Devotional
Even So, Come
…words of the whole Bible, are a promise and a prayer set side by side. Christ says I am coming soon. John, and every reader who joins him, answers come, Lord Jesus. This is the appropriate ending to a week on the return…
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Studies, reading plans and every single day within them, alongside devotionals and articles. Search by title, book of the Bible, passage or topic.
Bible studies (23)
52 Week Journey
Week 49: The Return of Christ
…what he has promised he will do. The New Testament writers do not treat the return of Christ as a private theory for the curious. They treat it as the hinge on which patience, holiness and hope all turn. The subject is…
Devotional
Not Returning Empty
Isaiah 55:11 so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do. WEB Isaiah compares God's word to rain…
Devotional
Return, and I Will Return
…you have turned away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says Yahweh of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ WEB God states the problem plainly, turned away from…
Devotional
We Preach Christ Crucified
1 Corinthians 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks. WEB Paul is candid about how the cross sounded to its first hearers: an offense to Jewish expectations of a…
Chapter study
Genesis 22: The Mountain Where God Revealed the Gospel
…will go... and come again to you,' using plural verbs for both of them returning. Hebrews 11:17-19 States that Abraham reasoned God was able to raise Isaac even from the dead. Read the plural verbs in Genesis 22:5…
Chapter study
Genesis 4
…on the name of the LORD. Genesis is anonymous within itself. 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…
Chapter study
John 15: The Vine, the Branches, and the Friends of God
…ear in the group, and turns it into the deepest statement of union with Christ in the New Testament. This chapter also arrives at the hardest hour of Jesus's earthly life. He knows what the next twenty four hours hold.…
Chapter study
Philippians 4: Contentment Learned in Chains
…and also one of the most misquoted. 'I can do all things through Christ' has been printed on posters for athletic victories and business success, and 'my God shall supply all your need' has been read as a blank check.…
Chapter study
Psalm 1: The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked
…of Psalm 1:6 is taken up directly in his teaching, which is how a Christian reader knows the psalm's categories were not left behind in the Old Testament. John 15:1-8 Jesus makes fruitfulness depend on remaining…
Chapter study
Psalm 23: The LORD Our Shepherd
…not a coded prophecy. It is a true description of the Lord's care which Christ later stands inside and fulfils, saying the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep, which is more than David knew he was asking for. Six…
Chapter study
Romans 8: No Condemnation, No Defeat, No Separation
…That cry is the door into chapter 8. The question is not whether a Christian still struggles. Paul assumes it. The question is what that struggle proves about the believer's standing before God. Chapter 8 answers in…
Dig Deeper
Is anxiety a sin, and what does "be careful for nothing" require?
…all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. Keep translates a military term for a garrison standing guard. The peace does not remove the threat, it stands between the threat and the…
Bible study
Psalm 23: The Shepherd Who Goes Before You
…that I lack nothing I truly need. Restores shuv (שׁוּב) To turn back, return. The same verb used for repentance: God turns the soul homeward. Steadfast love chesed (חֶסֶד) Covenant loyalty; love bound by promise rather…
Bible study
Romans 8: No Condemnation, No Separation
The chapter that holds the Christian life from beginning to end Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.…
Verse study
Am I my brother's keeper? (Genesis 4:9)
…answers the neighbour question with a story about a man who spends and returns (Luke 10:25-37), and John says love means action rather than words (1 John 3:16-18). Leviticus 19:17-18 Responsibility for a brother stated…
Reading plan
Hope: An Advent Reading Plan
…away. Later the church read those same promises again in the light of Christ and found they had been fulfilled. You are the third set of readers, and you read as someone who now knows how the waiting ended. Most of the…
Devotional
A Better Covenant
…earlier covenants were worthless. It says this one is better, and names Christ as its mediator, the one who stands between God and his people to secure it. Better promises does not mean the old covenant's promises were…
Devotional
A Father Running
…WEB The younger son has demanded his inheritance early, wasted it, and returns home rehearsing a confession, expecting at best to be hired as a servant. The father does not wait for the confession to finish before…
Devotional
A New Covenant Written on the Heart
…and their king to exile. In the middle of that loss, God promises not a return to the old arrangement but something new: law written on the heart, not on tablets carried outside a person. The old covenant was not a…
Devotional
A Small Fire, a Large Forest
…servant that he opened not his mouth, and 1 Peter 2:23 says that when Christ was reviled, he did not revile in return. The tongue's fire met its match in a mouth that refused to answer fire with fire.
