Great Texts of the Bible – John 3:16

This verse has been called by Luther ‘the Bible in miniature’. It reveals the following aspects of God’s love:-

1. Its Author. God, in all his divine attributes. It is easy to imagine a man-made God, stripped of his moral glory, viewing the world with sentimental affection. But it is quite another thing to believe that the God of the Bible, full of majesty and might, is also full of love. Human love is at its best but a pale reflection of that divine love from which all human love flows, 1Jo 4:9,10,19 Ro 5:8-10. Sometmes God is pictured as a stern, unsmiling father who needed to have his bad attitude changed by a gentle, loving Jesus. But this is a caricature. Behind salvation lies the love of God himself. ‘It is easy to think of God as looking at men in their heedlessness and their disobedience and their rebellion and saying: “I’ll break them: I’ll discipline them and punish them and scourge them until they come back.” It is easy to think of God as seeking the allegiance of men in order to satisfy his own desire for power and for what we might call a completely subject universe. The tremendous thing about this text is that it shows us God acting not for his own sake, but for ours, not to satisfy his desire for power, not to bring a universe to heel, but to satisfy his love. God is not like an absolute monarch who treats each man as a subject to be reduced to abject obedience. God is the Father who cannot be happy until his wandering children have come home. God does not smash men into submission; he yearns over them and woos them into love.’ (DSB)

Great Texts of the Bible – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Great Texts of the Bible – Hebrews 13:8

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.

It is important to remember leaders. But they come and go, Zec 1:5. Just as God promised to Joshua, “I will never fail you nor forsake you” (cf. v5), so Jesus Christ is ever the same. Cf. Heb 1:8-12. The language here is reminiscent of Ps 102:27 and Isa 48:12: that such qualities are applied without any sense of incongruity to Jesus says much for the biblical doctrine of the Person of Christ. See Re 1:18.

Great Texts of the Bible – Genesis 1:1

Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Great Texts of the Bible – John 1:14

Joh 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We have, in this verse, the incarnation of the Word of God; his dwelling in our nature on earth for a season; the shining forth of his divine glory even during the days of his humility; and the riches of grace and truth that he brought with him.