May 7 (Thursday) -- It's a Good Day to Be Healed

Adopted by a temple: 1 Samuel 1:1-2:21

Pick up your mat without checking the calendar: John 5:1-23

For He remembered His promise: Psalm 105:37-45

A patient man has great understanding: Proverbs 14:28-29


My oh my! The Pharisees were looking too hard to find something wrong with Jesus and His followers. Can you imagine being unable to walk, all of a sudden being healed, then someone else sees you & all they can think to say is that you’re carrying your mat on the wrong day?

It’s funny how mankind tries to complicate someone else’s relationship with Jesus. I hope no one can later say of me that I made it difficult for someone else to see Jesus.

May 6 (Tuesday) -- Healed by the Word of the Word of God

Ruth 2:1-4:22

John 4:43-54

The birth of David’s grandfather: Ruth 2:1-4:22

Your son will live: John 4:43-54

Singing of Israel’s history: Psalm 105:16-36

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life: Proverbs 14:26-27

Ruth was David’s great-grandmother. In about a week we’ll start reading about David. I promise you, once we start doing that you won’t be able to put the Bible down.

Yet, how can the neat adventure stories of David compare to having a loved one healed by Jesus.

This story kind of goes hand in hand with the woman at the well story from yesterday. Do you remember me saying that it shows that faith is not a matter of what class of people you are? This royal official is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the woman at the well. He knew to go to Jesus to get his son healed. He wanted Jesus to come home with him, to heal his son. But when Jesus told him to go without Jesus & that his son will live, the man “took Jesus at his word and departed”.

The man knew that the word of Jesus was enough for his son to be healed.

Psalm 105:16-36

Proverbs 14:26-27

May 5 (Tuesday) -- Living Water

How to find a wife, Old Testament style: Judges 21:1-Ruth 1:22

The water Jesus gives is living water: John 4:4-42

Remember the wonders the Lord has done: Psalm 105:1-15

A truthful witness saves lives: Proverbs 14:25


Whew! We end the book of Judges with the abduction of wives for the Benjaminites and begin the book of Ruth with her humble time of being a widow Moabitess. Remember the talking donkey in Numbers 22? Moab was the nation King Balak ruled over. Balak is the king who tried to get the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites. Ruth, one of the Moabites, winds up being an ancestor to King David & Jesus.

Then in the book of John we have another woman who was not quite a Jew. She was a Samaritan. She was a descendant of Jacob (an Israelite). But she lived in Samaria, an area that was considered non-Jewish because so many Gentiles lived there & so few people worshipped God there. Even the people there who were truly Jewish were considered non-Jews. When Jesus spoke to her, she was so surprised that a Jew would speak to her that her first sentence was: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.” Jesus’ reply to her didn’t address that difference. I think in Jesus’ eyes that isn’t a difference at all. Jesus’ response to her was a teaching about living water, using natural water as an object lesson.

About the living water:
1) Jesus wants us to want it. He told the woman that if she knew who He was, she’d ask Him for living water.
2) God desires worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth (verse 24). This is in contrast to worship based on a particular place (i.e. Jerusalem in verse 21) or by a particular group of people (i.e. the Jews in verse 22).
3) The living water is the Holy Spirit flowing from the believers. We don’t see that in this chapter. It’s described later in chapter 7:
John 7:37-39 (NIV) -- 37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.


Jesus asks so little from us in contrast to what He gives us. He asked this woman for some natural water to drink. In the end, she got living water from Him. It was living water in that it flowed from her onto others that she told about Jesus. Jesus used a woman whom most of the religious people of the day considered an outcast not good enough to even speak to.

May 4 (Monday)

May 4

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Judges 19:1-20:48

John 3:22-4:3

Psalm 104:24-35

Proverbs 14:22-24

Once again here is a passage where John loads a story with so much meaning. This story of John the Baptist lifting up Christ is important for several reasons. One is the obvious way in which John talks about his lower place from Jesus. He is expressing in so many ways how he is inferior to Jesus. Jesus is from above, eternal, supreme in every fashion. It seems that John the Baptist is always acting through this humility. He is always the "forerunner". He always knows that he is one who only prepares a way. The other important fact of this story from the gospel of John is the way in which John the Baptist (and it's important to know they're different people) speaks of Jesus as the bridegroom.  This takes all of the importance that the Old Testament scriptures places upon marriage and puts it in the context of Jesus' role in salvation of his people. We as the church are being prepared to marry Jesus. Now this isn't necessarily a literal sense, but it is very important. I was listening to a sermon the other day that points out that this means that we should have both the passion of love for Jesus, but in this marriage we should also realize there is hard work. We have to work on our relationship with Jesus. It takes discipline and hard work. We have to pray to him as we would talk with our best friend or wife. This doesn't mean we earn his love in any way, it just means that the Christian life requires discipline and faithfulness to our bridegroom Christ. 

