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Maundy Thursday 2016

Kairos Magazine: FEBRUARY 2014

Kairos Magazine: FEBRUARY 2014

Kairos Magazine: Kairos - August 2013

Kairos Magazine: Kairos - August 2013

Family Unity

John 3:1-36 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

                                                                      Family Unity

1 Timothy 5:8 ESV / 303 helpful votes

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Ephesians 6:1-4 ESV / 156 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:4 ESV / 128 helpful votes

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 84 helpful votes

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

1 Timothy 3:4 ESV / 77 helpful votes

He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive,

Proverbs 3:5 ESV / 76 helpful votes

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Psalm 133:1 ESV / 70 helpful votes

A Song of Ascents. Of David. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 68 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

Leviticus 19:17-18 ESV / 67 helpful votes

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Ephesians 3:14-15 ESV / 45 helpful votes

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,

Psalm 145:18 ESV / 45 helpful votes

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Ephesians 5:21 ESV / 34 helpful votes

Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Luke 16:18 ESV / 34 helpful votes

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Proverbs 18:22 ESV / 33 helpful votes

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

Psalm 1:1-6 ESV / 30 helpful votes

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

Acts 2:39 ESV / 29 helpful votes

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

Matthew 7:21-23 ESV / 28 helpful votes

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

1 John 4:7 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Hebrews 11:1-40 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.

Proverbs 3:6 ESV / 23 helpful votes

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

John 17:21 ESV / 22 helpful votes

That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Ephesians 5:33 ESV / 19 helpful votes

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 ESV / 19 helpful votes

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

Mark 10:2-12 ESV / 15 helpful votes

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

Deuteronomy 6:5-9 ESV / 15 helpful votes

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Genesis 2:15 ESV / 15 helpful votes

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

1 Corinthians 15:22 ESV / 14 helpful votes

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Psalm 23:1-6 ESV / 13 helpful votes

A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

1 Peter 1:1-25 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

 

Before reading these Bible verses, it is my hope, first and foremost, that we remember that the Bible wasn't written to us, but for us. Thankfully, the concept of upholding unity is one that will never lose importance in the Body of Christ, although the small number of Bible verses concerning unity is quite surprising. Nonetheless, these Bible verses on unity are singled out and obviously removed from their original context. In doing so, I am not advocating study that replaces thorough, contextual, exegetical work. It is my prayer that we remember to study the Bible as best we can in its original context before we recontextualize and seek its application to our own lives. With all of that said, however, here are 10 Bible verses about unity.
Psalm 133:1
1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!
John 17:23
23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Romans 6:5
5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
1 Corinthians 1:10
10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (#5 of 10 BIble Verses about Unity)
12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Ephesians 4:1-3
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Ephesians 4:2-6
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to one hope when you were called- 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:11-13
11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Philippians 2:1-3 (#10 if 10 Bible Verses About Unity)
1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.