Devotional
All That the Lord Has Spoken We Will Do
…to God that you did not keep once it became specific and costly? Return to one promise you have made to God and take one honest step back toward it today. Where Israel's vow failed within weeks, Hebrews 3:1-6 calls…
Devotional
As Far as the East Is from the West
…image of total removal. Is there a sin God has forgiven that you keep returning to retrieve? Write down the specific sin you keep re-litigating with yourself, and beside it write Psalm 103:12 in full. The removal…
Bible topics (12)
Biblical concept
Day of the LORD
…for those unprepared. In the New Testament the same phrase points to the return of Christ. 2 Peter 3:10 says it comes as a thief, and 1 Thessalonians 5:2 says the same, so watchfulness rather than calculation is the…
Topic study
Hope: The anchor that holds when everything else gives way
…something laid up in heaven. A wish cannot be held. A promise can. Christian hope is never built on probability. It is built on the faithfulness of God, which means the ground of hope is not how likely a thing looks…
Christian Living
End Times: What the Bible Says
…hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ; WEB titus 2 Paul reduces the future to a Person and calls it a blessed hope. The verse sits inside instructions about sober, godly living, which…
Biblical concept
Messiah and Christ
Messiah is Hebrew and Christ is Greek, and both mean anointed. In Israel priests, kings and occasionally prophets were anointed with oil to mark them as set apart for God's work. John 1:41 translates the word for the…
Word and phrase
Grace
…worst failure so far, which is why the New Testament writers keep returning to this verse whenever they want to explain God's character toward sinners. In the New Testament, grace becomes the specific word for how…
Biblical concept
Oil and anointing
…were anointed, the anointed one becomes a title. Messiah in Hebrew and Christ in Greek both mean exactly that, so every time the New Testament says Jesus Christ it is saying Jesus the anointed King. Genesis 28:18 Jacob…
Word and phrase
Repentance
…also addresses believers who need to repent, as when the risen Christ tells the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 to repent of specific sins. Ongoing repentance is part of ordinary Christian life, not only its beginning.…
Word and phrase
Righteousness
…of God apart from the law, available through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. 2 Corinthians 5:21 States the great exchange, Christ made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.…
Biblical concept
Salvation
…being saved from its power, and will be saved from its presence when Christ appears. Romans 13:11 says our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Exodus 14:13 Moses tells Israel, trapped between Pharaoh's army…
Biblical concept
Son of Man
…at his trial. When the high priest asks directly whether he is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, Jesus answers, I am, and then adds that they will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with…
Biblical concept
The Cross
…2:2 says he resolved to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Matthew 27:35 And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots, is the first plain statement in Scripture of…
Biblical concept
The Word
…can be seen. Revelation 19:13 At the end of Scripture the same title returns, tying the beginning and the end of the Bible to one person. John could have opened his gospel with a birth, the way Matthew and Luke do, or…
Questions and answers (25)
Bible question
Does God hear my prayers?
…and humbling the proud is the pattern Mary takes up when she carries Christ (Luke 1:46-55). The God who hears the overlooked is the God who came as one of them. David, who kept praying while asking how long Psalms…
Bible question
Can I lose my salvation?
…a crowd that had just demanded he tell them plainly whether he was the Christ. Read what he actually says about his sheep before anything else. John 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.…
Bible question
Can the Bible be trusted?
