This Week's Focus Passage: Ezra 10:10 'Ye have trespassed, and have married foreign women.' What a bane it was upon the house of Israel that many that many of that separated nation, God's chosen people, violated the express commands of Jehovah their God and took unto themselves 'foreign' wives. Is this not a bane upon the church of Jesus Christ in our day as well? May...

This Week's Focus Passage: Proverbs 8:22-31 'When He established the heavens, I was there.' The eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs contains one of the most glorious passages in the Word of God. It has often been spoken of in a connection with the even better known prologue of John's gospel, John 1:1-5. That prologue is well worth an often repeated thoughtful readi...

This Week's Focus Passage: Luke 12:49 'I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled.' These rather striking, or at least startling, words spoken by Jesus Himself, when He said, verses 49 through 53, of Luke's gospel account, of His strange works: I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire if it is already kindled? B...

This Week's Focus Passage: Psalm 149:1 'Sing unto Jehovah a new song, and his praise in the assembly of his saints.' What has God the Holy Spirit indited for us here in His Word, when He has called us toSing unto Jehovah a new song?Is this 'new song,' to be something of our own devising; from our own brains, rather than something written through the inspiration of God...

This Week's Focus Passage: 1 Thessalonians 4:18 'Wherefore comfort one another with these words.' The larger pericope in which the above statement is found, is contained in verses 13-18, of 1 Thessalonians, chapter four. It is well worth repeated reading: But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the r...

This Week's Focus Passage: Luke 9:29 'His countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling.' This, of course, is Luke's account of the 'transfiguration.' Both Matthew and Mark have, in their particular gospels, granted the readers of the New Testament, two additional perspectives on this very singular event. Matthew and Mark each make use of the termi...

This Week's Focus Passage: Colossians 1:13 'The Fathertranslated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.' We are prone to attribute, entirely, our redemption to the vicarious life, on earth, and the vicarious death, on the cross, of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. After all, He is the One, who spoke those pre-incarnate words found in the fortieth psalm,Lo, I come...

This Week's Focus Passage: Ephesians 3:14ff. 'For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father.' It is very likely that it need not be said, that this wonderful prayer of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, that was initially written "to the saints that are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus," has equally been intended for those of us, in the church of Jesus Chr...

This Week's Focus Passage: Philippians 2:13 'So then, my beloved.. work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.' What is the apostle's meaning when he has begun this paragraph with the words,So then, my beloved.? One writer has helpfully granted to the reader, what his thoughts are concerning the thoughts of Paul. He has written the following: "Such a sketch...

This Week's Focus Passage: Philippians 3:1 'To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe' Paul begins this third chapter (of course, we must bear in mind the reality that the chapter divisions, in our English translations, are not inspired), but he began here, with the lovely sentiments,Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord....