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Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/revelation/21.html

From Whitney T. Kunihom (The Essential Bible Guide, Waterbrook Press, 2003):

When our children were young, we had an illustrated edition of John Bunyan’s classic allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s the story of a man named Christian who takes a journey from the City of Destruction through all kinds of dangers and temptations to the foot of the cross and finally to heaven. We read it at bedtime so many times that the binding finally wore out. Our children are grown now, but I still love to read that tattered book aloud. And whenever I get to the part where Christian enters the Celestial City, I still cry with joy. That’s how I feel when I read this passage.

How can you express what it will be like to enter the gates of heaven? These two chapters are filled with what have become popular images of that wonderful moment—images such as pearly gates, streets of gold, and the River of Life. But as incredible as all that may sound, the reality of heaven is better still in two important ways.

First, everything will be new (21:5). Part of the curse of sin was that everything became subject to destruction and death (Romans 8:19-22). But when Jesus returns for his Church, he will create a new heaven and a new earth (21:1), and a New Jerusalem will appear (21:2). Those are powerful images to describe how God will re-create his world. One joy of being a Christian is that you can be sure that one day your body, your life, your world, everything will all become gloriously new

But the second and most important reality of heaven is that it is the place where the throne of God will be (22:3) and where he will dwell with his people forever (21:3). That was his plan from the very beginning, and it is why he sent his Son to earth (John 1:14). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). That’s the Big Story of the Bible.

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve completed the E100! We’ve come to the end of the Bible’s story; but the end of the story is not the end of all things. It also signals a new beginning; a continued life with God, serving and worshipping him. With that in mind, think about ways that you can prepare now for what is to come, in this age and the next!

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/revelation/19.html

Several years ago we took a family trip to Niagara Falls on the border between New York and Canada. Standing on the overlook at the very edge of the falls, we could see the deep water of the Niagara River as it picked up speed and went careening over the edge into a roaring abyss far below. This passage is like standing on an overlook at the end of the world. It describes the incredible, unstoppable power of God sending Satan and evil over the edge into the abyss.

Although there are many curious and intriguing details to this passage, the main point is that, in the end, evil will be defeated (19:11-20:10). It doesn’t always look that way now, especially when we see some of the awful things that happen in our world. At times the devil may seem to have the upper hand. But the Bible assures us that he doesn’t. He lost the decisive battle at the Cross. What a wonderful thing to know that Satan’s doom is guaranteed.

Another reality of the end is judgment (20:11-15). That’s what the Book of Life symbolized. Some people envision the final judgment like a big scale. If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, you get a ticket to heaven. But that’s not what the Bible says. Only those who believe in Jesus will be saved (Acts 10:43; Romans 10:9; 1 John 3:13).

For those who are in Christ, the end of the world will be a time of joy and celebration (19:1-10). The image John saw in his vision was that of a magnificent wedding with Jesus (the Lamb) as the groom and the church as his bride (19:7). Imagine what it will be like to stand on that overlook at the end of the world and be taken up to meet Jesus in the air. Hallelujah!

-- Whitney T. Kunihom from his book The Essential Bible Guide (Waterbrook Press, 2003)

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/revelation/4.html

Twenty-four elders dressed in white, colored horses, creatures with wings and eyeballs, a great worshiping multitude, and You don’t need special effects to make this passage come alive. Some have tried to determine exactly what every detail means. But for our purposes, its more helpful to look at the big picture: This is a vision of heaven.

What’s your picture of heaven? A common view is that heaven is a place in the clouds where people go after death to strum harps and watch their relatives below. Country music makes it sound as if the best thing about heaven is that we get to meet Mother and Dad. Maybe we will, but the best thing by far will be to meet Jesus. The Lamb of God is at the very center of heaven (5:6; ~j:\7). Nothing else compares

Yet there are some ominous aspects to John’s vision. For example, the way to heaven isn’t always a sentimental journey; sometimes it involves suffering (6:9). Also, it seems as if things may get worse before they finally get better (6:1-17). But for those who belong to the Lamb, the end becomes the beginning of a wonderful eternity with Jesus (7:15-17)-

So what will we do in heaven? The book of Revelation highlights worship as the main activity. What else could you do in the presence of Jesus? And note the makeup of this spectacular worshiping community: “Every nation, tribe, people and language” (7:9) will be represented. The reason we should share the Good News with all people and welcome them into our churches is not to be politically correct. Its because that’s what heaven will be like.

