Topic · 54 posts
Bible study. Verse by verse, in plain words.
Studies that take a passage and work through what it actually says, including the book-by-book series through James, Romans and 1 John.
- Oct 11, 2026 · 10 min→
Whoever calls on the name of the Lord — what 'name' means, and why it matters how you use it
Joel said it, Peter preached it, Paul repeated it: whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. A name in the Bible is rank, reputation, and reign — and we call on it, pray in it, and act in it.
- Oct 11, 2026 · 9 min→
The Last Supper — the table, the sop, and the two men who denied Him
Walk through the night before the cross: the plot, the upper room, the foot-washing, the piece of bread handed to Judas. Then the two outcomes — Judas and Peter — and what Jesus' love for both means for you.
- Luke 14Oct 7, 2026 · 11 min→
Luke 14:1–24 — dinner at a Pharisee's house: rules, seats, guest lists, and a great supper
One Sabbath meal, four lessons. Why God's rules have a purpose behind them, why to take the low seat, who to invite when it costs you, and the excuses people make when the feast is ready.
- Oct 3, 2026 · 10 min→
How to study the Bible — why, how, and the tools that help
The Bible is meant to be studied, not just read. Why we study it, four ways to do it well, the four steps of interpretation, the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, and the tools worth owning.
- Proverbs 1Oct 3, 2026 · 8 min→
Proverbs 1:1–9 — what the book of Proverbs is for
Solomon tells you the purpose of the book in the first seven verses. Proverbs aren't math equations — they teach you how to think, not just what to think. And it all starts with the fear of the Lord.
- Oct 3, 2026 · 6 min→
The five characters of Proverbs — and which one you are
The fool, the scorner, the wise, the prudent, and the simple. What Proverbs says about each, why the fool gets the most warnings, and a set of questions for honest self-evaluation.
- Matthew 25Oct 3, 2026 · 8 min→
Matthew 25 — ready and faithful: the ten bridesmaids and the three servants
Two parables Jesus told about His return, back to back. One is about being ready; the other about being faithful with what you've been given. Both end with a door — open or shut.
- Sep 13, 2026 · 6 min→
1 John overview — how to know you really have Jesus
Who John was, why he wrote, and the three words that run through the whole letter: love, know, and because. A short letter that exposes the counterfeit and gives confidence to the sincere.
- 1 John 1Sep 13, 2026 · 10 min→
1 John 1 — we saw Him, we touched Him: walking in the light
John says he heard, saw, gazed at, and handled the Word of life. Then the sum of everything Jesus taught: God is light. What it means to walk in that light, and why confession restores fellowship.
- 1 John 2Sep 13, 2026 · 11 min→
1 John 2:1–17 — our Advocate, how to know you know Him, and why not to love the world
God's desire is that we don't sin, and His provision when we do. The difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Him. And three things the world offers that Eve fell for first.
- 1 John 2Sep 13, 2026 · 8 min→
1 John 2:18–29 — antichrists, the anointing, and abiding
What an antichrist actually is, why the people who left were never really in, and how the Holy Spirit keeps ordinary believers in the truth without needing a guru.
- 1 John 3Sep 13, 2026 · 9 min→
1 John 3 — children of God, and love in deed, not just in word
What kind of love makes us God's children. Why a child of God can't live in habitual sin. And the test that sorts real love from talk: do you help people you know are in need?
- 1 John 4Sep 13, 2026 · 8 min→
1 John 4 — test the spirits, and God is love
Not everyone who claims to speak for God does. How to tell. Then the heart of the letter: God loved us first, sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice, and His love is completed when it flows through us.
- 1 John 5Sep 13, 2026 · 9 min→
1 John 5 — how to know you have eternal life
Faith that overcomes the world, three witnesses that agree, the verse the whole letter was written for, confident prayer, the 'sin unto death,' and a closing word about idols.
- 2 John 1Sep 13, 2026 · 7 min→
2 John — walking in truth and love (and why you can't follow Jesus alone)
A short letter from an old apostle to people he cared about: walk in the truth, love one another, don't give a platform to people who deny Christ, and don't try to do this by yourself.
- 3 John 1Sep 13, 2026 · 7 min→
3 John — Gaius, Diotrephes, and Demetrius: three men, three reputations
The hospitable one, the self-seeking one, and the commendable one. A tiny letter with a big question: if your body were as healthy as your soul, how healthy would you be?
- Jude 1Sep 13, 2026 · 11 min→
Jude — contend for the faith without becoming contentious
Jesus' half-brother wanted to write about salvation and had to write about false teachers instead. Who they are, what they do, how God will judge them, and how ordinary believers stay standing.
