January 17 / John 1:35-51

John 1:35-51 RTNT 2021. The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and… (v. 43a). After posting last week about caravans of travelers between Jerusalem and Galilee, my first thought today upon reading this verse was that Jesus was walking along with Andrew, Simon Peter, and the other disciple (vv. 35, …

January 15 / Matt. 4:1-11

Matthew 4:1-11 RTNT 2021. Today’s first verse struck me: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. These few words, “…was led by the Spirit … to be tempted…”. It’s always a challenge to think of Jesus’ humanity up against His deity. What did He leave …

January 14 / Luke 3:21-38

RTNT 2021. Genealogies. I can’t trace my genealogy back any further than one set of great-grandparents on my mother’s side. But evidently it was important to the Old Testament Jews who were looking for their Messiah. So it’s not surprising that Luke (the historian) has a full line of Jesus’ ancestors, 35 more generations than …

January 13 / John 1:19-34

John 1:19-34 RTNT 2021. Today, John’s account of John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus’ baptism. John the Baptist tells his listeners (very likely, even those sent by the Pharisees) that He has been in communion with the Living God: I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said …

January 12 / Luke 3:1-20

Luke 3:1-20 RTNT 2021. Today is the third day, our third gospel of introducing John the Baptist. Yesterday I commented how Mark introduced John the Baptist as “He appeared…”. Luke is quite different!! No more on that – see my first comment in the link below. Initially John gives the people two directives: Bear fruit… …

January 11 / Mark 1:1-13

Mark 1:1-13 RTNT 2021. Today’s reading was broken into three parts in 2019 – January 17, 20, and 24, covering, respectively, John the Baptist, Jesus’ baptism, and Jesus in the wilderness. See below. Four things struck me today – an unusual number! First, in verse 5, And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem …

January 10 / Matt. 3:1-17

RTNT 2021. Jesus’ baptism is one item that is covered in all four gospels, as I noted back in 2019. In setting the readings for this chronological study I have tried to keep chapters “together” as much as possible, again essentially doubling up the number of verses this year that we covered in 2019. Back …

January 8 / Matt. 2:1-23

Matthew 2:1-23 RTNT 2021. When RTB read the Gospels in 2019 the readings were, on average, about half the length that we have this year (since we’re covering twice as much material this year). So today’s readings in 2019 were split over three days and I wrote fairly extensive comments over those three days, which …