Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“[Anna] talked about the Child to all.” –Luke 2:38 The Baby Jesus could not speak for Himself at His Presentation in the Temple, for He was only forty days old. Others, however, spoke for Him. Joseph and Mary would have spoken to the temple officials as His parents, Simeon (Lk 2:29ff) and Anna (Lk 2:38) prophesied for Him. It’s still like this today. Though the Baby Jesus did grow up and speak eloquently about the Kingdom of God, many are unable to hear Him. That’s why God has sent us. There are many who need to hear about this Child....

“They were begging Him to go away from their district.” –Mark 5:17 It is thought by some that the devotion of Catholics to the Crucified Jesus, to His Passion and sufferings, the Stations of the Cross, the Precious Blood of Jesus, and to the relics of martyrs is morbid. This is hard for a non-Catholic to understand. Yet there is fascination with the macabre in the secular culture of death. Rock groups celebrate the Grateful Dead, the Satanic and Gothic. Halloween is often twisted into a straight-out celebration of the ungodly. In today’s Gospel passage Jesus triumphs over the demons...

“If a prophet presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.” –Deuteronomy 18:20 If prophets prophesy something God did not tell them to say, they risk death. This makes prophets feel like being quiet. However, if prophets “do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he [the wicked man] shall die for his guilt, but [God] will hold [them] responsible for his death” (Ez 33:8). If we are silent in the face of evil, we are held...

“Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see.” –Hebrews 11:1 Faith is an assurance. This confident assurance concerns what we hope for but can’t see. We are saved by faith in Jesus (Eph 2:8). “All depends on faith” (Rm 4:16). Without faith, it’s impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). The conquerors of the world are those who have faith that Jesus is the Son of God (1 Jn 5:5). When Jesus comes back a second and final time, He will be looking to see if there is any faith on this...

“Do not, then, surrender your confidence; it will have great reward.” –Hebrews 10:35 Satan is trying to get us to surrender our confidence, to draw back (Heb 10:38-39), to give up, to commit spiritual suicide. To keep the faith, we have to endure “a great contest of suffering” (Heb 10:32). This contest lasts a long time. Relief in our sufferings seems indefinitely delayed (see Heb 10:37). Any benefits from our sufferings seem to be invisible or negligible. Under these circumstances, we naturally feel like giving up. Satan will even let us give up without appearing to give up everything. He’ll...