“But if God so arrays the grass of the field” Matthew 6:30 Grass – Here is your assignment. Write a sentence that puts strong emphasis on one of the words. But you can’t use any punctuation, italics, underlining or any other extra devices. Could you do it? This is the problem faced by authors who…
“And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.” Luke 2:9 Shone around – The glory of the Lord. A few men have seen it in this world. Paul was one of them (Acts 26:13). Here the shepherds were witnesses…
“My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death” Matthew 26:38 Deeply grieved – Many years ago I stood on the shore of Puget Sound on a cold, bitter Seattle day. The gray water reflected my gray life. That day the faculty at the University of Washington told me that they didn’t think I…
“Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” Luke 19:5 Hurry – Hurry up! Get going! Move along! Faster! One of the ubiquitous elements of our lives is hurry. We are so busy with life that we don’t have time to live. We are so pressed with schedules and tasks…
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 Free – “Free” used to mean something special. But modern life-style advertising has done a tremendous job of corrupting this word (along with a lot of others life “pure”, “safe” and “guaranteed”). …
“I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Matthew 26:63 Adjure – Manipulation. Demands. Pleadings. Bartering. Sometimes we resort to all sorts of tactics in order to force someone to speak. “Don’t you know what will happen if you don’t say something?” “Why…
“Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings”, he said. They came to him, clasping his feet and worshiped him.” Matthew 28:9 Greetings – Chairete! We know that Jesus’ greeting announces a change in the entire structure of the universe. It is not “Hello, how are you?” It’s not “Have a nice day.” Jesus replaces the wish for…
“Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings”, he said. They came to him, clasping his feet and worshiped him.” Matthew 28:9 Greetings – “Oh, God, how could this happen?” the women thought as they walked toward the tomb. Jesus has been crucified. All of his disciples were in hiding. On the first morning after the Sabbath, these…
“Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” John 20:15 Weeping – The Passion story in the gospel of John uses a literary device to enhance the emotional immediacy of the scenes. The verbs are in the present tense, transporting the reader into the right-now action. It is John’s way of involving us in…
“My son, let them not vanish from your sight; keep sound wisdom and discretion” Proverbs 3:21 Vanish – Did you know that gravity bends light? When you watch the sun setting over a flat horizon, the image that you see just before the sun vanishes is really not where you think it is. The gravity…
