Mark 1:1-8 “Notice what you notice.” Another first verse item – …Jesus Christ, the Son of God… We’ve often heard that Mark moves fast and gets right at the heart of the matter. And now in his introduction he leaves no doubt as to where he is headed. This Jesus (of Nazareth) is our Christ …
Author Archives: Fred
January 16 / Matthew 3:1-12
Matthew 3:1-12 “Notice what you notice.” Maybe I’m caught up on geography a bit. Again, “notice” came to me in today’s first verse: …the wilderness of Judea. I noticed it in part because we had Zacharias and Elizabeth living in the hill country of Judea and I had done some research to understand that region. …
January 15 / Luke 2:41-52
Luke 2:41-52 “Notice what you notice.” So, a number of items today! The first jumped out at me in the first verse, an item we’ve read over many, many times: Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. “…every year…” Immediately I imagined Mary and Joseph on their trip …
January 14 / Matt. 2:22-23; Luke 2:39-40
Matthew 2:22-23 and Luke 2:39-40 “Notice what you notice.” Not much to say this morning, since nothing jumped out to me on my own, but there was an explanatory item in my Study Bible. In the NASB and NKVJ translations Matthew 2:23 has in quotation marks, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” The ESV has …
January 13 / Matt. 2:13-21
Matthew 2:13-21 “Notice what you notice.” Just two items… First, in Mt. 2:14, Joseph took Jesus and Mary “by night” and fled to Egypt. Clearly they were in danger and didn’t want anyone to know that they had left or where they were headed. Bethlehem was in the “hill country” of Judea, so it would …
January 12 / Matt. 2:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12 “Notice what you notice.” I think it’s what I had hoped for, that in reading only a few verses at each sitting we would see words and phrases and “concepts” that we had not noticed before – or had glossed over without really considering them further. Again today I report on three such …
January 11 / Luke 2:21-38
Luke 2:21-38 “Notice what you notice.” What’s blessing me today is how much our agreement to “deep think” these passages is linking them all together. Two items came up again that I had mentioned in earlier posts. The first was the work of the Holy Spirit. I had reflected on the work of the Holy …
January 10 / Luke 2:1-20
Luke 2:1-20 “Notice what you notice.” A couple of things today… First, my NKJV text had in verse 17 that the shepherds made it “widely known” what they had heard and seen. But that verse had a footnote that “widely” was omitted in (presumably) an earlier translation. To my mind the NKJV added “widely” because …
January 9 / Matt. 1:18-25
Matthew 1:18-25 “Notice what you notice.” Verse 25, “…until…”, as in “Joseph … kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son.” I well remember from my Catholic childhood the phrase, “Blessed Mary ever virgin”. The obvious follow-up to that phrase is that Joseph never consummated his marriage to Mary, Jesus had no …
January 8 / Matt. 1:1-17
Matthew 1:1-17 “Notice what you notice.” Genealogies have always been a challenge to most Bible readers. That’s certainly the case for me, especially when I had prior knowledge that Matthew’s genealogy and Luke’s genealogy were quite different from each other. And after extolling Luke’s virtue a few days ago as a research historian, I found …