The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37)—perhaps Jesus’ most famous parable—offers us compelling signposts of compassion on the Jericho road of life. [1]
The first signpost of compassion along the Jericho road of life in the parable of the Good Samaritan is the sign of anonymity. Jesus has refused to disclose the identity of people in this parable…. The story of the fallen traveler and the compassionate Samaritan is a story of love that transcends identity…. It is a love…
更多In the New Testament, and particularly for Jesus, the most common image for what God is offering us is a banquet. It’s not a trophy, not a prize, not a reward reserved for later, but a participative and joyous party now. A banquet has everything to do with invitation and acceptance; it is never a command performance.
Matthew’s Gospel contains the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1–14). A king sends out his servants to let the guests know that the banquet has been…
更多In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full…
更多Jesus said, “I will speak to you in parables and reveal to you things hidden since the foundation of the world.” —Matthew 13:35, quoting Psalm 78:2
Richard Rohr describes how Jesus uses parables to challenge our ways of thinking:
A parable is a unique form of literature that’s always trying to subvert business as usual, much like a Zen koan or a Confucian riddle, which both use paradox to undo our reliance on what we think is logic.…
更多‘Be still, and know that I am God; (Psalm 46:10)
The journey of life is absolutely a sacred journey, but we don’t know that when we’re younger. We don’t want to think about life in terms of a sacred journey, because we don’t know for certain where we came from, and we don’t know for certain where we’re going….
In the everyday maelstrom of life, people don’t want to think about any of that. They just want to get through their day…. But when we get to the…
更多He will answer, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” —Matthew 25: 45
To enter the mind of Christ is to realize our oneness with the faces we see on television in the evening news. It is to realize we are one with that homeless person we saw going through the trash receptacle. The woman at the local market, the man who comes to check our gas meter, and all who have hurt us, abandoned us, and have otherwise wronged us,…
更多He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness. (LEVITICUS 16:21–22)
更多
This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the…https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-11-18-man-of-sorrows-r3
1 Who has believed our message
更多
and to whom has the arm of the Lord…- 1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ 2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.… 更多
- I can’t imagine a more counter-cultural and challenging vision of the Christian life than the one Jesus offers in this Gospel. “I am the vine, and you are the branches,” he tells his disciples. “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me, you can do nothing” [John 15:4–5]. If those words aren’t blunt enough, he continues: “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (v. 6).… 更多
- 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.… 更多
Remain in me as I remain in you” (John 15:4)
We go through our lives, our years on this Earth, thinking of ourselves as separate. That sense of separateness basically causes every stupid, sinful, silly thing we ever do. The little, separate self takes offense when people don’t show us proper respect. The separate self lies, steals, and does unkind things to other people. When we’re separate, everything becomes about protecting and defending ourselves. It can consume our lives.…
更多The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.
Leviticus tends to have a bad press, because of its many laws and harsh sentences. Yet one of its best-known passages is the exact opposite: the Jubilee chapter, which proclaims that every…
更多- The LORD said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I know their suffering. https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-11-11-i-know-r3
20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.
We’ve failed to communicate the unique nature of divine love. Divine love is infinite, but the notion of infinity cannot be conceived by the human mind. We can’t help but turn back to adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, one of my favorite Catholic mystics, shares, “There is…
更多1 Woe to the rebellious children”, says Yahweh, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin, 2 who set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked my advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt! …
更多The LORD said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites: “When anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands – If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the Lord a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. … If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, even though the community is unaware of the matter, when they…
更多Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe…
更多“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends”
Love is a firm commitment to act for the well-being of someone other than yourself. It can be personal or political, individual or communal, intimate or public. Love will not be segregated to the private, personal precincts of life. Love, as I read it in the Bible, is ubiquitous. It affects all aspects of life.…
An oft-quoted passage in the New Testament says, “God…
更多Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased and there was a dead calm. He said to the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
—Mark 4:39–40In the midst of uncertainty and swift transition, in the midst of personal and institutional upheaval, and amid the “fightings within and fears without” that separate peoples, races, and nations, we desperately need to hear a little good news. And this passage from the…
更多“If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light” (Luke 11:34).
