M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Only real faith in Christ as God’s son can make a man confident, obedient and loving
5 Everyone who really believes that Jesus is the Christ proves himself one of God’s family. The man who loves the Father cannot help loving the Father’s own Son.
2-5 The test of the genuineness of our love for God’s family lies in this question—do we love God himself and do we obey his commands? For loving God means obeying his commands, and these commands of his are not burdensome, for God’s “heredity” within us will always conquer the world outside us. In fact, this faith of ours is the only way in which the world has been conquered. For who could ever be said to conquer the world, in the true sense, except the man who really believes that Jesus is God’s Son?
6-12 Jesus Christ himself is the one who came by water and by blood—not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. The Spirit bears witness to this, for the Spirit is the truth. The witness therefore is a triple one—the Spirit in our own hearts, the signs of the water of baptism and the blood of atonement—and they all say the same thing. If we are prepared to accept human testimony, God’s own testimony concerning his own Son is surely infinitely more valuable. The man who really believes in the Son of God will find God’s testimony in his own heart. The man who will not believe God is making him out to be a liar, because he is deliberately refusing to accept the testimony that God has given concerning his own Son. This is, that God has given men eternal life and this real life is to be found only in his Son. It follows naturally that any man who has genuine contact with Christ has this life; and if he has not, then he does not possess this life at all.
13 I have written like this to you who already believe in the name of God’s Son so that you may be quite sure that, here and now, you possess eternal life.
14-15 We have such confidence in him that we are certain that he hears every request that is made in accord with his own plan. And since we know that he invariably gives his attention to our prayers, whatever they are about, we can be quite sure that our prayers will be answered.
Help each other to live without sin
16-17 If any of you should see his brother committing a sin (I don’t mean deliberately turning his back on God and embracing evil), he should pray to God for him and secure fresh life for the sinner. It is possible to commit sin that is a deliberate embracing of evil and that leads to spiritual death—that is not the sort of sin I have in mind when I recommend prayer for the sinner. Every failure to obey God’s laws is sin, of course, but there is sin that does not preclude repentance and forgiveness.
Our certain knowledge
18 We know that the true child of God does not sin, he is in the charge of God’s own Son and the evil one must keep his distance.
19-20 We know that we ourselves are children of God, and we also know that the world around us is under the power of the evil one. We know too that the Son of God has actually come to this world, and has shown us the way to know the one who is true. We know that our real life is in the true one, and in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the real God and this is real, eternal life.
21 But be on your guard, my dear children, against every false god!
JOHN
20 1-2 Then one day as he was teaching the people in the Temple, and preaching the Gospel to them, the chief priests, the scribes and elders confronted him in a body and asked him this direct question, “Tell us by whose authority you act as you do—who gave you such authority?”
3-4 “I have a question for you, too,” replied Jesus. “John’s baptism, now—tell me, did it come from Heaven or was it purely human?”
5-7 At this they began arguing with each other, saying, “If we say, ‘from Heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why didn’t you believe in him?’ but if we say it was purely human, this mob will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they replied that they did not know where it came from.
8 “Then,” returned Jesus, “neither will I tell you by what authority I do what I am doing.”
He tells the people a pointed story
9-16 Then he turned to the people and told them this parable: “There was once a man who planted a vineyard, let it out farm-workers, and went abroad for some time. Then, when the season arrived, he sent a servant to the farm-workers so that they could give him the proceeds of the vineyard. But the farm-workers beat him up and sent him back empty-handed. So he sent another servant, and they beat him up as well, manhandling him disgracefully, and sent him back empty-handed. Then he sent a third servant, but after wounding him severely they threw him out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do now? I will send them my son who is so dear to me. Perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the farm-workers saw him, they talked the matter over with each other and said, ‘This man is the heir—come on, let’s kill him, and we shall get everything that he would have had!’ And they threw him outside the vineyard and killed him. What do you suppose the owner will do to them? He will come and destroy the men who were working his property, and hand it over to others.” When they heard this, they said, “God forbid!”
17 But he looked them straight in the eyes and said, “Then what is the meaning of this scripture—‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone?’
18 The man who falls on that stone will be broken, and the man on whom it falls will be crushed to powder.”
The authorities resort to trickery
19 The scribes and chief priests longed to get their hands on him at that moment, but they were afraid of the people. They knew well enough that his parable referred to them.
20 They watched him, however, and sent some spies into the crowd, pretending that they were honest men, to fasten on something that he might say which could be used to hand him over to the authority and power of the governor.
21-22 These men asked him, “Master, we know that what you say and teach is right, and that you teach the way of God truly without fear or favour. Now, is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
23-24 But Jesus saw through their cunning and said to them, “Show me one of the coins. Whose face is this, and whose name is in the inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they said.
25 “Then give to Caesar,” he replied, “what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
26 So his reply gave them no sort of handle that they could use against him publicly. And in fact they were so taken aback by his answer that they had nothing more to say.
Jesus exposes the ignorance of the Sadducees
27-33 Then up came some of the Sadducees (who deny that there is any resurrection) and they asked him, “Master, Moses told us in the scripture, ‘If a man’s brother should die without any children, he should marry the widow and raise up a family for his brother.’ Now, there were once seven brothers. The first got married and died childless, and the second and the third married the woman, and in fact all the seven married her and died without leaving any children. Lastly, the woman herself died. Now in the ‘resurrection’ whose wife is she of these seven men, for she belonged to all of them?”
34-38 “People in this world,” Jesus replied, “marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of reaching that world, which means rising from the dead, neither marry nor are they given in marriage. They cannot die any more but live like the angels; for being children of the resurrection, they are the sons of God. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed to be true in the story of the bush, when he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’. For God is not God of the dead, but of the living. For all men are alive to him.”
39 To this some of the scribes replied, “Master, that was a good answer.”
40 And indeed nobody had the courage to ask him any more questions.
41-44 But Jesus went on to say, “How can they say that Christ is David’s son? For David himself said in the book of psalms—‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’ David is plainly calling him ‘Lord’. How then can he be his son?”
Jesus warns his disciples against religious pretentiousness
45-47 Then while everybody was listening, Jesus remarked to his disciples, “Be on your guard against the scribes, who enjoy walking round in long robes and love having men bow to them in public, getting front seats in the synagogue, and the best places at dinner parties—while all the time they are battening on widow’s property and covering it up with long prayers. These men are only heading for deeper damnation.”
The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.