"On every page of the God-breathed writings are many thoughts that stretch out like long, clear arms of light across the darkness, discovering things otherwise hidden and illuminating wider areas than those of the immediate context. They are searchlights. I have selected one in each chapter of Scripture, for at least one central thought in every chapter should arrest the mind and affect the life," wrote G. Campbell Morgan, a skilled, wise, warm-hearted Bible teacher who conducted a classic 3-year study called Life Applications from Every Chapter of the Bible. Here is the fruit of that research—summarized, illustrated, and amplified with useful details—on all 66 books of the Bible.
DEUTERONOMY, JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH,
1 JOHN, 2 JOHN, 3 JOHN, JUDE, REVELATION
Matthew 1:21 "She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." The name the angel commanded Joseph to give to Mary's Child was common then, like it is now. Jesus is the English version of the Greek word for the illustrious Hebrew name Joshua. That name was created by Moses for his assistant and successor, Hoshea, whose birth name means Salvation. Moses added to it the first letters of the great I Am name of God, Yahweh, so Joshua/Jesus fully means, "The Salvation of the Lord." Matthew, the first of the 4 biographies or Gospels explaining the Good News about Jesus, is telling us that the long-promised ultimate Salvation coming from God is taking on human flesh. Another way of saying that is "when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, that we might receive adoption to sonship" (Galatians 4:4-5). This we who love Him should always remember for our personal comfort and in all our service: As we are perpetually engaged in the struggle against sin, we fight in the assurance that He is able to rescue us from the power of evil in every form. The Lord Jesus was born to deal with sin, forgiving its penalty, cleansing from its pollution, and destroying its power.
Matthew 3:15 "It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." What is the significance of this first recorded statement of the Lord Jesus Christ as He approached His public ministry? The answer comes from the reason John the Baptist gave for not wanting to baptize Jesus: John's baptism was for the repentance and forgiveness of sins, but Jesus had no sins to repent of and and therefore no need for forgiveness. Why then did Jesus seek to be baptized by John? For the reason He Himself gave: His baptism serves as a symbol that He would provide righteousness for sinners whose sins He would identify with and atone for. That points to the fulfillment of this key messianic passage: "He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.... He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53). The truth is that God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). This righteousness from God comes by faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice and resurrection from the dead. Christian baptism is a symbol of what Christ has already done in the life of a believer.
Matthew 5:24 "First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering." This chapter begins Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount, which encompasses 3 chapters in Matthew's Gospel. In this verse we learn that our God seeks and values the gifts we bring to Him of praise, gratitude, service, and material offerings that involve sacrifice on our part. The warning here, however, is that the gift is acceptable to God in the measure in which the one who offers it is in fellowship with Him in character and conduct. The test of that is how we relate to others. Wrong we have done to another person that remains unconfessed and unforgiven cancels the value of the gift. That is why we are strictly charged to postpone our giving to God until we make things right with the one we have wronged. This should give us pause in our most holy exercises. It is God "who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation: that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not crediting their sins to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Jesus always wants us to practice what we preach. "If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18).
Matthew 7:25 "The winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the Rock." In the closing sentences of His ethical manifesto in the Sermon on the Mountain, Jesus claims full and final authority for all He said. The superlative image is that obeying His Word is like building on a rock foundation so secure, no storms can destroy the building. This figure of building may be applied in many ways, such as constructive work in personal character building, in one's immediate family or society, and in national and international affairs. The Lord's Word is fundamental and final, resulting from His perfect understanding of all facts concerning humanity and divinity. To order one's own life according to His teaching is to be strengthened against all destructive forces. Christ's Kingdom is characterized by "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17). All that, however, is possible only as we are brought into living relationship with Him by way of the Cross through faith. We may hear His words and even admire them, but we cannot obey them apart from the power of His resurrection life, which He bestows when we trust Him as our Savior. All our building in life, if it is to abide, must be founded on the sure rock of His Person and teaching.
Matthew 8:17 "This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 'He Himself bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases.'" When we read of the miracles Jesus did, we are rightly impressed with the ease with which He dealt with all the needs and sufferings of the people around Him. These words Matthew quotes from the prophet Isaiah, however, remind us of another side of the truth here: Christ's Word and touch brought instant deliverance because Christ Himself suffered to provide salvation. Every wonder of healing was made possible by the profounder wonder of atonement. One day all sickness and death will be gone when Christ returns because He effectively dealt with the sin causing all ills the first time He came. The blessings experienced by those who receive Christ are most precious because He paid such a high price to bestow them. God's love to His children is super abounding, but never cheap. When our pains are eased, let us reverently remember the pains He bore as one way of giving Him the worship He so richly deserves.