We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God’s love is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another breath, it means that God is choosing us now and now and now and now. We have nothing to attain or even learn. We do, however, need to unlearn some things.
… 更多
更多You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.… If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
—Matthew 5:43–48One way of viewing the Good News is that the…
7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the ‘tent of meeting’. Anyone enquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
…
更多1 He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for…
更多Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.
You don’t have to have anything to get started, really: just a will, which I believe is already within you, and a way. Do the work your way, with the intention of expanding the circle of human concern and creating radical belonging for others.…
Get to work. Build. Bridge. Belong. This call for belonging is not about saving ourselves as individuals in terms of the resources that we have or the access…
更多“And the Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.”
What I want to say about the wisdom that matters now is that this wisdom often comes from discernment of Divine Spirit in our midst. Hearing and heeding the voice of the…
更多Watch! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! Be strong!
As we look at the world around us, it is clear that we need large-scale change. But it will not happen without risking something of ourselves, perhaps by seeing ourselves honestly, by stepping up to lead, by speaking out, by feeling discomfort as we move outside our usual patterns. We shape change in such moments and transform ourselves in the process. Courage changes things and courage…
更多17 As he was going out into the way, one ran to him, knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”
18 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God.…
更多‘Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
We ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord.
—Colossians 1:9–10Our goal consists in doing the will of God, but first we have to remove our attachment to our own will so that we can recognize the difference between the two. Throughout history, many people who did horrible things were convinced that they were doing God’s will. That’s why we…
更多Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made. —Romans 1:20
This Scripture [from Paul] is consistent with an Indigenous worldview—that the nature of the Creator is evident in the creation. What does creation tell us about God’s divine nature?…
Faithfulness. In the environment where I live, in the…
更多He asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ (Luke 10:29
My friend was walking into work when a builder crossed her path. As he did, his toolbox broke and there were screws, pliers, and raw plugs all over the pavement.
‘Should I walk on?’ – always a dilemma – but she stopped, helped gather the scattered tools, and after a short exchange felt prompted to ask, ‘Can I pray for you?’ She found a welcome response: ‘Thank you, it hasn’t been a good week.’ It’s…
更多https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-11-1-of-good-courage-r3
1 Now after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh,[a] Yahweh spoke to…
更多18 Behold, Yahweh’s eye is on those who fear him,
更多
on those who hope in his loving kindness,
19 to deliver their soul from death,…- Beware of thinking “It’s not fair” https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-10-16-a-tale-of-two-sons-r3 25 “Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on. 27 He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and… 更多
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Gerry Hughes (1924–2014) in …
更多https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-10-14-the-love-of-god-r3
1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2 I saw the holy…
更多https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-10-11-family-tp-r3
16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him…
更多25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. 26 Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”
Jesus wept
I keep being more and more convinced that tears are an appropriate response to reality. I think they always will be, yet I don’t equate that with modern depression or cynicism. It’s the acceptance of what we cannot change that normally makes people cry: He’s dead forever; I’m never getting well; the church I love has never been perfect. The part of us that can surrender to that reality is somehow bright. Remember, God is always present in reality as it…
更多For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a…
更多The kingdom of God is in your midst (Luke 17:21)
Human history is one giant wave of unearned grace, and each of us is now another wave crashing onto the sands of time, edged forward by the many waves behind us. We are fully loved and adopted children in God’s one eternal family which is open to all. To accept such an objective truth is the best and deepest understanding of how the Risen Christ spreads his forgiving heart through history. It is Love that we are passing from age to age—…
更多I am
the bread of life - i will provide for you
the light of the world - I will bring light to you
the gate - I will open opportunities for you - a way through to safety and my presence
the good shepherd - I will lead you well, I will heal you and protect you
the resurrection and life - I have overcome death and I do bring life
the way, the truth and the life - and the truth will set you free
the true vine - I will cause you to be fruitful…
更多7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might…
更多Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings…
更多“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of HeavenThe Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who do not possess adequate resources
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,…
更多1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
更多
3 God said, “Let there be light,”…My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
—2 Corinthians 12:9It is sufficient to recognise one’s weakness and to abandon oneself as a child into God’s arms.
