DAILY, WEEKEND, AND HOLIDAY INTERNET EVANGELIZE TO THE WORLD MINISTRY

April 30 Be it unto thee even as thou wilt Matt. 15:28 Oh, the victories of prayer! They are the mountain-tops of the Bible . They take us back to the plains of Mamre, to the fords of Peniel, to the prison of Joseph, to the triumphs of Moses, to the transcendent victories of Joshua, to the deliverances of David, to the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, to the whole story of the Master’s life, to the secret of Pentecost, to the keynote of Paul’s unparalleled ministry, to the lives of saints and the deaths of martyrs, to all that is most sacred and sweet in the history of the Church and the experience of the children of God. And when, for us, the last conflict shall have passed, and the footstool of prayer shall have given place to the harp of praise, the spots of time that shall be gilded  Hardman, Samuel G., and Dwight Lyman Moody. Thoughts for the Quiet Hour . Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997. Print.

Today MONDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Catholic Daily Readings First Reading  Ac 14:5–18 Response  Ps 115:1ab Psalm  Ps 115:1–4 ,  15–16 Gospel Acclamation  Jn 14:26 Gospel   Jn 14:21–26 Today MONDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings Psalm  Ps 80 First Reading  Is 5:1–7 Second Reading  Ga 5:16–26 Today MONDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Book of Common Prayer (1979) Daily Office Lectionary Psalms (Morning)  Ps 56 ;  57 ;  58 Psalms (Evening)  Ps 64 ;  65 Old Testament   Le 16:1–19 New Testament  1 Th 4:13–18 Gospel  Mt 6:1–6 ,  16–18 Today FOURTH MONDAY AFTER PASCHA Byzantine Lectionary (Julian) Epistle  Ac 10:1–16 Gospel  Jn 6:56–69 Today FIFTH MONDAY AFTER PASCHA Byzantine Lectionary (Gregorian) Epistle   Ac 12:12–17 Gospel  Jn 8:42–51 Today FOURTH MONDAY AFTER...

April 30: They’re Futile; This Isn’t Joshua 22:10–24:33 ; 2 Corinthians 13:11–14 ; Psalm 60:1–12 If you knew it was time to die, to say goodbye for good, what would you say? How would your final hoorah sound? In an episode of Northern Exposure, Dr. Joel Fleischman is convinced that he is dying. Joel, who is usually conservative, begins risking everything: he drives a motorcycle way too fast without a helmet, gets a ticket that he rips up, and eventually crashes the bike—all while feeling no remorse. He then returns to his office to learn that he is actually fine; his doctor’s initial inclination was incorrect. Almost immediately, he becomes angry that he didn’t know his fate earlier. In his recklessness, he could have prematurely ended his life. The risks you take when you think your life is over are quite different from those you’re willing to take when you think you’re fine. The things you say, the person you are, would be very different if you knew tomorrow were your las...

Morning, April 30 Go To Evening Reading “And all the children of Israel murmured.” — Numbers 14:2 There are murmurers amongst Christians now, as there were in the camp of Israel of old. There are those who, when the rod falls, cry out against the afflictive dispensation. They ask, “Why am I thus afflicted? What have I done to be chastened in this manner?” A word with thee, O murmurer! Why shouldst thou murmur against the dispensations of thy heavenly Father? Can he treat thee more hardly than thou deservest? Consider what a rebel thou wast once, but he has pardoned thee! Surely, if he in his wisdom sees fit now to chasten thee, thou shouldst not complain. After all, art thou smitten as hardly as thy sins deserve? Consider the corruption which is in thy breast, and then wilt thou wonder that there needs so much of the rod to fetch it out? Weigh thyself, and discern how much dross is mingled with thy gold; and dost thou think the fire too hot to purge away so much dross as t...

April 30th The spontaneity of love Love suffereth long, and is kind … 1 Cor. 13:4–8 . Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, that is, it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in Paul’s category of love. We cannot say— ‘Now I am going to think no evil; I am going to believe all things.’ The characteristic of love is spontaneity. We do not settle statements of Jesus in front of us as a standard; but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without knowing it, and on looking back we are amazed at the disinterestedness of a particular emotion, which is the evidence that the spontaneity of real love was there. In everything to do with the life of God in us, its nature is only discerned when it is past. The springs of love are in God, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts naturally, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If we try...

Quirinius Luke 2:2 Excerpt Roman consul who held the position of governor (legate) of Syria for several years, beginning in  a.d.  6. He is the ‘Quirinius’ ( kjv : ‘Cyrenius’ ) of Luke  2:2 , during whose administration the ‘enrollment’ took place and Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The historian Josephus tells of a census carried out under Quirinius’ authority in  a.d.  6 or 7, after the banishment of Archelaus, the ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. The property of Judea’s Roman subjects, now to be governed directly by a Roman prefect, was assessed for the purpose of levying taxes. Apparently this is the census ( ‘enrollment’ ) of Luke  2:1-3 . Two problems, however, await resolution. The first and most serious is the discrepancy of at least ten years between Luke’s dating of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth to the time of Herod the Great ( Luke   1:5 ; cf . Matt .  2:1-22 ), who died in 4  b.c.,  and Josephus’ dating ...

Serpent in the Near Eastern Culture Genesis 3:8 Excerpt A general term for the various snakelike creatures found in the ancient Near East ( Heb .   nāḥāš , kārāp̱ ;   Gk .   óphis ). Representations of serpents in literature and other media (chiefly clay and bronze) occur throughout the ancient Near East. Serpents functioned largely as objects of worship or charms against evil, often that of snakebite. Enuma Elish depicts Tiamat, herself perhaps a serpentlike creature, as allied with a horde of creatures — many serpentine — in her battle with Marduk. While Gilgamesh is swimming, a serpent steals the plant that is to give immortality. In the  Gen. 3  story of the fall of humanity, a crafty serpent ( cf .  Matt. 10:16 ) talks Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which she then hands to Adam. God pronounces the consequences on the serpent, Eve, Adam, and the ground (only the serpent and the ground are cursed). T...

Paul’s Ministry to the Churches Excerpt The first aspect of Paul’s ministry involved suffering. Perhaps Paul reflected here on the words of explanation at his conversion experience. God told Ananias that Paul would learn how many things he must suffer for Christ’s sake ( Acts  9:16 ). From the beginning of his ministry, Paul and others knew that unique suffering would be his lot. That knowledge came through direct revelation from God. Perhaps, further, Paul reflected on the fulfillment of that prediction in the various experiences of suffering in his ministry. Even at the time of writing, Paul was suffering in house arrest for the sake of Gentile churches. In a unique way, the apostle was granted the privilege of suffering for the Messiah.  More Melick, Richard R.  Philippians , Colossians , Philemon . Vol. 32. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991. Print. The New American Commentary.

Baptism in John 3:5? John 3:5 Excerpt Could the text of  3:5  then possibly refer to Christian baptism? The answer is certainly not a simple one. Birth from above for John was the equivalent of salvation or eternal life. Such birth, as some scholars have noted, is in John similar to being children of God in the Synoptic Gospels ( e.g. ,  Matt 18:3 ;  Mark 10:15 ).78 In the early church baptismal language could be used in contexts that refer to the salvation process. Examples are numerous, but a few will suffice, such as being buried and raised ( e.g. ,  Rom 6:1–11 ), or the putting off of the old way and the putting on of the new ( e.g. ,  Col 3:1–17 ), or in the commission to evangelize ( e.g. ,  Matt 28:10 ). In such contexts baptism and salvation were clearly linked within the thinking of early Christians. Was the same true for John, who later in the first century was writing reflectively on the significance of the Nicodemus story for ...