Matthew 9:13 "Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'" Those words are even more arresting when we realize they were addressed to religious teachers. The Pharisees were amazed when they saw the Lord Jesus and His disciples eating with "tax collectors and sinners," their term for the lowest members of society. Their astonishment came from what they wrongly believed about God. They thought of Him as cold and distant in His holiness from people who neglected any of the ceremonial observances of religion they thought were important, so they decided all religious teachers should act just as coldly toward such people. Christ's rebuke shows that those religious leaders did not know God, which is why He told them to go and learn the meaning of their own Scriptures. It is horribly possible to be zealous for a wrong conception of God and Truth, missing entirely what is closest to His heart as represented in His Word. God has revealed Himself completely in the Son of His love, "through whom He made the universe" and who is "the express image of His Person" (Hebrews 1:1-3). Both "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). The hard morality of Pharisaism is impossible to those who have learned the truth as it is in Jesus, who calls us to speak the truth in love in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:15-24).
Matthew 11:6 "Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me." Those are the final words of the message Jesus sent to John the Baptist when John sent messengers from prison to ask whether He was indeed the Messiah. It is a gentle warning we all need to bear in mind. John was obviously perplexed at the methods the Lord Jesus was adopting, revealing that he had an incomplete understanding of Messiahship. If Jesus started a revolution or raised up an army, John probably would have been more satisfied. This is a perpetual peril. It is still not easy to understand why God does not do something more startling, giving rise to complaints about why God doesn't do this or that, and feeble attempts to improve upon His methods. To all such restless impatience, Jesus utters the same warning. We are called to trust Him so completely that with contentment we follow Him in quiet, persistent methods of attending to individuals, getting things done one by one, simply and with great patience. There are rare moments when we are to speak up loudly, for if we do not, the stones themselves would cry out. But for the most part, the way of the Lord's service is plodding perseverance in doing apparently small things that will one day prove great.
Matthew 12:49-50 "He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, 'Here are My mother and brothers!' Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother, sister, and mother." In word and deed, Jesus contrasted His disciples with His closest relatives. In this situation, He was told His mother and brothers were seeking Him, probably to try to persuade Him to abandon His work and return home with them. Mark's Gospel tells us that when Jesus's earthly family heard about His ministry to the multitudes, "they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, 'He is out of His mind.'" That shows how far apart they were from Him at the time in what mattered most. The Lord Jesus Christ was in the world to do one thing, and one thing only: the will of His Father. His next of kin are always those who are one with Him in spiritual devotion to the will of God. Jesus never undervalued the body, but He treated it as secondary and subservient to obeying the will of God from the heart as the essence of spiritual health and strength. We can do that only when we repent and believe the Gospel, which is when He makes us one with Him and communicates His very nature to us. He did not exclude His mother and brothers from that kind of spiritual relationship (happily we read later that several of Jesus's family members demonstrated saving faith in Him), but our Lord did clearly indicate that devotion to the will of God was the only basis upon which anyone could really be one with Him.
Matthew 13:58 "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." The place referred to is Nazareth, Jesus's hometown, where He grew up from childhood to manhood. Luke's Gospel gives this summary of the Lord's youth: "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). Matthew tells us that after an in-depth teaching time in the form of parables, the Lord Jesus went to teach in Nazareth. The people there were astonished by His excellent teaching and miraculous powers, but they allowed their sense of overfamiliarity to prevent their coming to a reasonable conclusion about what they were hearing and seeing. That was the essence of their unbelief—not that they didn't believe Jesus said and did wonderful things, but they wouldn't permit their intellectual conviction to lead them to the corresponding volitional action of faith. It's not that the Lord Jesus needed their faith to enable Him to do anything. It is rather that He well knew giving His teaching and doing wonders for people who have already determined they will not yield to the claims of His authority is of no value to them or to God. Astonishment at Christ's words and deeds that leads to nothing or to foolish attempts to account for them on merely human levels is worse than useless. It hinders God's work.
Matthew 15:13 "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up." Jesus had been denouncing the Pharisees for nullifying the Word of God by the traditions they dared to add to it. His disciples observed and reported to Him that the Pharisees were offended by what He said. Jesus responded that every plant not of God's planting would be rooted up, which is the test of all human teaching however well- intentioned. If it is not based upon or rooted in God's Word, or if it departs in any degree from Scripture's stated intention, it is to be rooted up without pity. To what do we apply that test? All our traditions, systems, customs, habits, rules, and regulations. Why? We are always in danger of destroying the very thing we desire to safeguard if we do not. That is exactly what happened with Pharisaism. Starting with a passion for the Law of God, it had attempted to preserve and enforce it by adding rules and burdens that not only became intolerable, but also undermined or contradicted the original Law. Christianity has often suffered from the same method by becoming enslaved to human opinions, interpretations, and requirements. It is our duty to break away from all such things that move us away from the revealed will of God.
Matthew 16:16-17 "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus responded, 'Blessed are you ... for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven." How this gladdened the heart of Jesus! He came to seek and save the lost as the long-promised Messiah or Savior of the world. Through Him the Father had revealed that crucial truth to the 12 apostles. Peter is obviously speaking here as a spokesman for them, not just for himself, in answering Christ's direct question, "Who do you say I am?" The Father's revealing truth concerning the Son of God had come through the Son of Man. That helps explain our Lord's following (temporary) command: that they should tell no one that He was the Messiah. Their telling could bring no conviction. The Father Himself, through the Son, is alone able to do that. Our perpetual business is leading men and women to Christ through His powerful Word, and then leaving them with Him. We may be tempted to think they won't come to a right view apart from us. The ultimate fact is they will never come to a right view through us. It is when we have retired, and they are with Him alone, that the light breaks upon them. We are to follow the example of the apostles in the rest of the New Testament by proclaiming Christ to the nations with evidence that demands a verdict, yet simultaneously trusting God's revealing activity of making Himself and His truth known. 