May 3 (Sunday)

May 3

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Judges 17:1-18:31

John 3:1-21

Psalm 104:1-24

Proverbs 14:20-21

Today's passage contains perhaps the most famous verse in the entire Bible. I do believe that it's wonderful that if you asked anyone if they knew a verse, even if they didn't know a lot, that most people could recite John 3:16. It can become something that becomes overly familiar, but it's the type of verse where every single word is filled with wonderful truths. God's love for the world, the basis for all of our hope. His love has actions, he "gives" when there is a high cost. We learn that Jesus is the "only begotten" son, which both declares Jesus as divine and eternal, while implying that there will be other "non-begotten" sons and daughters, that's us! "whoever believes in Him", anyone who bows before the throne of God will be accepted, none will be turned away who call upon the name of Jesus. "will not perish" Death means nothing! "but have eternal life", both eternal in never ending and eternal in being a new and rich kind of life. Wow. What a verse. But make sure to read carefully all else that precedes and follows. The conversation is with an expert in Jewish law and the conversation is all about being "born again". It is about new life, the fact that through the Holy Spirit we are totally new people. 

May 2 (Saturday) -- Jesus Made Wine

Having an eye for a gal can cost you your eyes: Judges 15:1-16:31

Needs some wine? Ask Jesus: John 2:1-25

From everlasting to everlasting: Psalm 103:1-22

Evil men will bow down in the presence of good: Proverbs 14:17-19

Turning water into wine? Jesus?

That does sound odd. But some notes on the wine:

1) I think it’s wrong to say that it was non-alcoholic / grape juice. The word translated to “wine” in this story is the Greek word “oinos”, which means wine in a way that implies fermentation. Plus, in that day there were no refrigerators to preserve grape juice like we have today. If they drank grape juice that was more than a couple of days old, it had started fermenting and they called it “oinos”  wine.
2) But at the same time we can’t run on a tangent and say that all wine mentioned in the Bible is of the high alcohol sort bought in a liquor store today. They had some wine that they stored for years and it fermented enough to have a high alcohol content. But for the most part, the wine they drink had fermented just a little since the last batch of grapes were pressed. They drank wine like this fairly regularly.

Now, onto what I think are the more spiritual matters. A lot of people get hung up on the wine part and miss a lot of neat stuff.

A) This is the first miracle of Jesus that’s recorded. I wish it was in the other Gospels, but John is the only one who recorded it.
B) It happened in Cana, an obscure part f the country far away from Jerusalem where most of the action usually was.
C) Jesus came to the wedding, contrary to John the Baptist who “came neither eating or drinking” (Matthew 11:18). Weddings were feasts.
D) Jesus had already called His disciples at this point, but He was a man of the people. He attended gatherings of His loved ones.
E) Even Mary lifted Jesus up. Mary, the mother of Jesus, told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. She’s also the one who came up with the idea of bringing the problem to Jesus. Even Mary treated Jesus as greater and having more authority than herself.

So if you can get past the whole was-it-alcoholic-wine-that-Jesus-made argument, you’ll see that we ought to serve & lift up Jesus, who loves us enough to hang out with people even while trying to get His ministry started.

May 1, 2009 (Friday)

May 1

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Judges 13:1-14:20

John 1:29-51

Psalm 102:1-28

Proverbs 14:15-16

Today we reach a very interesting figure in Judges, even by the standards of that book. Samson is a very interesting Judge and is characterized both by his being both a good and a notorious judge. In this story we read about him killing a lion, tearing it apart, coming back and finding a bunch of bees and then getting honey from the bees and giving it to his father in law (and not letting him know exactly where he got it). Samson also did all of this because the Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power. And don't worry, there's more on Samson tomorrow...

But we are also getting into the wonderful book of John. Charles presented a really good introduction to some really important info on the book. I'm not sure if you're supposed to have a favorite book of the Bible, but if you are, for me it's definitely John. It's really interesting and contains one of the best summaries of the gospel I can think of. If you read the thing from front to back you get a clear picture of who Jesus is and why he came to die and what it means that he rose from the dead. In today's passage we get Jesus stepping on the scene. John the Baptist prepares the way, calling for repentance from sins, and Jesus is now revealed as the prophesied Lamb of God.  Jesus is proclaimed as the one who will 'baptize with the Holy Spirit', foreshadowing his important work of rescue and renewal of his people.  Next we begin reading about how Jesus' disciples were compelled to leave all (and for Simon, even his former name) to follow Jesus. These men were compelled by Jesus, wishing to follow him anywhere. For us this may or may not mean changing our actual geographical location, but following Jesus as Lord will certainly require us to forsake all that we think makes life important apart from him.