Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Luke 2:29-32 Eight days after Jesus’ birth, his parents took him to the temple for his circumcision. There is no suggestion that the people of Jerusalem understood the significance of this moment. All that the people saw was a poor young couple presenting their baby in the way that people did every day. But two elderly people did understand what was going on. Simeon and Anna had been longing for t...

Luke 2:19 This sentence is what I would call a piece of considerable understatement! Mary, who was probably a teenager and who almost certainly knew very little about the world, had just given birth to the Messiah. She had certainly been given plenty to think about! Older versions of the Bible translate this verse as “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” The truth is...

Luke 2:16-18 Just imagine if this was happening now. Bethlehem would be swamped with news reporters and film crews, and all the shepherds would have microphones thrust in front of them. The world would be hanging on their every word and the details of their amazing story would be cross examined with forensic care. As it is, we have to rely on Dr Luke who sums up the whole story in just a few drama...

Luke 2:13-14 The shepherds received the news of Jesus’ birth from a single angel who was then joined by a vast crowd of angels to sing an amazing chorus of praise. The language used recalls Job 38:7, which states when God created the world “the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy”. With the coming of Jesus into the world there is a new creation and so the whole populatio...

Luke 2:10-11 The angel’s message is fascinating because its content is both incredibly Jewish and yet embraces the whole world. The angel made it clear that the baby was the Messiah, the one who came to fulfil the Old Testament scriptures. But, at the same time, the coming of Jesus was for everyone. Although Jesus was to focus much of his ministry on his own people, the Jews, he consistently made...

Luke 2:8-9 The shepherds would have been well used to facing dangers in the desert. They were constantly threatened by wolves and other wild animals, but angels were a different matter! This was completely outside their experience, and they would have had no expectation of receiving such important heavenly news. Shepherds were widely despised. They were considered to be unreliable and for that rea...

Luke 2:6-7 When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, they found that it was heaving with people who had arrived for the census, which the Romans had demanded. In the Jewish law, censuses were forbidden and so the holding of a census was a further reason for the people to resent the occupying power. However, Joseph was a law-abiding man and, if required to go to his family’s ancestral home, he was...

Luke 2:4-5 If you travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem these days it is a relatively easy journey. The roads are good, and you should get there by car in about two and half hours. Mary and Joseph’s experience would have been completely different. On foot the 90-mile journey would have been arduous and dangerous. They would probably have gone down the Jordan Valley which, at the time, was heavily wood...

Matthew 1:22-23 Loneliness is one of the greatest problems of our society and it is on the increase. This matters because loneliness is incredibly dangerous. It increases the risk of death by 26 per cent; is more damaging to health than obesity; and increases the risk of high blood pressure. Loneliness, living alone and poor social connections are as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a...

Matthew 1:19 At the centre of the account of Jesus’ birth is a man about whom we know very little. Joseph was the legal father of Jesus and Matthew’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ family line through Joseph. But after the birth of Jesus, we meet Joseph on only one occasion. That was when the family went for a Passover visit to Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 years old. We get the distinct impression that...

Luke 1:78-79 Tender mercy is an exquisite expression and takes us to the heart of the nature of God. Much of the Old Testament is an agonising description of God’s people’s rebellion against him. There were some good times, but they were few in number and rarely lasted long. Much of the time we find God’s people moaning, disobeying and chasing after other gods. It’s a tragic story and it would be...

Luke 1:76-77 Zechariah’s prophecy focused on the coming of the Messiah, but that didn’t mean that his son John the Baptist’s role was a minor one. John would be the first prophet in the land since the time of Malachi, 400 years before. It had always been known that someone would be sent as a forerunner to the Messiah and Zechariah’s son would have this vital role. Not many people become Christians...

Luke 1:72-73 As Zechariah praised God upon the birth of his son John the Baptist, he was acutely aware of history. The coming of the Messiah was not a random historical event but was rooted in the long history of God’s dealings with his people. Zechariah pointed back to the prophets who had, long ago, promised that God would send a Saviour from the royal line of David. This reminds us particularly...