-- Whitney Kuniholm, from his book The Essential Bible Guide (Waterbrook Press, 2003).

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/revelation/2.html

One thing is clear from today’s reading: Jesus really cares about the Church! He is in the Church and He knows what’s going on. Look at how many times Jesus says, “I know...” in today’s passage. He knows what challenges the churches are facing from the society around them, and He also knows what’s going on in the churches -- the good and the bad.

While some of the details are a bit different here and there among the churches, the main contrast is between congregations who were faithful in teaching and practice and those who were unfaithful. Most of the congregations have a bit of both going on. Listening to Jesus’s praise and his reprimands gives us a clear idea of what Jesus wants from His people. Only two churches received only praise (Smyrna and Philadelphia). Note what they were praised for: they were poor and weak. It really is true that when we are at our weakest God is at His strongest, and we rely and depend on Him the most. That’s the secret of an effective church. Contrast that to the church in Sardis; they thought they were alive when Jesus said that they were really dead! It seems that Jesus’s ideas about success are different from ours. His message to a “successful, dead church” was to get back to the basics of the Gospel -- repent and believe (3:3).

If this passage seems a bit harsh, remember that Jesus is speaking the truth in love. His love for the Church sometimes means that He has to point out things in it that need adjustment. He points those things out because He loves the Church. And remember, the Church is made of people not bricks and mortar. So Jesus loves you, and He’s willing to go to great lengths to have a relationship with you!

Revelation is a challenging book and is perhaps the most popular and kin® studied of the prophetic books in the Bible. People sometimes refer to it as The Revelation of Saint John, but that can be a little misleading because, in fact, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:1). John was simply the recipient who wrote it down for us to read.

From the very beginning John established that this was a message from God about the future (Revelation 1:1-3). The way God revealed that message was through a series of seven visions while John was on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9).

The first vision pertained to the early church, around A.D. 81-96. It had been approximately fifty years since Jesus had ascended into heaven, and the church was beginning to drift away from the gospel. Not only were Christians facing persecution, but they were also beginning to accept false teaching and adopt sinful patterns of behavior. You’ll find the messages to the seven churches (Revelation 2-3) fairly easy to understand and very relevant

The subsequent visions about the end of the world are more challenging to understand. Some people have cried to figure out the meaning of every detail in these visions, but that can be confusing at best. You might find it more helpful to reflect on the main themes from these visions, the way you do when you try to remember a dream you’ve had at night.

Probably the biggest theme running through the last chapters of Revela— tion is the final showdown between good and evil, between God and Satan. The descriptions are very dramatic, but the bottom line is that Satan is defeated. The visions also give us a picture of what heaven will be like. our natural curiosity will make us want to get the exact picture of what it will h>€ like. But the truth is, it will be even better than we can imagine. Why? Because the main feature of heaven is that all those who believe in Jesus will be with him forever.

-- Whitney T. Kuniholm (from his book The Essential Bible Guide; Waterbrook Press, 2003).

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/revelation/1.html

Many people shy away from reading the book of Revelation because it is hard to understand. It’s hard to understand because the book is a record of a vision that John received from Jesus, and as is the case with visions generally, what John saw was a series of images. So it’s the imagery that makes the book seem nonsensical and thus hard to understand.

But as the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” An image can communicate information, emotions, memories that would take several pages to communicate if written out. An image of the twin towers of the World Trade Center being struck by planes will communicate a whole host of ideas, feelings, and memories for most Americans. Communities are held together by shared memories and histories that folded into shared images. And so it is with the book of Revelation. The community of the Church has a whole host of shared history and images that can easily communicate truths faster than detailed descriptions. Those shared images are found in God’s Word. So that images that John records in Revelation are drawn from the Old Testament, and they communicate truths and realities to us in a much more effective and engaging way than mere descriptions.

