M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The true vine
15 “I am the true vine,” said Jesus, “and my father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t bear fruit; and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it can bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean. That’s because of the word that I’ve spoken to you.
4 “Remain in me, and I will remain in you! The branch can’t bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains in the vine. In the same way, you can’t bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. People who remain in me, and I in them, are the ones who bear plenty of fruit. Without me, you see, you can’t do anything.
6 “If people don’t remain in me, they are thrown out, like a branch, and they wither. People collect the branches and put them on the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want, and it will happen for you. 8 My father is glorified in this: that you bear plenty of fruit, and so become my disciples.”
Obeying and loving
9 “As the father loved me,” Jesus continued, “so I loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my father’s commands, and remain in his love. 11 I’ve said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and so that your joy may be full.
12 “This is my command: love one another, in the same way that I loved you. 13 No one has a love greater than this, to lay down your life for your friends. 14 You are my friends, if you do what I tell you. 15 I’m not calling you ‘servants’ any longer; servants don’t know what their master is doing. But I’ve called you ‘friends,’ because I’ve let you know everything I heard from my father.
16 “You didn’t choose me. I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command to you: love one another.”
If the world hates you
18 “If the world hates you,” Jesus went on, “know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were from the world, the world would be fond of its own. But the world hates you for this reason: that you’re not from the world. No: I chose you out of the world.
20 “Remember the word that I said to you: servants are not greater than their masters. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too. If they kept my word, they will keep yours too. 21 But they will do all these things to you because of my name, because they don’t know the one who sent me.
22 “If I hadn’t come and spoken to them, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 (Anyone who hates me, hates my father as well!) 24 If I hadn’t done, there in the middle of them, the works which nobody else did, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin. But now they have seen me, and my father—and they’ve hated us both! 25 All this has happened, however, so that the word written in their law might be fulfilled: ‘They hated me for no reason.’
26 “When the helper comes—the one I shall send you from the father, the spirit of truth who comes from the father—he will give evidence about me. 27 And you will give evidence as well, because you have been with me from the start.”
5 So you should be imitators of God, like dear children. 2 Conduct yourselves in love, just as the Messiah loved us, and gave himself for us, as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice to God.
Darkness and light in matters of sex
3 As for fornication, uncleanness of any kind, or greed: you shouldn’t even mention them! You are, after all, God’s holy people. 4 Shameful, stupid or coarse conversations are quite out of place. Instead, there should be thanksgiving.
5 You should know this, you see: no fornicator, nobody who practices uncleanness, no greedy person (in other words, an idolator), has any inheritance in the Messiah’s kingdom, or in God’s. 6 Don’t let anyone fool you with empty words. It’s because of these things, you see, that God’s wrath is coming on people who are disobedient.
7 So don’t share in their practices. 8 After all, at one time you were darkness, but now, in the Lord, you are light! So behave as children of light. 9 Light has its fruit, doesn’t it, in everything that’s good, and just, and true. 10 Think through what’s going to be pleasing to the Lord. Work it out.
Light and darkness
11 So, then, don’t get involved in the works of darkness, which all come to nothing. Instead, expose them! 12 The things they do in secret, you see, are shameful even to talk about. 13 But everything becomes visible when it’s exposed to the light, 14 since everything that is visible is light. That’s why it says:
Wake up, you sleeper!
Rise up from the dead!
The Messiah will shine on you!
15 So take special care how you conduct yourselves. Don’t be unwise, but be wise. 16 Make use of any opportunity you have, because these are wicked times we live in. 17 So don’t be foolish; rather, understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine; that way lies dissipation. Rather, be filled with the spirit! 19 Speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and chanting in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks for everything to God the father in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.
Wives and husbands
21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for the Messiah.
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 The man, you see, is the head of the woman, just as the Messiah, too, is head of the church. He is himself the savior of the body. 24 But, just as the church is subject to the Messiah, in the same way women should be subject in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as the Messiah loved the church, and gave himself for it, 26 so that he could make it holy, cleansing it by washing it with water through the word. 27 He did this in order to present the church to himself in brilliant splendor, without a single spot or blemish or anything of the kind—that it might be holy and without blame. 28 That’s how husbands ought to love their own wives, just as they love their own bodies.
Someone who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, nobody ever hates his own flesh: he feeds it and takes care of it, just as the Messiah does with the church, 30 because we are parts of his body. 31 “That’s why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh.”
32 The hidden meaning in this saying is very deep; but I am reading it as referring to the Messiah and the church. 33 Anyway, each one of you must love your wife as you love yourself; and the wife must see that she respects her husband.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.