Daily Bible Verses

“Blessed are the meek,” (Matthew 5:5) Jesus says in the Beatitudes. “Meekness” is the biblical word for nonviolence. Blessed are the meek, the gentle, the nonviolent—they will inherit the earth. A life of nonviolence leads to oneness with creation and her creatures. 

A life of violence, of course, leads to an abrupt discord with creation. In a time of permanent warfare, nuclear weapons, and catastrophic climate change, the message couldn’t be clearer. The God of peace, the…

28: 19  Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.

 …

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-10-8-storm-r25

45 Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

…

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

Richard Rohr explores the apostle Paul’s teachings on “the world, the flesh, and the devil,” to clarify the often systemic and hidden nature of evil, including systems of money.  
For most of history we believed that evil was almost exclusively the…

[The rich man] said, “I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”  Luke 12:18–19

This man epitomizes the confidence and narcissism of a civilization…. He talks to himself about himself, and neither listens to nor thinks of anyone else…. He asks himself what to do to maintain stability, to keep the system going, to keep…

You cannot serve God and mammon (Luke 16:13) 

Many of us, myself included, have a confused, guilt-ridden, obsessive attitude about money. There’s hardly anybody who can think in a clear-headed way about it. At the end of Luke’s parable of the so-called dishonest steward, Jesus creates a clear dualism between God and wealth, or what he calls “mammon”: “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). Mammon was the god of wealth, money, superficiality, and success. Jesus says, in…

Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.   John 21:12–14

It reminds us that Jesus meets us in the ordinary places of life. The disciples weren’t in the Temple or on a mountain, they were at work,…

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ (John 1:43)

“Think now about your feet. Think about your feet as you look out the window at people on the street. Do you see someone in need of kindness? It is often easy to find someone who appears lonely. Do your feet move you in their direction? We often move around so quickly that we fail to notice when someone needs…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-10-3-good-r25 

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  (Matthew 7:11)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1)

…

42 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 …

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-22-jesus-in-the-boat-r25 

35That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-24-a-tale-of-two-sons-r25    
11Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living.
14After…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2

Richard Rohr offers a summary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence:  …

Love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)

King so imbued this understanding of nonviolence into his followers that it became the ethos of the entire civil rights movement. One evening … the large crowd of black and white activists standing outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church was electrified by the sudden arrival of a black funeral home operator from Montgomery. He reported that a group of black students demonstrating near the capitol just that afternoon had been surrounded by police on…

Of all powers, love is the most powerful and the most powerless. It is the most powerful because it alone can conquer that final and most impregnable stronghold which is the human heart. It is the most powerless because it can do nothing except by consent. 

In the Christian sense, love is not primarily an emotion but an act of the will. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbours, he is not telling us to love them in the sense of responding to them with a cosey emotional feeling.…

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  said … 

When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality…. …

Jeremiah 17v7-8

7But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in Him.
8He is like a tree planted by the waters
that sends out its roots toward the stream.
It does not fear when the heat comes,
and its leaves are always green.…

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  (2 Corinthians 4:8–10)

When suffering hits, it’s natural to wonder why God allows it to happen. The Bible is disarmingly honest about the issue. It publishes numerous complaints to the Almighty from people in pain.…

Jesus instructed, “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16
 
Faith-based organizer Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra reflects on Jesus’ teaching in Scripture about wielding power: 
In Matthew 10:16, Jesus calls his disciples to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Serpent power is evident and measurable—it is the power of force, wealth, social influence and numbers. There is nothing wrong with…

12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14…

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one an other.  Mark 9:49–50 

Australian theologian Sally Douglas considers Jesus’ teachings about power:   

In Mark 9, we hear about an argument between Jesus’ male disciples. They have been disputing amongst themselves which one of them is the…

It is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones.
 —1 Corinthians 12:22 

How ingeniously you get around the commandment of God in order to preserve your own traditions! 
—Mark 7:9 

Father Richard Rohr examines different ways of understanding and using power: 

The epigraphs above are two subtle scriptures that I…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-17-lamenting-church-economics-r25

James 2v1-9

1My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism. …

Richard Rohr explores the ways we have used our God-given power for good and ill:  

Despite the many abuses of power documented throughout history, power itself cannot be inherently bad. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is described as dynamis, which means power (Acts 10:38; 1 Corinthians 2:4–5). Jesus tells his disciples before his Ascension that “You will receive power when the…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-22-deep-roots-real-life-r25

But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”