17 draws the sharpest line: the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law revealed God's standard and exposed how far short every person falls. Grace does not lower that…
Bible question
…wounds and the peace they purchase. Luke 24:27 The risen Jesus opens Moses and all the prophets to show the things concerning himself. The exchange at the cross 2 Corinthians 5:21 God made Christ to be sin for us, that…
Bible question
…people who met God rather than through people who theorised about him. Moses, asking to see God's glory Exodus 33:18-34:8 Moses asked to see God's glory. He was told no one could see God's face and live, and was placed…
Bible question
…one, the promised king. Luke 24:44-47 has Jesus explaining himself from Moses, the prophets and the psalms, and Matthew 1:1 opens by placing him in the line of David and Abraham. He is called the Son of God, and he…
Bible question
…answer to it. The Old Testament already expected this Numbers 11:29 has Moses wishing all the Lord's people were prophets with his Spirit on them. Joel 2:28-29 promises exactly that, and Acts 2:16-18 says it began. The…
Bible question
…us writers at work, which is more useful than a theory about writing. Moses, told to write it down Exodus 24:3-7 Moses received God's words at Sinai and wrote them, then read the book of the covenant aloud to the…
Bible question
…destroy, but to fulfil. Luke 24:44 says everything written about him in Moses, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled, and Galatians 4:4 says he came at the fullness of time. He came to defeat the devil and break…
Bible question
…was the one who would redeem Israel. Jesus walked with them and opened Moses and the prophets to show that the Christ had to suffer and enter his glory, then broke bread and was recognised. The risen Christ teaches from…
Bible question
…of prayer, asking God to act for the sake of his own name, seen also in Moses's intercession in Exodus 32. Psalm 13:5 But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation. The turn happens with no…
The Sunday Study
Verse-by-verse teaching with historical context, and a prayer to close. Nothing else in the email.