Listen to Nick read the Firestarter and 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

However familiar you may be with chapter 13, read it today as though for the first time. Though this chapter does not mention God, the traces of God who is love penetrate every verse, challenging the listener to go beyond the world’s mind about love, deep into divine understanding. Reflect upon the spiritual gifts outlined in chapter 14. Paul describes the gift of tongues, a spiritual language that many discover the Holy Spirit continuing to give. Ordinary language tends to keep one in the mind alone; a language of the Spirit allows the recipients to yield the heart to those communications from the Lord that transcend the limitations of the mind; they are one-on-one contacts with the Spirit.

Pray that the Lord give you understanding about these gifts—surely offered today as well as to the community of Corinth.

1 Corinthians 13—14

Find out all about Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Love is patient; love is kind. 13: 4

Thursdays are dedicated to the letters of Paul, other letters,
the Book of Acts, and the Book of Revelation.
In the season of Kingdomtide this year we read 1 Corinthians.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these Firestarters with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Nick read the Firestarter and 2 Samuel 18:9-18;31-33.

The treason against David reminds me of the same against Jesus on the part of Judas. Absalom, part of David’s family, betrays his father, and wants the power of the kingdom to fall to him. Judas, one of Jesus’s apostles, betrays his Lord. Just as Absalom, Judas does not like the way the lines of power in Jesus’s Kingdom are being drawn. The fates of Absalom and Judas are similar—hanging from a tree. The grief of David over the fate of his son is similar to the grief that Jesus must have felt for Judas’s betrayal and the way he ended. The prayer of David, “If only I had died in your place,” is fulfilled in Jesus who died in your place and mine, so that our sin would not do to us what Absalom’s and Judas’s did to them. The tree, upon which Jesus hung in agony, became a new tree of life.
Spend time praising the Lord for the extent of his love for you. How much more can you yet respond?

2 Samuel 16—18

What are Bible Breaths? Learn More…
Example: Jesus died instead of me.

Tuesdays are dedicated to the Old Testament books of history
and the Hebrew “Writings.”
In the season of Kingdomtide this year we read Proverbs 15-16, 2 Samuel and Ecclesiastes 1-4.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

Listen to Nick read the Firestarter and the Gospel reading.

Jesus quotes from the first half of the Jewish Shema which pious Jews repeat twice daily (Deut. 6:4–5). After many questions on the part of the scribes, Sadducees and Pharisees, Jesus now takes the offensive. He presents a dilemma, forcing his listeners to face the question of how the Messiah would come to be. They are finally rendered speechless.

Life poses many questions about how, when or even whether God is intervening or not. There needs to come a moment when questions are silenced by the very presence of the Lord, perhaps by further questions, such as those posed to Job. God’s questions reduce Job to silence. They remind him about how incapable he is to dominate questions for which the Lord alone has answers.

Ponder these words of the song of Scott Wesley Brown: “When answers aren’t enough—there is Jesus.”

Matthew 22:34–46

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Surrendering to silence v. 46

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
During the Seasons of Pentecost and Kingdomtide, we read the Gospel of Matthew.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.