Disciple – Three Minute Bible

December 20, 2025December 22, 2025

Philippians 4:18a – Word Detective

Sherlock Holmes is looking through a magnifying glass at a Bible (Grok)

I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.

Summary: Once again, we find ourselves stepping into the role of Word Detective as we work to make sure we have a clear understanding of Paul’s meaning.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems weird that in the prior verse Paul says that he doesn’t desire gifts from the Philippians and then in this verse he starts talking about having received “full payment.”

June 10, 2025June 10, 2025

Philippians 1:20c – Doing What’s Right

[I eagerly expect and hope that…] that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body,

Summary: Paul continues to set an example for us with his life and words.

Paul certainly has a way with words!

If you were going to exalt someone or something, how would you do that? For example, if you are a Muslim and you want to exalt Allah, you prostrate yourself in the direction of Mecca during prayer. This demonstrates respect with your body.

January 28, 2019January 27, 2019

Whose Disciple Are You? – John 9: 28

Then they hurled insults at him and said, ”You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! ”

The Pharisees claimed to be disciples of Moses. This is interesting because the function of a disciple is to be like their teacher. According to the Old Testament (Numbers 12: 3), Moses was humble. In fact, the Bible says he was the most humble person on the planet. In addition, as I read the books of Moses in the Old Testament, what seems to leap off of the page is that Moses did whatever God instructed him to do. He only improvised one time, that that one mistake kept him from entering the Promised Land. Even so, Moses trusted God and was faithful to follow his instructions.

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

Defects

Today we begin a new chapter in John’s gospel, and with the new chapter comes a new scene. When we left Jesus he was arguing with a crowd of indeterminate size. In this scene, he is walking with his disciples. In the last chapter, he may have been in the temple grounds. In this chapter we do not know where he is, but we know he is in a place with people and as the story unfolds we see that he is near the temple, so he is probably still in Jerusalem.

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

John 9: 1-2

I wanted to stop the story here because I find the question that the disciples asked very interesting. They see a man born blind and they immediately conclude that the reason for his blindness was that someone sinned, either the man’s parents or somehow the blind man himself sinned. This was not a question in their minds, but a fact. The only question was whose sin caused the blindness.