People who follow this more humble and honest path are invariably more loving, joyful, and compassionate, and have plenty of time for simple gratitude about everything
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. …
更多“Keep silent before me, islands,
更多
and let the peoples renew their strength.
Let them come near,
then let them speak.
…1 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal those who were ill. 3 He told them: …
更多“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God”. (1 John 4:7)
If our only goal is to love, there is no such thing as failure.
We are invited to encounter a love that just keeps opening to us, and then pass on the same by “opening and opening” to the increasingly larger world around us, willingly falling into the “bright abyss,” where all…
更多Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Imagine living with one purpose: to have a heart centred on the will and love of God, so that this determines all our actions each day.
Being committed to something keeps life expanding for us, even when we think that there’s…
更多Jesus said 20 Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
You don’t have to enter a monastery to be a mystic.
You don’t have to renounce chocolate or forsake pop culture.
To be a mystic in our times is not about renunciation; it is about intention.
Living as a mystic means orienting the whole of yourself toward the sacred.…
更多3 ‘Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. 4 Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”
Authors Adam Bucko and Rory McEntee envision what a “new monasticism” could mean today:
Monastic [life], then, represents for us a complete commitment to the transformative journey, … which takes us into the fullness of our humanity, allowing divinity to flower within us in increasing degrees of love, compassion, joy, sorrow, and wisdom. The…
更多Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’
更多
When he heard this, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be…1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer – at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. …
更多27 ‘But to you who are listening I say: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you. (Luke 6)
Franciscan peacemakers Rosemary Lynch and Alain…
更多19 Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, 21 and having a great priest over God’s house, …
更多21 Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized, and was praying. The sky was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”
John Dear writes:…
更多Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (COLOSSIANS 3:23–24)
In these verses, Paul instructs the Colossians to work in all contexts with all their heart. Our culture presents hard work as the endless grind, morning routines that start before the sun is awake…
更多But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
Rev. James Lawson (1928–2024), an influential teacher of nonviolence in the civil rights movement, insists on the effective power of nonviolence:
There is impracticality to violence. It’s ineffective and has been ineffective throughout the world for too many years. We must not let people who romanticize or mythologize violence persuade us that it has proven to be…
更多Blessed are the peacemakers: They shall be recognized as children of God.
—Matthew 5:9Richard Rohr considers what it means to be a peacemaker:
This verse in Matthew’s Gospel is the only time the word peacemakers is ever used in the whole Bible. Peacemakers literally are the “ones who reconcile quarrels.” We can clearly see Jesus is not on the side of the violent but on the side of the nonviolent. Jesus is saying there must be a…
更多21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Nonviolence teacher Ken Butigan understands God’s love to be at the center of nonviolence.
Our true calling is to love one another as God has loved us. When we take this seriously, we are transformed into lovers who care for all beings. In practical terms this means resisting the tendency of the violence system to divide the world into various enemy camps. A fundamental…
更多The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.
He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants. - Psalm 104:2-4Dear Heavenly Father,
One glance at a sky full of clouds and I can see your majesty and grandeur. What a…
更多13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-09-18-overflow-with-hope-r3
“forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
Brian McLaren identifies how prayers of petition help us to experience forgiveness:
Since being wounded or sinned against is a terribly common experience, I suspect we need to pay more attention to it. In fact, being wronged is directly linked in the Lord’s Prayer to the reality of doing wrong; we pray, “forgive us…
更多The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Matthew 20:28
I’m not called to die on a cross. But I am called to do last night’s washing up without expecting a medal.
Simon Martin from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity writes:The latest season of one of my favourite shows, …
更多35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 …
更多9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.…
更多
Daily Bible Verses
These verses are emailed every morning, except Sundays, to those who sign up for them. Contact Nic for more information.