Luke 1:67-69 Zechariah and Elizabeth were an old couple. At the time, being childless was a matter of shame and disgrace and they had lived with this burden for many years. One day, Zechariah was doing his priestly duty in the temple and was confronted by the angel Gabriel. The angel told him that Elizabeth was going to have a baby and he was, not surprisingly, astonished. He asked the angel how t...

Luke 1:51-53 The world has seen many revolutions but, arguably, nothing as revolutionary as this. The revolution that Mary was singing about here is moral, social and economic shaking the whole fabric of society. God’s intention is to turn everything upside down. Let’s look at the three aspects of God’s revolution, all of which we see clearly in the life and ministry of Jesus. Firstly, there is a...

Luke 1:46-48 It would have probably taken Mary about four days to travel down south to meet up with her elderly relative, Elizabeth. During that arduous journey she had plenty of time to reflect on the incredible things that were happening in her life. It may well be that she spent time reflecting on the song of Hannah in the Old Testament and so it is not surprising that Mary’s song has so much i...

Luke 1:44-45 What an exquisitely beautiful moment this is! It seems that no one remained unmoved or unexcited about the news that Mary was going to give birth. Even the baby in Elizabeth’s womb wanted a piece of the action! We can’t be entirely clear what the relationship was between Elizabeth and Mary but it is believed that Elizabeth was Mary’s aunt. Although they were very different in age they...

Luke 1:38 Aren’t these words amazing? Mary has just learned that her whole life was going to be turned upside down. Having a baby is a completely life-changing event for anyone, but to learn that she was going to be the bearer of the Son of God must have been mind blowing. But her response was that she was willing to do whatever the Lord wanted. She was content to be the Lord’s servant. How amazin...

Luke 1:29-31 The birth of Jesus and the events that led up to it are so familiar to us that it takes some adjusting to realise that it was all a complete surprise to those who were involved. We know exactly what’s going to happen next but, for them, it was all astonishing. We need to remember it had been 400 years since there had last been a prophet in the land, and the Jews were not generally exp...

Proverbs 10:19 There is a huge amount of advice about words in the book of Proverbs. The writer knew that the tongue is capable of bringing death or life (18:21) and so he went to great lengths to encourage his readers to use their words carefully. “The words of the wise bring healing. Truthful words stand the test of time” (Proverbs 12:18-19). He encouraged his readers to make sure that they were...

Proverbs 10:18 This is one of those verses that makes you sit up. On the face of it, it might seem to be a very good thing to hide hatred because hatred is an ugly and destructive experience. How would we ever cope if everyone was totally honest and open about the people and things they hate? I think the point being made is that if you do hate someone or something then acting as if you love them,...

Proverbs 10:17 It isn’t easy when someone corrects us. I can recall many moments when people have told me that I have got something wrong. Most of the time they have spoken gently and sensitively but that hasn’t always been the case. There have been times when I have been criticised and the memory of those moments still stings. Some of them happened decades ago but the emotions are still quite raw...

Proverbs 10:16 Money, sex and power have always had an enormous influence on the way people live, and so it isn’t surprising that the book of Proverbs often speaks about them. All three are capable of enormous good and great happiness. But they can also be destructive and lead to deep misery. The writer was particularly conscious of the power of money and he knew that it was the character of a per...

Proverbs 10:11 We are so used to drinking clean water from our taps that it is hard to think of those times in history when that wasn’t possible – and it still isn’t in many parts of the world. In the time when the writer of Proverbs composed this book, water was either drawn from cisterns that collected rainwater, or from wells or springs. The problem with both cisterns and wells was that the wat...

Proverbs 10:8 You can always trust the writer of the Proverbs not to beat about the bush! He draws a very sharp distinction between those who are wise and foolish. The path of wisdom leads to blessing, happiness and security and the path of foolishness leads
to poverty, misery and complete insecurity. This amazing book of the Bible is incredibly straightforward and down to earth. You can as easily...