John 1:19-34 Dear RTB’ers, John the Baptist answering the Jews’ questions, I am not the Christ. … I am not. … No. … (vv. 20-22) No matter how John the Baptist answers their questions, they keep asking. But all their questions are about him, and he finally gets their thinking back to the Messiah: … …
Monthly Archives: September 2025
September 20 / John 1:1-18
John 1:1-18 Dear RTB’ers, Based on familiarity alone, there are probably few passages in all of Scripture with which I am more familiar. As a child in the Catholic Church, until I was almost twenty years old, these first fourteen verses in John’s Gospel were spoken at mass as the Last Gospel, the final words …
September 19 / I Kings 22
I Kings 22 Dear RTB’ers, Ahab is dead, but his legacy lives on – sadly. There was one unusual item that caught my eye: Ahaziah … did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way …
September 18 / I Kings 21
I Kings 21 Dear RTB’ers, Lust. That’s the word that came to me from today’s reading. We typically think of lust in a sexual context, but it’s also a good word for expressing any excess desire. I have occasionally joked about lusting after something that I really like that I haven’t enjoyed for a while, …
September 17 / I Kings 20
I Kings 20 Dear RTB’ers, An entire chapter devoted to Israel’s King Ahab and his battles with Aram (Damascus/modern-day Syria), with no mention of Elijah or Elisha or Jezebel from previous chapters. It’s hard to understand Ahab’s persistence in his seeming failure to acknowledge the Lord’s work. First he saw the Lord defeating the prophets …
September 16 / I Kings 19
I Kings 19 Dear RTB’ers, Elijah, continued. Fearful of Jezebel’s death threat, Elijah flees Israel and passes through Judah to Beersheba, the southernmost city in the Promised Land, where an angel ministers to him. From there he goes on to “Horeb, the mount of God” (v. 8b), which could be an alternate name for Mt. …
September 15 / I Kings 17-18
I Kings 17-18 Dear RTB’ers, Today we meet Elijah. We know of him from the Gospels. First, an angel was speaking to Zechariah about the future birth of his son, John: …and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah… (Luke 1:17) Later, when John was in prison he sent his …
September 14 / I Kings 16:8-34
I Kings 16:8-34 Dear RTB’ers, Elah, Zimri, Tibni, Omri, Ahab – a succession of kings of Israel, none of whom sought the true God. In fact, they almost seemed to compete with one another to in doing evil: Omri did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did more evil than all …
September 13 / I Kings 15:1-16:7
I Kings 15:1-16:7 Dear RTB’ers, It gets confusing, trying to follow the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah, both the years in which they reigned and the activities (especially wars, treaties, and building programs) in which they engaged. As I have often said, the “See also” links are quite helpful in adding to …
September 12 / I Kings 14
I Kings 14 Dear RTB’ers, Today, a couple of short items on Jeroboam and Rehoboam, both fairly straightforward. Jeroboam tries deception – remember how well that worked for Saul and the medium woman? We cannot deceive an all-knowing, all-seeing God! Even before the deception was playing out, God knew Jeroboam’s plans and revealed them to …