Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Live up to your calling!
4 So, then, this is my appeal to you—yes, it’s me, the prisoner in the Lord! You must live up to the calling you received. 2 Bear with one another in love; be humble, meek and patient in every way with one another. 3 Make every effort to guard the unity that the spirit gives, with your lives bound together in peace.
4 There is one body and one spirit; you were, after all, called to one hope which goes with your call. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and father of all, who is over all, through all and in all.
7 But grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure the Messiah used when he was distributing gifts. 8 That’s why it says,
When he went up on high
he led bondage itself into bondage
and he gave gifts to people.
9 When it says here that “he went up,” what this means is that he also came down into the lower place, that is, the earth. 10 The one who came down is the one who also “went up”—yes, above all the heavens!—so that he might fill all things.
Grown-up Christianity
11 So these were the gifts that he gave. Some were to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers. 12 Their job is to give God’s people the equipment they need for their work of service, and so to build up the Messiah’s body. 13 The purpose of this is that we should all reach unity in our belief and loyalty, and in knowing God’s son. Then we shall reach the stature of the mature Man measured by the standards of the Messiah’s fullness.
14 As a result, we won’t be babies any longer! We won’t be thrown this way and that on a stormy sea, blown about by every gust of teaching, by human tricksters, by their cunning and deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, we must speak the truth in love, and so grow up in everything into him—that is, into the Messiah, who is the head. 16 He supplies the growth that the whole body needs, linked as it is and held together by every joint which supports it, with each member doing its own proper work. Then the body builds itself up in love.
24 When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
25 When they found him beside the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Bread from heaven
26 This was Jesus’ reply.
“I’m telling you the solemn truth,” he said. “You aren’t looking for me because you saw signs, but because you ate as much bread as you could. 27 You shouldn’t be working for perishable food, but for food that will last to the life of God’s coming age—the food which the son of man will give you, the person whom God the father has stamped with the seal of his approval.”
28 “What should we be doing,” they asked him, “so that we can be doing the work God wants?”
29 “This is the work God wants of you,” replied Jesus, “that you believe in the one he sent.”
30 “Well, then,” they said to him, “what sign are you going to do, so that we can see it and believe you? What work are you doing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; it says in the Bible that ‘he gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”
32 “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus replied. “It wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. It was my father who gave you the true bread from heaven. 33 God’s bread, you see, is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Master,” they said, “give us this bread—give it to us always!”
35 “I am the bread of life,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who comes to me will never be hungry! Anyone who believes in me will never be thirsty!”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.