- Sep 9, 2026 · 11 min→
Romans overview — how to be right with God
Who Paul was, who the church at Rome was, what Nero's Rome looked like, and the four words that unlock the whole letter: righteousness, law, faith, and justification.
- Romans 1Sep 9, 2026 · 10 min→
Romans 1:1–17 — a servant, a promise, and a gospel worth not being ashamed of
Paul calls himself a slave of Jesus Christ, says the gospel was never plan B, and tells a church in the capital of the world why he isn't ashamed of a message about a crucified Jew.
- Romans 1Sep 9, 2026 · 10 min→
Romans 1:18–32 — what happens when people push God away
Everyone knows there's a God. Paul traces what happens when a person suppresses that knowledge: empty thinking, idolatry, and a God who finally says, 'Have it your way.'
- Romans 2Sep 9, 2026 · 9 min→
Romans 2 — judging others, the goodness of God, and religion that doesn't reach the heart
The person who condemns the sins of Romans 1 while doing the same things in private. Why God's kindness is meant to lead to repentance, and why knowing the Bible was never the point.
- Romans 3Sep 9, 2026 · 12 min→
Romans 3 — none righteous, and justified freely
Paul answers five Jewish objections, proves from the Old Testament that no one is righteous, and then delivers the heart of the gospel: justified freely by His grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus.
- Sep 9, 2026 · 10 min→
'It is finished' — Jesus and the five offerings of Leviticus
When Jesus said 'It is finished,' He used a merchant's word: paid in full. Here's how the burnt, grain, peace, sin, and trespass offerings were all pictures of what He did on the cross.
- Romans 4Sep 9, 2026 · 10 min→
Romans 4 — how Abraham was saved (and how you are too)
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness — fourteen years before circumcision and four centuries before the law. Paul calls two witnesses, Abraham and David, to prove salvation has always been by faith.
- Romans 5Sep 9, 2026 · 10 min→
Romans 5:1–11 — peace with God, and why we can rejoice in hard things
Justified by faith, we have peace with God. Paul lists the benefits of that standing, explains how tribulation produces hope, and proves God's love by the timing of the cross: while we were still sinners.
- Romans 5Sep 9, 2026 · 8 min→
Romans 5:12–21 — two men, two kingdoms: Adam and Jesus
Why we die, and why it isn't because of the law. Paul sets one man's disobedience against one Man's obedience, and shows that in Jesus we gained much more than we ever lost in Adam.
- Romans 6Sep 9, 2026 · 11 min→
Romans 6 — dead to sin, alive to God: what changed when you were saved
Justification is what God did for you; sanctification is what He's doing in you. Seven things that happened at salvation, why grace is not a license, and what it means to be a slave of a new Master.
- Romans 7Sep 9, 2026 · 11 min→
Romans 7 — free from the law, and the war inside every believer
Dead to the law like a widow is free to remarry. Why the law is good even though it exposes us. And Paul's honest account of wanting to do right and finding himself doing wrong.
- Romans 8Sep 9, 2026 · 10 min→
Romans 8:28–39 — if God is for us, who is against us?
All things work together for good — for whom, and how. What predestination actually means in this passage. And the security of a salvation that God settled in court and nothing can reopen.
- Sep 9, 2026 · 6 min→
What the Bible means by 'adoption' (it isn't what you think)
Romans 8:23 says we're still waiting for the adoption. If we're already God's children, what is it? A look at the Roman coming-of-age ceremony Paul had in mind — and why our adoption is glorification.
- Romans 9Sep 9, 2026 · 8 min→
Romans 9 — has God kept His promise to Israel? (and what election means)
What a Jew actually had, whether God's promises failed, what 'election' means in the Bible, whether God hates unborn babies, and how God works His plan with us or in spite of us.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 7 min→
James 1:2–4 — count it all joy: how trials grow you up
Trials work for you, not against you. What 'count it all joy' actually means, why patience isn't passive, and what God is building when life is hard.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 7 min→
James 1:5–8 — if you lack wisdom, ask
God gives wisdom generously and without reproach. The one condition is that you ask in faith. What that means when you're in the middle of a trial you don't understand.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 7 min→
James 1:9–11 — rich, poor, and what to glory in
It isn't your material resources that carry you through the testing of life. It's your spiritual ones. What James says to the poor believer, the rich one, and the rest of us.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 7 min→
James 1:12 — the crown of life, and the question underneath it
There is a reward for endurance, and it's promised to those who love God. Which raises the real question: do you love Christ? Here's how you'd know.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 9 min→
James 1:13–16 — where temptation really comes from
God tests faith; He never tempts anyone to sin. The bait is always on the hook. How lust becomes sin, how sin grows up into death, and why we're not helpless victims.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 8 min→
James 1:17–18 — every good gift, and the birth that changes everything
God doesn't change, and neither does His goodness. Why remembering that is the best defense against temptation — and what it means to be born of His will through the word of truth.
