This Week's Focus Passage: 1 John 1:1-4 'These things we write, that our joy may be made full.' John's epistle, which we know as 1 John, may, some have implied, been an accompaniment to his gospel; they may have been written almost together. John writes from, perhaps Patmos, to his church in Ephesus. Again, it may be that this epistle is complementary, in some way or ...

This Week's Focus Passage: Ezekiel 36:26 'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.' This glorious promise of Jehovah is frequently paralleled with that found in Jeremiah 31:31, which is expressly declared to be, by Jehovah Himself, a new covenant. And it is cited by the author; the writer/preacher of Hebrews, in his eighth and tenth ch...

This Week's Focus Passage: John 6:66 'Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.' This rather remarkable statement is found in the midst of a confrontationone of many between Christ and the Phariseesand here the focus is to be found back in verses thirty-seven and forty-four, where the Son of God, in undaunted boldness, declared to His audien...

This Week's Focus Passage: John 5:25 'The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son.' The blessed context, in which this statement is to be found, may be thought of as verse 20 through verse 25, which we duplicate below: For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and greater works than these will he show...

This Week's Focus Passage: James 2:25 'And in like manner also was not Rahab the harlot justified?' Justified by works? This was the great difficulty for Martin Luther; making it difficult for him to accept the epistle of James into the canon of Scripture. He called it 'a right stray epistle,' likely a reference to the words of the apostle Paul in his first epistle to...