Truth is...

As a male teenager in North America, this may have been one of the Scripture verses I was most eager to obey. Of course, I wasn't aware of the myriad ways the original Greek of this verse had been translated through the years...

Modern English Version:
Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

This more-literal translation limited my pool of possible smooch partners to males, which greatly dampened my enthusiasm for obedience.

The Message:
Greet all the followers of Jesus there with a holy embrace.

This more-modern paraphrase opened it back up to include females, but erased the specific use of lips to greet each other.

The Living Bible:
Shake hands for me with all the brothers there.

And then Kenneth Taylor totally flipped the switch on both variables: no lips; no girls.

So, I needed to go to my favorite translation for getting every possible nuance of meaning out of a verse...

Amplified Bible:
Greet all the believers with a holy kiss [as brothers and sisters in God’s family].

...which gave me hope, but then I read the footnote:

Greeting other believers with a kiss on the cheek would be the equivalent of today’s handshake, pat on the back, or casual hug.

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Truth is...The point was never about romance, but about accepting and welcoming fellow believers, harboring no ill will against anyone who calls Jesus Lord, and recognizing commonality with all who share The Faith.

In the words of the Contemporary English Version: Give the Lord's followers a warm greeting.

      

During the Passover meal, the bread was more than food. It was a reminder of Israel’s hurried escape from Egypt  -  unleavened because there was no time to wait, pure because God was calling His people into a new beginning. That same bread, free from corruption, becomes the symbol Jesus lifts in His hands on the night He is betrayed.

When Jesus breaks the bread and says, “Take and eat it; this is my body," He is not merely reinterpreting a ritual. He is revealing its fulfillment. The bread  -  unleavened, untainted  -  mirrors His sinless life. Its breaking foreshadows the physical tearing of His own body on the cross. What had once pointed back to Israel’s deliverance now points forward to humanity’s salvation.

In the Passover story, the bread sustained God’s people for a journey out of bondage. In the gospel story, Jesus’ body  -  offered, broken, given  -  becomes the sustenance that frees us from a deeper slavery. The bread of the old covenant becomes the body of the new. And in taking it, we remember that redemption is never cheap. It required a body that could be broken, a Savior who would not turn away, and a love willing to be torn so we could be made whole.

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Truth is... The bread reminds us that salvation is not an idea. It is a body, broken. A life, given. A Savior, offering Himself so that we might live.

[This post was created through CoPilot, using the resources of BibleHub.com, ScriptureSavvy.com and BibleRef.com.]

      

The man who spoke these words was Demetrius, a silversmith whose shrine-making business for the goddess Artemis (or Diana, in Latin) kept many craftsmen in ancient Ephesus employed. Paul’s preaching was disrupting their commerce, and Demetrius wasn’t happy about it.

So he gathered the silversmiths and every craftsperson connected to their line of work into the local amphitheater — the ruins of which still stand today. There, he held a rally and whipped the crowd into a chaotic frenzy against “this man Paul.”

It's interesting to note how he starts with their wallets, warning that Paul’s message is wrecking their livelihood. Only afterward does he tack on a religious concern: that “the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be despised and her magnificence come to the verge of ruin — the very one all of Asia and the world worship.”

The result was an hours-long, life-threatening riot.

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Truth is...people have been using religion for personal gain for a very long time. That doesn’t make faith the problem, but it does mean we should stay alert whenever someone tries to blend profit and piety.

      

It starts innocently enough.

We are all encouraged to have a positive self-image, right? I mean, you can't "love your neighbor as you love yourself" if you don't first love yourself.

Then we want to make sure other people recognize how lovable we are, prompting them to appreciate our personal greatness. (A synonym for prompting is provoking.)

And what happens as we encounter people who have no need to compare or contrast themselves to others to feel good about themselves? We wish we could be like them, and that's called envy.

Most people quote the tenth commandment as "Thou shalt not covet." What most people don't do is translate that churchy word covet into something that normal people understand. You know ... something like envy.

Don't misunderstand. We have good reason to carry around a positive self-image. After all, Jesus thinks we're to die for! But before we get over-impressed with ourselves, let's remember the reason he died. And those sins of yours that put Jesus on the cross are "just as bad" as mine. And mine are just as bad as my neighbor's. 

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Truth is...The ground at the foot of the cross is perfectly level.