Today’s passage: John 9:35–10:21 Focus verse: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) I suspect you’re familiar with the phrase the Good Shepherd. Yet the term only occurs three times in the Bible, all in today’s passage in the book of John. Jesus, as the […]
Today’s passage: John 9:13–34 Focus verse: “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” (John 9:16) The Pharisees come up often in the four biographies of Jesus, over eighty times altogether. From our present day, we look back two millennia, dismayed at the hypocrisy and closed-mindedness of the Pharisees. While […]
Today’s passage: John 9:1–12 Focus verse: “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3) As Jesus and his disciples travel, they meet a blind man. He was blind from birth. The disciples assume sin caused his blindness. That’s their view of God, that he afflicts people who do […]
Today’s passage: John 8:31–59 Focus verse: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31–32) Jesus speaks to the Jews who believe in him. He encourages them to hold fast to his teaching. By doing so, they prove […]
Today’s passage: John 8:1–30 Focus verse: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) Jesus’s detractors drag a woman caught in the act of adultery before him. They’re doing this to test him. These religious leaders who present the adulterous woman care nothing […]
Today’s passage: John 7:25–53 Focus verse: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) Health professionals and fitness experts teach on the importance of good hydration, of getting enough to drink. In much of the world, access to clean drinking water is a given. People in these regions don’t give water […]
Today’s passage: John 7:1–24 Focus verse: “Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory.” (John 7:18) This verse talks about receiving glory. Other translations use the word honor, and still others say praise. Glory, honor, and praise give us different angles to look at the same idea. Although a human trait, seeking […]
Today’s passage: John 6:1–71 Focus verse: Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35) Jesus offered the Samaritan woman living water to drink. Now he wants to feed the people life-giving bread. Just as we […]
Today’s passage: John 5:31–47 Focus verse: “There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.” (John 5:32) In the Old Testament of the Bible, Moses writes that one witness is insufficient. To prove a point requires two or, even better, three testimonies. The context is someone […]
Today’s passage: John 4:43 to 5:30 Focus verse: At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath. (John 5:9) In Genesis, after God finishes his amazing creation, he takes time on the seventh day to rest. Later, in the Old Testament, […]