M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The transfiguration
17 After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and James’s brother John, and led them off up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transformed in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. 3 Then, astonishingly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them. They were talking with Jesus.
4 Peter just had to say something. “Master,” he said to Jesus, “it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters here—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah!”
5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Then there came a voice out of the cloud. “This is my dear son,” said the voice, “and I’m delighted with him. Pay attention to him.”
6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were scared out of their wits. 7 Jesus came up and touched them.
“Get up,” he said, “and don’t be afraid.”
8 When they raised their eyes, they saw nobody except Jesus, all by himself.
The question about Elijah
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them strict instructions. “Don’t tell anyone about the vision,” he said, “until the son of man has been raised from the dead.”
10 “So why,” asked the disciples, “do the scribes say that ‘Elijah must come first’?”
11 “Elijah does indeed come,” replied Jesus, “and ‘he will restore everything.’ 12 But let me tell you this: Elijah has already come, and they didn’t recognize him! They did to him whatever they wanted. That’s how the son of man, too, will suffer at their hands.”
13 Then the disciples realized that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
Faith that moves mountains
14 When they came near the crowd, a man approached and knelt in front of him.
15 “Master,” he said, “take pity on my son! He suffers from awful fits which are frightful for him. He often falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t cure him.”
17 “You unbelieving and twisted generation!” responded Jesus. “How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.”
18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. The boy was cured from that moment.
19 The disciples came to Jesus in private. “Why couldn’t we cast it out?” they asked.
20 “Because of your lack of faith,” Jesus replied. “I’m telling you the truth: if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
The Temple tax
22 As they regathered in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The son of man is going to be given over into human hands. 23 They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they were very sad.
24 They came to Capernaum, where the officials who collected the Temple tax approached Peter.
“Your teacher pays the Temple tax, doesn’t he?” they asked.
25 “Yes,” he replied.
When he came into the house, Jesus spoke first, “What d’you think, Simon? When the kings of the world collect taxes or duties, who do they collect them from? From their own families, or from outsiders?”
26 “From outsiders,” he replied.
“Well then,” said Jesus, “that means the families are free. 27 But we don’t want to give them offense, do we? So why don’t you go down to the sea and cast out a hook? The first fish you catch, open its mouth and you’ll find a coin. Take that and give it to them for the two of us.”
Another king!
17 Paul and Silas traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2 Paul went there, as he usually did, and for three sabbaths he spoke to them, expounding the scriptures, 3 interpreting and explaining that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that “This Jesus, that I am announcing to you, is the Messiah.” 4 Some of them were persuaded, and threw in their lot with Paul and Silas, including a large crowd of godfearing Greeks, together with quite a few of the leading women.
5 But the Jews were righteously indignant. They took some villainous men from the marketplace, drew a crowd, and threw the city into an uproar. They besieged Jason’s house and searched for Paul and Silas, to bring them out to the mob. 6 When they couldn’t find them, they dragged Jason and some of the Christians before the town authorities.
“These are the people who are turning the world upside down!” they yelled. “Now they’ve come here! 7 Jason has had them in his house! They are all acting against the decrees of Caesar—and they’re saying that there is another king, Jesus!”
8 When they heard these words, the crowd and the authorities were both greatly agitated. 9 They bound over Jason and the others, and then dismissed them.
Paul reaches Athens
10 The Christians in Thessalonica quickly sent Paul and Silas on, by night, to Beroea. When they got there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 The people there were more generous in spirit than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with considerable eagerness, searching the scriptures day by day to see if what they were hearing was indeed the case. 12 Many of them became believers, including some of the well-born Greek women, and quite a few men.
13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica knew that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea, too, they came there as well, stirring up trouble and whipping up the crowd. 14 So the Christians quickly sent Paul away as far as the seacoast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind. 15 Those who were conducting Paul brought him all the way to Athens, where he told them to tell Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. Then they left him there.
16 So Paul waited in Athens. While he was there, his spirit was stirred up as he saw the whole city absolutely full of idols. 17 He argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the godfearers, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were disputing with him.
“What can this word-scatterer be on about?” some were saying.
“He seems to be proclaiming foreign divinities,” declared others—since he was preaching “Jesus and Anastasis.” (“Anastasis” means “resurrection.”) 19 So they took him up to the Areopagus.
“Are we able to know,” they said, “what this new teaching really is that you are talking about? 20 You are putting very strange ideas into our minds. We’d like to find out what it all means.”
21 All the Athenians, and the foreigners who live there, spend their time simply and solely in telling and hearing the latest novelty.
Paul among the philosophers
22 So Paul stood up in the midst of the Areopagus.
“Men of Athens,” he said, “I see that you are in every way an extremely religious people. 23 For as I was going along and looking at your objects of worship, I saw an altar with the inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Well: I’m here to tell you about what it is that you are worshiping in ignorance. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. 25 Nor does he need to be looked after by human hands, as though he lacked something, since he himself gives life and breath and all things to everyone. 26 He made from one stock every race of humans to live on the whole face of the earth, allotting them their properly ordained times and the boundaries for their dwellings. 27 The aim was that they would search for God, and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Indeed, he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for in him we live and move and exist; as also some of your own poets have put it, ‘For we are his offspring.’
29 “Well, then, if we really are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that the divinity is like gold or silver or stone, formed by human skill and ingenuity. 30 That was just ignorance; but the time for it has passed, and God has drawn a veil over it. Now, instead, he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has established a day on which he intends to call the world to account with full and proper justice by a man whom he has appointed. God has given all people his pledge of this by raising this man from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them ridiculed Paul. But others said, “We will give you another hearing about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their presence. 34 But some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius, a member of the court of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.