The imagery in the first chapter of Revelation draws on Old Testament descriptions of God as the divine King of the Universe, mainly from the book of Daniel. Jesus is presented to us dressed in Old Testament imagery of the Almighty God in order to impress upon us that Jesus is divine -- that is, fully God -- and that He is now ruling over all of human history as God. Furthermore, we are assured that He is with and in His Church and controls all things for the sake of His Church.

The opening verses tell us in fairly plain language what Revelation is about (“to show his servants what must soon take place” v. 1), who it is from (God the Father and Jesus Christ; v. 1), and how it is to be received “blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it” v. 3). In this first chapter, then, we are told that the book of Revelation will tell us about things that will happen in human history between the time of Christ’s ascension into heaven and His Second Coming, things that will serve as a warning for us and things that will greatly encourage us.

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/1-peter/1.html

Agnostic is a person who says it isn’t possible to know God. For some, this seems intellectually honest, but, in fact, it is a hopeless dilemma. The one thing agnostics believe is that it isn’t possible to believe. That takes a lot of faith. The apostle Peter was a fisherman, not an intellectual. But he was very, very sure about what he believed. The reason? He had seen the risen Christ (John 21:1-25). When you think about it, that’s the only thing that could explain why a bunch of powerless, uneducated disciples could all of a sudden become fearless evangelists, willing to suffer and sacrifice their lives. If they knew the Resurrection wasn’t true, they would have backed off But they couldn’t because they had seen Jesus alive again.

So what was Peter so sure about? The first thing was the “new birth” (1:3). Being free of our sin and reunited with God is like being born again (1:23; see also John 3:5-8). It’s a new life. The second thing is a “living hope” (1:3). Because Jesus is alive, we have real hope, not just fairy tales to help us get to sleep night. No matter what happens in this world, we can have the solid assurance that someday we’ll be with Jesus forever.

Because of that, we should be “strangers” to the evil ways of this world (2:11). Instead, we should focus on Jiving self-controlled, loving, and holy lives (1:13-16,22), even if we have to suffer or if everything goes wrong. And. we can always rejoice because the Big Story has a happy ending for all who believe in Jesus Christ, and nothing can change that (1:4). In the meantime, we gain strength and support from knowing that we are part of the church -- not a building, but “a people belonging to God” (2:9-10) with the living Christ as our leader. The Good News is that Jesus makes hope possible.

-- Whitney T. Kuniholm

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/james



If Peter was a fighter and Paul was a thinker, James was a doer. He was also the brother of Jesus and the leader of the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13-21). The main focus of his letter was to describe the practical aspects of what it means to be a Christian.

As we have seen, first-century Christians were experiencing persecution. So James’s practical advice was to view these trials not as a reason to complain, but as an opportunity to grow (1:2-4)- He had his finger on an important truth: Often the thing that causes us to grow the most in our walk with Christ is a time of crisis because it forces us more than anything else to depend on God. That doesn’t mean you should go looking for trouble, but when it happens, rejoice! God has given you an opportunity to grow.

James also had some practical things to say about words. His advice sounds like the book of Proverbs—”be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (1:19; see also 1:26; James 3:1-12). What would happen if you spent an entire day trying to listen more than speaking? James also suggested a practical approach to the Word of God: It s good to reflect on it, but its better to act on it (1:22-25).

Perhaps the most famous quote from this letter is “Faith without deeds is dead” (2:26). It would be easy to misunderstand what James meant. Its not that faith is unimportant or that doing good things is what God cares about most. The Bible is very clear that we cant earn our salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9). What James is saying is that if your faith is real, it must show up in your actions. If you were unable to speak, would others know you were a follower of Jesus?

