M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
1 Many people have tried already to write down the things that have happened among us.
2 These things were told us by men who saw them happen from the time they began to happen. And these men helped tell the good news.
3 I have tried to find out all that has happened from the beginning. And so, Theophilus, great ruler, I myself will write you the whole story.
4 Then you will know that the things people have told you are true.
5 When Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah. He was one of a group of priests, and Abijah was their leader. Zechariah's wife Elizabeth came from the family of Aaron.
6 Both of them were good people as God saw them. They obeyed all the laws and the things that the Lord said they should do.
7 But they had no children. Elizabeth was not able to have a baby and they were both very old.
8 Zechariah was doing his work one day as a priest to God. It was time for his group to do the work in the temple.
9 The priests had a certain way of dividing their work. This day it was Zechariah's turn to go into the temple of the Lord and burn the incense [that smells sweet when it is burned].
10 All the people were talking to God outside the temple at this time.
11 An angel of the Lord came to Zechariah. He was standing on the right side of the incense table.
12 When Zechariah saw him, he was surprised and afraid.
13 But the angel said, `Do not be afraid, Zechariah. You have been talking to God. He has heard you. Your wife Elizabeth will have a son. Name him John.
14 `You will be glad and happy. Many people will be glad when he is born.
15 He will be great in the way the Lord calls people great. He must not drink wine or any strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from the time he is born.
16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
17 He will go ahead of the Lord. He will have the spirit and power of Elijah. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. And he will bring back the people who do not obey, so that they will want to do what good people do. He will make people ready for the Lord.'
18 Then Zechariah said to the angel, `How can I know that this will happen? I am an old man and my wife is also old.'
19 The angel answered him, `I am Gabriel and I stand before God. I have been sent to talk to you and to bring you this good news.
20 Now listen. You will be silent and not be able to talk until the day that all this has happened. This is because you did not believe what I told you. At the right time all that I said will come true.'
21 the people were waiting for Zechariah to come out of the temple. They were surprised that he stayed in so long.
22 When he came out, he could not talk to them. They knew that he had seen something in the temple. He made signs to them with his hands and did not talk.
23 When his time for doing the work of a priest was finished, Zechariah went home.
24 After that, his wife Elizabeth found she was going to have a baby. For five months she stayed away from people.
25 She said to herself, `The Lord has done this for me. At this time he has remembered me so that I need not be ashamed among people anymore.'
26 Elizabeth was now in her sixth month. God sent the angel Gabriel to the town of Nazareth in Galilee.
27 The angel was sent to a young woman there. Her name was Mary. She was promised to a man named Joseph, to be his wife. He was of David's family line.
28 The angel went into the house and said to her, `Be happy! God has blessed you more than other women. The Lord is with you!'
29 What the angel said troubled Mary. She wondered what this greeting meant.
30 The angel said to her, `Do not be afraid, Mary. God has blessed you.
31 You will have a baby son. Name him Jesus.
32 He will be a great man. He will be called the Son of the Highest One [a name for God]. The Lord God will make him king where his father David was king.
33 He will be king over the people of Israel for ever. He will never stop being king.'
34 Then Mary said to the angel, `How can this happen? I have no husband.'
35 The angel answered, `The Holy Spirit will come to you. The power of the Highest One will be over you. That is why the holy child who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
36 `Your cousin Elizabeth is also going to have a baby son, though she is an old woman. This is the sixth month for her. She is one whom people said would not have a baby.
37 But God can do anything.'
38 Mary said, `I am the Lord's servant. Let it be as you have said.' Then the angel left her.
1 I am Paul. God called me to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. He did this because he wanted to.
2 Our Christian brother Sosthenes and I send greetings to the people who are the church of God in the city of Corinth. You are people whom Christ Jesus has made holy. You, too, are chosen to be God's people. And we send greetings to all the people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is their Lord, just as he is our Lord.
3 May God show you his kindness and peace which come from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I am always thanking God for the blessings he has given you through Jesus Christ.
5 He has made you rich in all ways, in all that you say and in all you know.
6 Christ has done for you just what he promised to do.
7 You have every blessing you need while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to come again.
8 And right to the end Jesus Christ will surely keep you safe. Then no one will find anything wrong about you on the day our Lord Jesus Christ comes.
9 God never fails anyone. It is he who called you to belong to his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
10 My Christian brothers, I beg you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, agree in what you say. Do not divide into groups. You should all think in the same way and decide to do the same things.
11 My brothers, I say this because I have been told by some of Chloe's family that you are quarrelling.
12 This is what I mean. Some of you say, `I belong to Paul.' Others say, `I belong to Apollos.' And others say, `I belong to Cephas'. And yet others say, `I belong to Christ.'
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul nailed to the cross for you? No! Were you baptized in Paul's name? No!
14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you but Crispus and Gaius.
15 So no one can say you were baptized in my name.
16 (However, I also baptized the people of the house of Stephanas. I do not know of any one else that I baptized.)
17 Christ did not send me to baptize people, but he sent me to tell the good news. I must not tell it with the clever words of this world. That would not show what the death of Christ on a cross truly means.
18 When people who are turning away from God hear about the cross, they say, `That is foolish!' But for us who are being saved, the cross is the power God uses to save us.
19 God says in the holy writings, `I will fool the wise people. I will bring to nothing the understanding of the clever people.'
20 Where are your wise people, the men who know books, the men who like to talk about the things of this world? God has shown that the clever things of this world are nothing.
21 God is wise. But the people of the world were not wise enough to know God. So he chose to save people who believe the good news that we tell them, even though the good news may seem to be foolish.
22 The Jews say, `We must see a sign.' Those who are not Jews say, `We want something we can understand.'
23 But we tell people about Christ who died on a cross. The leaders of the Jews do not like this, and those who are not Jews laugh at it.
24 But some have been called by God. They are chosen, both Jews and other people. Christ is God's power to save them. This shows how wise he is.
25 When God seems foolish, he is more wise than men. When God seems weak, he is stronger than men.
26 My brothers, remember what you were when God chose you. Not many of you were wise by the way people look at it. Not many of you had power. Not many of you came from a family with a big name.
27 But God chose things that look foolish to the people of the world. He has used those foolish things to put the wise people to shame. God chose the weak things to put to shame the strong people.
28 And God chose the small things, things that people despise. Yes, he chose even the things which seem to be nothing. He did this to destroy the big things.
29 He did this so that people would not be proud before God.
30 You are God's children through Christ Jesus. Christ came from God and made us wise. He put us right with God. He made us holy. He set us free from our wrong ways.
31 Just as the holy writings say, `No one should be proud of anything but of the Lord.'
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