John 3:22-36 Dear RTB’ers, Three verses to comment on today… First, John the Baptist speaking: He must increase, but I must decrease. (v. 30) For all the attention that John was getting from the Jewish leaders and from the common people, in his heart he remained humble. We should speak these same words as John …
Author Archives: Fred
September 24 / John 2:23-3:21
John 2:23-3:21 Dear RTB’ers, Clarification… Yesterday I discussed the Jews seeking signs and wondered at how they knew about Jesus’ signs. Today we see that Jesus was, indeed, performing signs (healings?) in Jerusalem, leading to the Jewish leaders requesting additional signs: Now when He was in Jerusalem … they saw the signs that He was …
September 23 / John 2:1-22
John 2:1-22 Dear RTB’ers, It’s a strange question the Jews asked Jesus after His cleansing of the Temple, What sign do you show us for doing these things? (v. 18b) The NASB helps our understanding of their question, in that their interpretation includes the Jews asking about Jesus’ authority for doing these things. So, as …
September 22 / John 1:35-51
John 1:35-51 Dear RTB’ers, When a book is made into a movie, the book reader’s perspective on their original reading can become influenced by the way the movie portrays the book. That is clearly the case with me and the gospels. The series, The Chosen, has influenced my own imagination (or my own understanding) as …
September 21 / John 1:19-34
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: … …
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. …