“At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.” (Luke 16:20-21).

Lots of people are reading and quoting from Luke 1 this week: the visit Gabriel paid to Mary.  Most would say this is the beginning of Christianity, though a few might have at least a partial realization that foundations were laid much earlier.

We aren’t told what the topic was, but it seems clear that Jesus was being grilled. There were hard questions being put and the answers were scrutinized.

A Poem

Tonight we attended a Bible study (remotely), part of which was spent on James chapter 3.  There wasn’t a lot of time left by the time we got to James’s discussion of the “wisdom from above” in verses 13-18.  But as it generally does, this passage got me thinking.  If we take the passage apart, there’s just so much to think about, in relation to our own walk.

The concept of the one body is very familiar to us. Paul in particular gives it a lot of attention, opening up and explaining the figure so that we can see the full power of it.

Our motives matter because God cares primarily about who we are becoming, not what we are achieving.

“And Job died, an old man and full of days: and it is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up.”

“To show partiality is not good—yet a man will do wrong for a piece of bread.” (Prov 28:21 WEB).

Let us now direct our attention to conditions associated with losing one’s faith, with the understanding we are speaking in the most general terms.

The parables of the New Testament are not simple stories like the fairy tales that we tell children. They can be, and were intended to be, difficult to understand.

A chiasm helps us understand the importance of repeated words in the Biblical text. Reading the Biblical text while understanding the power of chiasms, which are used extensively in Scripture, is a powerful Bible study tool.