…when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory,…
Bible question
How can I grow spiritually?
…you to be not idle nor unfruitful to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. WEB Peter grounds growth in what God has already given, his power and his promises, and then lists qualities to add with diligence. Grace…
Bible question
How do I forgive someone who hurt me?
…one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you. WEB God speaks about forgiveness before we explain it, and his words set a standard no explanation can lower. Ephesians 4:31-32…
Bible question
How do I recognize false teachers?
…this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the…
Bible question
How do I stop committing the same sin over and over?
…Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to…
Bible question
How do I study the Bible correctly?
…knew. The hand of God was on him, and his reading led to a national return to the covenant (Nehemiah 8). Ezra's order is the model: seek the law, do it, then teach it. Study that skips obedience never reaches teaching…
Bible question
How should I pray?
…all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. WEB Nothing and everything are the two limits. Thanksgiving is included, and the promise is not that we get what we asked but that peace…
Bible question
What does it mean to fear the Lord?
…in willing service, not in hiding. John says Isaiah saw the glory of Christ (John 12:41). The holiness that undid him is the holiness that came near in Jesus. Job, answering out of the whirlwind Job 42:1-6 Job had…
Bible question
What does the Bible say about anxiety?
…all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. WEB Paul does not tell an anxious church to relax. He gives them somewhere to put the anxiety, and he promises a peace that guards the heart…
Bible question
What does the Bible say about contentment?
…hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. WEB I have learned, twice. Contentment is treated as a taught thing, and the curriculum included both abundance and…
Bible question
What does the Bible say about money?
…be content in plenty and in need, and grounds it in strength given by Christ. Hebrews 13:5 attaches contentment to a promise: I will in no way leave you. Generosity is the direction Scripture pushes 1 Timothy 6:17-19…
Bible question
What does the Bible say about work?
…you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. WEB Three passages give the arc: where work began, what it now costs, and who it is finally done for. Colossians 3:23-24 And whatever you…
Bible question
What does the Bible say about worry?
…all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. WEB In nothing, then in everything. The command is not to feel differently but to move the matter into prayer, and the peace promised is a…
Bible question
What does the Bible teach about heaven?
…body is described as sown in corruption and raised in incorruption. The Christian hope includes bodies and a renewed creation. Some in Scripture were given a glimpse, and their reactions teach us how to hold the hope.…
Bible question
What happens after death?
…as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, without sin, to those who are eagerly waiting for him for…
Bible question
What is faith?
…and hearing by the word of God. WEB Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. It has a source outside the believer, which is why Scripture is the diet of faith. Hebrews 11:6 Without faith it is impossible to be well…
Bible question
What is grace?
…when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the…
Bible question
What is repentance in the Bible?
…away and a direction toward. Judas Matthew 27:3-5 He felt remorse, returned the money and said he had sinned in betraying innocent blood, then took his own life. The text records no turning to Christ, and no mercy…
Bible question
What is sin?
…a setting aside of God's authority, and in the very next breath Christ is named as the one revealed to take it away. Romans 3:20-23 Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through…
Bible question
What must I do to be saved?
…what must I do to be saved?" They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." WEB The question in the title of this study is not ours. It was asked, in these exact words, by…
Bible question
Who is the Holy Spirit?
…and will declare it to you. WEB His aim is stated plainly. He glorifies Christ and does not speak from himself. Any teaching about the Spirit that draws attention away from Jesus has left this verse behind. Acts 5:3-4…
Bible question
Why did Jesus rise from the dead?
1 Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep. WEB The resurrection is announced by Scripture before it is explained by anyone. 1 Corinthians…
Bible question
Why is Jesus called the Son of God?
…and the council Mark 14:61-64 Under oath he was asked, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. Jesus said, I am, and immediately spoke of the Son of Man at the right hand of Power, coming with the clouds of the sky.…
The Sunday Study
One deep study, every week.
Verse-by-verse teaching with historical context, and a prayer to close. Nothing else in the email.