Christianity Today is reporting on another recent (possible) discovery of special interest to Christians: an alleged early fragment of the Gospel of Mark. Daniel Wallace, the professor at Dallas Theological Seminary who earlier this year announced the find, claimed during a debate that the fragment is the earliest known New Testament text. (You can read Wallace’s account of the debate and the surprising announcement at the Parchment & Pen Blog.)

This would certainly be exciting news if it’s confirmed. However, the CT article describes the very cautious reaction this announcement has received from scholars:

Other New Testament scholars won’t get a chance to study this gospel portion until it is published in a book about a year from now. They are admittedly skeptical, since the alleged fragment would be almost two centuries older than the current oldest copy of Mark….

“I won’t believe it until I see it,” said Simon Gathercole, editor of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

Peter Head, a New Testament research fellow at Tyndale House, a British residential center for biblical research, is likewise eager to get a look at the fragment before rendering an opinion….

Biblical scholars are increasingly frustrated with sensational finds, often announced during the Christmas and Easter seasons. Magazines, book publishers, and cable channels seem more interested in pumping up sales and viewers than in assuring that discoveries stand up under scholarly scrutiny.

Healthy skepticism seems like a reasonable response to sensational claims—better to wait for a scholarly consensus before splashing the news across magazine covers. If the find is genuine, it could add significantly to our understanding of the New Testament and its formation… but let’s make sure it’s true before we get too excited.

This is a topic that we’ve discussed at times in the past—see our earlier post about how to respond to sensational archaeological claims. For more specific reactions to the Mark fragment announcement, see some helpful words of caution at The Biblical World.

The author of today’s Bible reading has a message for you: God’s saving help is coming.

Lamentations 3:19-33 (CJB)

Remember my utter misery,
the wormwood and the gall.
They are always on my mind;
this is why I am so depressed.

But in my mind I keep returning to something,
something that gives me hope —
that the grace of Adonai is not exhausted,
that his compassion has not ended.
[On the contrary,] they are new every morning!
How great your faithfulness!
“Adonai is all I have,” I say;
“therefore I will put my hope in him.

Adonai is good to those waiting for him,
to those who are seeking him out.
It is good to wait patiently
for the saving help of Adonai.

It is good for a man
to bear the yoke from his youth.
Let him sit alone in silence
when he has laid it on him.
Let him submit absolutely;
there may yet be hope.
Let him offer his cheek to the one who strikes it,
and receive his fill of insults.

For rejection by Adonai
does not last forever.
He may cause grief, but he will take pity,
in keeping with the greatness of his grace.
For he does not arbitrarily torment
or punish human beings.” —Lamentations 3:19-33 (CJB)

Questions to Ponder

1. “It is good to wait patiently” for God’s help, according to this passage. What could be good about waiting?
2. What is the “yoke from his youth” that this passage mentions? Why would it be good to sit by while other insult you?
3. What does it take to be able to say, amidst all of the setbacks and challenges of life, that you still put your hope in God? What needs to happen for you to experience the patient hope described here?

After the resurrection Jesus returned to His disciples. We read accounts of some of his miracles and appearances at the end of all of the Gospels. The longest accounts can be found at the end of Luke (Luke 24) and John (John 21:11-John 21).

The ascension itself is mentioned briefly at the end of Matthew and Mark, but we get a thorough description of the ascension itself in the beginning of Acts. Starting in chapter 1, verse 6:

6 When they were together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore self-rule to Isra’el?” 7 He answered, “You don’t need to know the dates or the times; the Father has kept these under his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Ruach HaKodesh comes upon you; you will be my witnesses both in Yerushalayim and in all Y’hudah and Shomron, indeed to the ends of the earth!”

9 After saying this, he was taken up before their eyes; and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 As they were staring into the sky after him, suddenly they saw two men dressed in white standing next to them. 11 The men said, “You Galileans! Why are you standing, staring into space? This Yeshua, who has been taken away from you into heaven, will come back to you in just the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

I often wonder what it would have been like to be with Jesus in those days after the resurrection. From the accounts we have it sounds like an extremely exciting time full of wonders and joy.

Finding a church that you can attend regularly is a wonderful thing. All churches have their quirks and problems, but committing to being a part of a church despite those problems can prove to be an incredible blessing.