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 6 min→
James 1:19–20 — quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger
One verse that, if you applied it, would save a lot of relationships. And a hard question: are you angrier at other people's sin or your own?
- James 1Sep 5, 2026 · 8 min→
James 1:21–27 — be doers of the Word, not hearers only
Four things a mature believer does: controls the tongue, separates from the world, learns the Bible, and applies it. And the mirror James holds up to all of us.
- James 2Sep 5, 2026 · 8 min→
James 2:1–13 — partiality, the royal law, and mercy
The faith of Jesus and favoritism can't share a room. Why partiality is both sin and transgression, why breaking one link breaks the chain, and how mercy triumphs over judgment.
- James 2Sep 5, 2026 · 9 min→
James 2:14–26 — dead faith is fake faith
James is not teaching salvation by works. He's saying a faith that produces nothing was never faith. Abraham, Rahab, the demons, and the six things that justify.
- James 3Sep 5, 2026 · 7 min→
James 3:1–12 — the tongue: small, powerful, and untamable by you
A bit steers a horse, a rudder steers a ship, a spark burns a forest. Why nobody can tame the tongue, who can, and the question James asks about blessing and cursing.
- James 3Sep 5, 2026 · 8 min→
James 3:13–18 — two kinds of wisdom, and which one you have
Wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy. Wisdom from below is envy and ambition. Side by side, so you can tell which one is running your life.
- James 4Sep 5, 2026 · 9 min→
James 4:1–12 — where fights come from, and how to end them
External strife is the fruit; internal strife is the root. Selfishness, friendship with the world, and the way back: submit to God, resist the devil, draw near.
- James 4Sep 5, 2026 · 6 min→
James 4:13–17 — if the Lord wills
James isn't against planning, business, or making money. He's against doing any of it without God. Your life is a vapor; learn from the past, live in the present, plan for the future — under His will.
- James 5Sep 5, 2026 · 8 min→
James 5:1–11 — riches, patience, and the coming of the Lord
Hoarded wealth rots. Persecuted believers wait like a farmer waits for rain. And the Judge is at the door. What James says to the rich, and to everyone waiting on Jesus.
- James 5Sep 5, 2026 · 10 min→
James 5:12–20 — let your yes be yes, and pray for one another
Honest speech, prayer in trouble, praise in blessing, elders for the spiritually worn out, confession to one another, and the prayer of a righteous person. How James ends.
- James 1Sep 4, 2026 · 5 min→
James 1:1 — who wrote James, and why it was written
The half-brother of Jesus, writing to believers scattered by persecution, with one goal: move them from immaturity to maturity. Part 1 of a study through James.
- Mar 30, 2026 · 4 min→
Becoming Barabbas: why you must see yourself in the guilty man Jesus saved
Becoming Barabbas, part 5 of 5. Four people stood near Jesus that morning. Only one of them understood what was happening — and he was the guilty one.
- Mar 23, 2026 · 3 min→
Barabbas set free: the worst man in the story got the best ending
Becoming Barabbas, part 4 of 5. A robber, a murderer, an insurrectionist — and the only man that morning who walked away free because Jesus took his place.
- Mar 16, 2026 · 3 min→
Peter: close to Christ but crumbling under pressure
Becoming Barabbas, part 3 of 5. Peter promised to die for Jesus, then denied Him three times before breakfast. What his failure teaches the rest of us.
- Mar 9, 2026 · 3 min→
The Pharisees: religious but blind
Becoming Barabbas, part 2 of 5. They feared being defiled by a building but not by their own sin. Religion without a relationship with Jesus is the most dangerous place to stand.
- Mar 2, 2026 · 3 min→
Pilate: seeking truth but unwilling to pay the price
Becoming Barabbas, part 1 of 5. Pilate asked "What is truth?" and walked away before the answer. Most people who reject Jesus don't hate Him — they just won't pay the price.
- Jan 20, 2026 · 5 min→
The Ten Commandments: meaning, purpose, and why they still matter
A walk through each of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 — what it meant then, what it means now, and how each one points to Jesus.
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