-- Whitney T. Kuniholm

Paul is such a braggart! He just goes on and on about his ministry and all that it has accomplished. He’s a braggart. But (you knew there was going to be a “but”, right?)...reading this section of 2 Corinthians reveals that Paul isn’t a braggart in a selfish, attention-seeking way; he doesn’t brag about himself, he brags about God. Yes, he talks a lot about his ministry, but always in a way that makes it clear that the ministry itself is God’s and that he is merely the “afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down” (4:8-9) instrument through which God executes that ministry. As Paul writes, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (4:5-7).

When Paul does talk about himself it is always to point out his own weaknesses. Talking about himself, and all of the Apostles, he says “We are hard pressed on every side...perplexed...persecuted...struck down...We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus...we are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake...” (4:8-11). So the glory of the apostolic ministry belongs to God, and the salvation that it delivers through the preaching of the Gospel also belongs solely to God.

But if the apostolic ministry to which Paul was called was so injurious to him personally, then why would he continue in it? Paul tells us. The ministry of reconciliation that he preaches is also one that he first believed, and it is the hope, based on the promises of God, of the Gospel which provides the comfort and the power to perform the work of the apostolic ministry. So, while he and the other Apostles may be hard pressed, they are not crushed; perplexed yes, but not in despair, struck down by those hostile to their message, but not destroyed” (4:8-9).

It is specifically the promise of the Gospel that all things will be made new because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection that makes all of his suffering “worth it.” He knows that when Christ returns, as He has promised, then “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (5:4). Faith in Christ receives all that God has promised us in Jesus -- including “a building from God, an eternal house in heaven” (5:1; John 14:1-3) and the promise of resurrected life: “because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence” (4:14).

To see the glory of God and the risen Christ in perfect bodies in the perfection of the sin-purged creation -- THAT is hope, and worth enduring any hardship that any Christian experiences.

Click here for today’s reading: https://www.biblestudytools.com/1-corinthians/13.html

Hesham Shehab is the pastor of Salam Christian Fellowship and works as a missionary-at-large to Muslims in the Illinois District of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. He wasn’t always a Christian. How he became one is an example of the power of the Gospel to bring people to faith in Jesus, and also an example of the effect that love can have on a human life. Rev. Shehab shares in story in these words (from the website http://salamchristianfellowship.org/author/hicham/):

“Hicham [pronounced HESHAAM] grew up in a world of bitter animosity between Muslims and Christians, which he experienced personally in a physical attack when only about 7. By age 13 he was recruited by an extremist Muslim group and later fought against Christians in the 1975 war in Lebanon. He was preparing to become a Muslim Preacher (Imam) when a car accident laid him up for a year. In 1980, in his first semester in college, his brother was killed by Christian militia. Hicham's response was to study by day, and by night take out his revenge in attacks on Christians. However, hearing the Sermon on the Mount, in a course of cultural studies (in college), brought him to faith. Later, Hicham earned an M.A. in the history of the Arabs and did Ph.D studies in the history of Islam. Hicham finished his pastoral education at Concordia, Fort Wayne, IN, and is currently in the Ph. D program there. Presently, Hicham, and ordained LCMS minister, pastors Salam Christian Fellowship and works as a missionary to the Muslims with the Lutheran Church in Illinois.”

Hesham has said that it was especially Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:44 that effected him the most -- “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Pastor Shehab says that this passage struck him hard because it was not a message that he had ever heard in Islam. The idea of loving one’s enemies instead of hating them, of praying for those who persecute you instead of seeking revenge on them was a radical idea to him. It got him thinking and pondering, and eventually led him to seek out more information about Jesus. Now Hesham is a Christian pastor and missionary. God does indeed work in mysterious ways!

At the heart of Hesham’s experience is an encounter with the radical love of God in Jesus Christ. When Jesus says to love our enemies he is telling us to relate to others in the same way that He does -- not in judgment, spite, retaliation, or hatred, but in love, forgiveness, patience, and prayer.

Such love is impossible for us to achieve under our own steam, but with God all things are possible. Paul explains to us in very practical terms what the nature of divine love is. He is describing first and foremost how God has loved us in Jesus, and then encouraging us to seek after a life that loves people in this same way by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. Jesus said that the world would know that we are his disciples because of our love -- for each other, but also even for our enemies.