• Wycliffe Bible Translators invites you to play In Other Words, a free online Bible quiz game, and to compete for great prizes like iPads, Kindles and a trip for four to Orlando, Florida. Contest runs May 14 to June 12. We’re proud to support Wycliffe’s new Bible translation and this trivia game—so go check it out!
• Women pray more than men do, according to a 2008 survey that’s being widely discussed this month. Is this a trend you see in your own life and community? Why do you think that is?
• The prophet Hosea’s children had the most unfortunate names ever, if you translate their meaning from the Hebrew: “Not-Loved” and “Not-My-People.” Would your understanding of this and other Bible stories change if more English Bibles translated name meanings instead of just transliterating the Hebrew name?
• Why Bible geography matters. My childhood Sunday school teachers always insisted that memorizing the names, spellings, and locations of hard-to-pronounce cities in ancient Israel and Mesopotamia would pay lasting dividends for my faith. Maybe they were right! (But I’m still bitter anyway.)
• How Jesus handled tough questions. People in Jesus’ time faced the same difficult questions about God, evil, and suffering that we do today. Here’s a look at how Jesus used the power of stories to respond to questions with no easy answers.
• What does your church do for single people? Scot McKnight shares insight on the “goodness of singleness” from Tim and Kathy Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage.

1 Peter 3:8-18 (GNT)

To conclude: you must all have the same attitude and the same feelings; love one another, and be kind and humble with one another. Do not pay back evil with evil or cursing with cursing; instead, pay back with a blessing, because a blessing is what God promised to give you when he called you. As the scripture says,

    If you want to enjoy life
    and wish to see good times,
    you must keep from speaking evil
    and stop telling lies.
    You must turn away from evil and do good;
    you must strive for peace with all your heart.
    For the Lord watches over the righteous
    and listens to their prayers;
    but he opposes those who do evil.

Who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you should suffer for doing what is right, how happy you are! Do not be afraid of anyone, and do not worry. But have reverence for Christ in your hearts, and honor him as Lord. Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you, but do it with gentleness and respect. Keep your conscience clear, so that when you are insulted, those who speak evil of your good conduct as followers of Christ will become ashamed of what they say. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if this should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once and for all, a good man on behalf of sinners, in order to lead you to God. — 1 Peter 3:8-18 (GNT)

Questions to Ponder

1. The admonition to “pay back [evil] with a blessing” is one of the most challenging commands in Scripture. Have you ever made the decision to repay evil with kindness? Has anyone ever repaid you with kindness after you did something to hurt them? What was the experience like?
2. Do you think that when people consider your everyday actions and attitude, they are eager to learn about “the hope you have in you”?
3. What does it take to be “ready at all times to answer” somebody who inquires about your faith? Are you?

The Bible speaks highly of mothers who raise children and guide their families in a righteous manner; in the oft-quoted Proverbs 31, the “wife of noble character” is honored by her husband and children for her virtues.

Motherhood wasn’t a requirement for godly women in Bible times—and just as today, not every woman who wanted children was granted her wish. But the mothers and matriarchs of the Bible exhibit qualities that all of us, male or female, parent or not, should strive to emulate. Here are a few of the famous mothers of the Bible, with links to their stories:

Mary, the mother of Jesus: perhaps no more famous mother exists than Mary, who at a young age learned from an angel that she would give birth to the long-awaited Messiah. Her song of praise in response, and the well-known events of Christ’s birth, are what usually spring to mind when we think of Mary. But her role as mother brought her grief as well as joy; we can only imagine what it must have been like for her to witness Jesus’ crucifixion.

Mary’s was not the only miraculous birth recorded in the New Testament. Elizabeth was a godly woman who was “righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly”—and yet she and her husband were unable to conceive a child. God answered her prayers late in her life and she gave birth to John the Baptist, but is perhaps best known for her prophetic encouragement of the young (and perhaps frightened) Mary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Hannah is one of the most inspiring mothers in the Bible, although her story is less well-known. Despite years of patience and prayer, she remained unable to have a child. One day “in her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly”—and God answered her prayer at last. But Hannah’s character truly shone when, in gratitude to God, she dedicated her newborn son to His service. Her son would one day become one of Israel’s greatest prophets.

Sarah, the wife of Abraham, is one of the great matriarchs of the Bible—yet she didn’t become a mother until very late in life. In fact, her reaction to God’s promise that she would have a son was to laugh, as memorably recorded in Genesis 18. Nevertheless she did give birth to a son, and her lineage would include Jesus Christ himself.

There are many more famous mothers described in the Bible; many of them righteous, some not so much, but all used by God to bring about His design. Today, as we give thanks for the mothers in our lives, consider how you can embody the traits that define a godly mother—patience, kindheartedness, faithfulness—and consider how you can encourage the mothers in your community, young and old, as they work to meet that same standard.

This post was originally posted on Mother’s Day 2011.

You can usually find them located next to the title of the content. Take a look at the top right of the following screenshot to see where they’re placed for a verse like John 3:16:

Clicking on one of these buttons opens a window from which you can share the verse on Facebook, Twitter, or email. Here’s what that window looks like for each, respectively:

Facebook

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Take a second to add an optional message and confirm that you want to share it, and you’re done!

We’ve placed this icon set wherever there’s content that lends itself to sharing. In addition to Bible passages, you can share devotionals (like Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening or Discovering God’s Design) using the process described above for sharing Bible verses.

