1 Praise the LORD, my soul, O praise him!LORD my God, you are so great!2 Wrapped in light as with a garment,clothed in majesty and state.Like a tent he spreads the heavens,3 and above the waters thereSets the framework of his dwelling,making it an upper layer. He makes clouds of heav’n his chariot;on the wings […]
URC Daily Devotion 6th July 2019
Short letter, long division? This short letter highlights some painful tensions in church life. There are two names in today’s verses, who never surface elsewhere in the Bible. All that we know about them is here, in and (to some extent hypothetically) between the lines. Diotrephes (9) appears to be a local church leader, who […]
URC Daily Devotion 5th July 2019
The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul. I was overjoyed when some of the friends arrived and testified to your faithfulness to the truth, namely, […]
URC Daily Devotion 4th July 2019
It’s hardly surprising that the early Christians were victims of false and confused messages spread by the ‘many deceivers’ whom John mentions here. After all Christianity was new and the message of love, and a Kingdom where everyone looked after everyone else, was utterly counter-cultural. It was fertile ground for the heretics who spread inaccurate […]
URC Daily Devotion 3rd July 2019
I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father. But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning, let us love one another. And this is […]
URC Daily Devotion 2nd July 2019
Since I first came across the short – only thirteen verses long – and curious second letter of John, I have been intrigued about the identity of ‘the elect (or chosen) lady and her children’! While some commentators do think that this does refer to an individual family, more consider that this is a code […]
URC Daily Devotion 1st July 2019
A difficult passage to conclude this letter. It is perhaps no wonder that one commentator suggests that it is unclear and that there is little agreement as to what it means, or even why the last sentence is there at all. Yet certainty is there in the three-fold statement of knowledge. We know that the […]
URC Daily Devotion 30th June 2019
1 Praise God, my soul! With all my heartLet me exalt his holy name.2 Forget not all his benefits;His praise, my soul, in song proclaim.3 The LORD forgives you all your sins,And heals your sickness and distress;4 Your life he rescues from the grave,And crowns you in his tenderness. 5 He satisfies your deep desiresFrom […]
URC Daily Devotion 29th June 2019
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us […]
URC Daily Devotion 28th June 2019
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. […]