Bible Commentaries

Genesis 11:9 — ‘WHAT WILL THESE BABBLERS SAY?’ ‘Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.’ Genesis 11:9 I. God is not the Author of confusion, but of peace.—Yet once, in His wise compassion, He made confusion in order to prevent it; He destroyed peace, that in the end he might restore it. The history of Babel is far more than a record of the defeated

Genesis 12:1 — THE PILGRIM FATHER Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.’ Genesis 12:1 Abraham was the father of the faithful, and we have here the first recorded test to which his faith was put. The first and one of the greatest. I. The Substance of God’s call to Abraham.— (a) He was called from rest to pilgrimage.—From his country

Genesis 18:25 — THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGE ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ Genesis 18:25 Abraham had learned that to address himself to God’s justice was better even than to appeal to His mercy. And for this reason,—it is a stronger basis. Justice is a more definite thing than mercy. Every man who feels his sins should lay firm hold

Genesis 19:26 — AN OLD-WORLD BEACON ‘But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.’ Genesis 19:26 This is the whole of the record. The offence consisted only in a look; and that a look directed towards a city which may have been her birthplace, and which contained many that were dear to her by relationship and by friendship. The vengeance taken

Genesis 2:9 — pass away as a wandering fire, right and wrong will not have lost their primeval significance, and the souls which have yearned and laboured for rest in the home of spirits will find that rest in Him who was and is to be. Canon Ainger. Illustration (1) ‘Man though created sinless, was, from the very fact of his creaturely existence, not self-sufficing, but dependent both in body and soul, and thus the two trees of which we read in the text corresponded to those two wants in man’s constitution. The

Genesis 22:1-8 — LA GRAN PRUEBA 'Aconteció después de estas cosas, que Dios probó a Abraham', etc. Génesis 22:1 (RV) Es mediante la prueba que se forma el carácter de un cristiano. Cada parte de su carácter, como cada parte de su armadura, se pone a prueba; y es la prueba que pone a prueba, después de todo, la fuerza tanto de la resistencia como de la defensa

Genesis 28:16 — THE PILGRIM’S VISION ‘And Jacob said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.’ Genesis 28:16 At Bethel Jacob gained the knowledge for himself of the real presence of a personal God. He felt that he a person, he a true living being, he a reasonable soul, stood indeed before an infinite but still a true personal being—before the Lord Almighty.

Genesis 3:13 — THE EXCUSE OF THE TEMPTED ‘And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’ Genesis 3:13 I. The record before us is the History of the First Sin.—It needed no revelation to tell us that sin is, that mankind is sinful. Without, within, around, and inside us, is the fact, the experience, the evidence, the presence of sin. It is sin which

Genesis 45:28 — Those sacraments, those means of grace, those helps, ever new, yet old as Christianity, have borne many and many a blessed one along to the ‘good land,’ who is now resting in Goshen and eating the fat of the land. Rev. S. Baring-Gould. Illustration (1) ‘It is as a liberated man that Joseph is most signally the type of our Redeemer. Set free from prison, Joseph became the second in the kingdom, even as the Redeemer, rising from the prison of the grave, became possessed in His mediatorial capacity

Genesis 45:5 — us out, and at length extracts from us a confession, ‘We are verily guilty.’ And then, when tribulation has done its work, He is as ready to confirm His love to us as ever was Joseph to confirm his love to his brethren. —Abp. Trench. Illustration (1) ‘Joseph referred the whole order and purpose of his existence, all that had been adverse to it, all that had been prosperous in it, to God. He knew that violence and disorder had been at work in his life. What temptation had he to think of them as

Genesis 48:15-16 — AN OLD MAN’S BLESSING ‘And be blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads,’ etc. Genesis 48:15-16 When St. Paul wished to select from the history of Jacob an instance of faith, he took the scene described in the text, when Joseph brings his two sons to the deathbed of his father. The text is therefore to be considered as one in which faith

Genesis 50:26 — but he was triumphant at last. His faith and faithfulness gave him favour both with God and man. Only so can life be made worth living for anyone, and death, robbed of its terrors, appear at last, as the herald of immortal blessedness. Illustration (1) ‘Faith has its noblest office in detaching from the present. All his life long, from the day of his captivity, Joseph was an Egyptian in outward seeming. He filled his place at Pharaoh’s court; but his dying words open a window into his soul, and betray

Exodus 22:23 — SUNDRY LAWS FOR ISRAEL ‘If thou … Thou shalt not … Ye shall.’ Exodus 22:23; Exodus 22:28; Exodus 22:31 I. Restitution is one of the prime thoughts in this Lesson.—Alas that this is far from being recognised by us Christians as it should be! But it is the first sign of a genuine work of grace. It is not enough to confess to God: we must also confess

Exodus 22:28 — SUNDRY LAWS FOR ISRAEL ‘If thou … Thou shalt not … Ye shall.’ Exodus 22:23; Exodus 22:28; Exodus 22:31 I. Restitution is one of the prime thoughts in this Lesson.—Alas that this is far from being recognised by us Christians as it should be! But it is the first sign of a genuine work of grace. It is not enough to confess to God: we must also confess

Exodus 22:31 — SUNDRY LAWS FOR ISRAEL ‘If thou … Thou shalt not … Ye shall.’ Exodus 22:23; Exodus 22:28; Exodus 22:31 I. Restitution is one of the prime thoughts in this Lesson.—Alas that this is far from being recognised by us Christians as it should be! But it is the first sign of a genuine work of grace. It is not enough to confess to God: we must also confess

John 14:1-2 — SU ÚNICO HIJO NUESTRO SEÑOR "Creed en Dios, creed también en mí". Juan 14:1 Es evidente que todo el mundo debe creer en Dios antes de poder creer en Jesucristo en un sentido profundo; porque decir que "Jesús es el Hijo de Dios" ya implica una creencia en Dios. Esto fue claramente cierto en el caso de los cristianos convertidos

1 Corinthians 13:13 — LA SUPREMACIA DEL AMOR 'Y ahora permanece la fe, la esperanza, la caridad, estos tres; pero el mayor de ellos es la caridad ”. 1 Corintios 13:13 El mensaje que escuchamos en este capítulo es este: que, en la religión, el amor es supremo. Esa lección, si se mantuviera sola, tendría una importancia decisiva. Pero no está solo, aunque se destaca en una supremacía indiscutible. La

1 Corinthians 4:1 — EL MINISTERIO CRISTIANO 'Mayordomos de los misterios de Dios'. 1 Corintios 4:1 En la primera parte de este capítulo tenemos una descripción del ministerio cristiano y su responsabilidad, y una afirmación de que su responsabilidad no es para con el hombre, sino para con Dios. I. Mayordomos de Dios, no del hombre.

1 Corinthians 7:31 — EL MUNDO QUE PASA "La moda de este mundo pasa." 1 Corintios 7:31 Bien podemos imaginar que San Pablo, al escribir estas palabras de su Epístola a la Iglesia de Corinto, estaba pensando en las cambiantes escenas de un teatro. Sin duda, había estado a menudo en un teatro. Para los antiguos griegos o

1 Peter 2:9 — THE HIGHEST OF ALL VOCATIONS ‘Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.’ 1 Peter 2:9 (R.V.) In the eyes of the early Church it was so splendid and sacred a distinction to be within the people of God that no distinctions within the body were anything like as important. To be a layman—whether you were Apostle or only a hearer—was