That’s it! We hope you find this useful the next time you stumble across a timely Bible verse that you want to share with someone who could use a bit of Scriptural encouragement.

Our wedding consisted of a lovely outdoor ceremony in western Michigan with our friends and family. One of the major parts of planning our wedding was, of course, the reception. Lots of preparation goes into a reception, most prominently decisions about food and drink. (I think we did pretty well and everyone seemed to have fun—although no one would probably say otherwise to my face, would they?)

Providing that much food and drink to a large group of people is a challenge. It’s expensive and tricky. Just how much wine do you need per 10 people? What if they like it a lot? What if they don’t touch it? In the end, getting the right amount of anything requires plenty of guesswork.

Going through a planning process like this makes you think a lot about other weddings you’ve attended or heard about, and since a large part of my life is centered around the Bible, my mind immediately jumps to the weddings in the Bible—specifically the wedding at Cana as described in John 2. Here’s the complete account:

On Tuesday there was a wedding at Kanah [Cana] in the Galil; and the mother of Yeshua was there. Yeshua too was invited to the wedding, along with his talmidim [disciples]. The wine ran out, and Yeshua’s mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” Yeshua replied, “Mother, why should that concern me? — or you? My time hasn’t come yet.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now six stone water-jars were standing there for the Jewish ceremonial washings, each with a capacity of twenty or thirty gallons. Yeshua told them, “Fill the jars with water,” and they filled them to the brim. He said, “Now draw some out, and take it to the man in charge of the banquet”; and they took it. The man in charge tasted the water; it had now turned into wine! He did not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. So he called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone else serves the good wine first and the poorer wine after people have drunk freely. But you have kept the good wine until now!” This, the first of Yeshua’s miraculous signs, he did at Kanah in the Galil; he manifested his glory, and his talmidim came to trust in him. — John 2:1-11 (CJB)

This was a wedding teetering on the brink of disaster. Having wine available wasn’t just a nice thing, but a necessity in order to be considered hospitable. For us, running out would have been annoying at worst. Maybe it’d make the party less memorable, maybe people would have left early—but ultimately not a big deal for us.

But if it had been a big deal to me, as it was to the man in charge at the Cana wedding, I would have been at an utter loss as to what to do. We were in a semi-remote part of Michigan. The nearest store of any capacity was miles away. The quickest we could have gotten the party started again would have been nearly an hour. That’s an eternity when you have lots of guests waiting for something to happen.

So I can’t help but put myself in the position of the bride and groom in this story. But against all odds, a guest at the wedding took care of the situation… somehow. Not only did Jesus solve the immediate problem, but he produced wine so spectacular that the master of the banquet gushed about its quality. The Asbury Bible Commentary states that Jesus made “somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons” of wine—a staggering amount.

This miracle means a lot in the context of Jesus’ ministry. It’s the first public miracle that we’re told about, and we’re also told it’s where he “manifested his glory.” After this, his disciples believed in him. It was a massive shift in his life and ministry.

What I find compelling about this miracle is that Jesus wasn’t fulfilling a “need” in the “someone-will-die-without-this” sense. Rather, this was something that people wanted. They’d already had wine and more was desired. I like how the IVP New Testament Commentary on John puts it: “here is a free, full, extravagant outpouring, and it is precisely the Son of God’s gratuitous, gracious generosity that is the glory revealed in this sign.”

Jesus helps a young couple throw a party that’s talked about for millenia and uses it as the launching pad for his public ministry. That’s a pretty cool party.

The Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) is an English translation that contains both the Tanakh (Old Testament) and the B’rit Hadashah (New Covenant—the New Testament).

What we love about this unique translation is that it offers something to both Jewish and non-Jewish readers. Jewish readers are connected to the Jewish context and identity of the Messiah. And all readers will see more clearly the Jewish roots of the Christian faith—something that is often lost or minimized in translation.

What specifically is different about the Complete Jewish Bible? Among other things, names and key terms are returned to their original Hebrew and presented in easy-to-understand transliteration, making it easy to pronounce them the same way Yeshua (Jesus) did! For example, you’ll read Yerushalayim instead of Jerusalem; Torah instead of Law, and Yeshua instead of Jesus. You’ll notice plenty of other Hebrew words and phrases throughout the text—all of them easy to understand in context. Compare how the NIV and CJB use different transliterations of names and terms in Hebrews 7 to see how this reads.

Like the other Bibles in our library, the Complete Jewish Bible can be searched through the drop-down Bible menu on BibleGateway.com or browsed at its translation information page.

Bible Gateway visitors have been asking to see the Complete Jewish Bible in our library for a long time, and we’re very grateful to Messianic Jewish Publishers for making it available. Whatever Bible translation you currently read, we encourage you to take a look at the Complete Jewish Bible and connect more closely to the Jewish context of Scripture and the Christian faith.