Matthew 18:12 "What do you think? Suppose a man owns 100 sheep and one of them wanders away. Won't he leave the 99 sheep on the hills and look for the one that wandered off?" Those questions display a method Jesus often used when teaching: encouraging His hearers to understand divine actions by their own. He was assuming humankind's capacity for understanding God based on His knowledge of human nature. He knew of its tendency toward evil, saying on another occasion, "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?... If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give ... to those who ask Him!" (Luke 11:11-13). Jesus also knew that if a person could be brought to true thinking, to reasoning with God, he or she could understand God better. This text in Matthew is a superlative instance, for here the Lord Jesus is explaining God's attitude toward the lost souls of men and women, comparing it to the human instinct to search for something precious that is lost. We cannot explain all the ways of God from the ways of men, but we may illustrate to others about God what they will understand of themselves, if they will think simply and truly.
Matthew 19:14-15 "Jesus said, 'Let the children alone and do not hinder them from coming to Me, for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.' And He laid His hands on them. " Jesus is rebuking His disciples for attempting to prevent very young children from being brought to Him. Their serious mistake is all-too-easy to understand because people continue to underestimate the importance of children to God. By laying His hands on these young ones, King Jesus is claiming them for His rule, redemption, and guidance. Did those who had the care of them afterwards understand the value of what took place that day? That is the point of the story for us. As far as Jesus is concerned, His strong and tender hands rest upon the heads of all our children and grandchildren. Do we recognize that? If so, it will have its effect upon all our dealings with them. They are ours, but they are His by deeper, more sacred, and more tender ties. Our principal responsibility concerning them is helping children know, love, and follow Jesus.
Matthew 20:22 "Jesus answered, 'You do not know what you are asking.'" How often that is true in prayer now, even when praying for the highest things! Jesus had just been telling His 12 disciples about His coming shame, death, and resurrection. Soon after, James and John come kneeling before Him, asking for close association with Him in His coming power. It was a request born at least partly of faith and noble aspirations, but James and John did not know what they were really asking for. They did not understand the cost. They did not understand the sovereign plans of God regarding future honors. So it is often with us. The desires we express may be worthy, but it is impossible for us to know whether they can be granted. God is always dealing with His own individually, but with a view to their place in the much-larger whole of His complete and final purpose. That calls for a submissive attitude when we pray. We must believe not only that God is generous, but also that He is perfectly wise and just. Then we will praise Him with equal sincerity whether He gives or not. Prayers with that kind of faith bring peace and contentment.
Matthew 22:32 "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." That is Jesus' authoritative answer regarding the reality of the resurrection to those who denied it. His argument is that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead, but alive. The words of God Jesus quoted from His speaking to Moses in the burning bush were spoken long after those 3 men died. Although dead regarding their earthly bodies, they were not dead in the sense of ceasing to exist. This was our Lord's consistent interpretation of death. Of Jairus's daughter and of Lazarus, He said they were only sleeping, but in body they were dead until He brought them back to life. The Christian doctrine of death is not in any sense cessation of being, but rather a marked separation: physical death being the separation of the spirit from the body, and spiritual death the separation of the spirit from God, who made it. In heaven "the spirits of the righteous made perfect" (Hebrews 12:23) are more alive than they ever were on earth because they are more consciously with God, who is no longer invisible to them. In the resurrection to come when Jesus returns, they and others like them will receive new bodies like the risen Christ's, and that will be their final perfecting. 
Matthew 23:13 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" Woe is a solemn and dreadful word, especially here because it comes 7 times in a row from the most loving Person who ever lived. In 6 cases the reason for the woe is revealed by the word hypocrites, and once by blind guides. Jesus is speaking against religious leaders who were continually misrepresenting God to the people they taught and influenced. These scribes and Pharisees had systematically removed emphasis from all the essential things of the soul to mere trivialities. They turned the religious life into a burden with no moral or spiritual value. The heat of our Lord's anger here comes from His perfect love. How little people know of the depth of that love when they imagine that wrath has no place in the mind, character, and will of God! These woes stand against the beatitudes or blessings with which Christ opened His Sermon on the Mount. That sermon is the manifesto of the King, revealing the characteristics of those who will live and thrive in the Kingdom of God. The scribes and Pharisees, however, were justly cursed because they were responsible for interpreting and explaining the Kingdom of God, but instead they were obscuring it by their hypocrisy.
Matthew 24:25 "Behold, I have told you in advance." Here the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to His disciples then and for all time the value of His prophetic statements at the close of His public ministry. He saw the end from the beginning—and everything connecting the two, and was under no delusion regarding the strength of the evil forces to be dealt with before the final and perfect establishment of the Day of the Lord. He declared these things beforehand so we might also be free from all delusion, and that through all periods of catastrophe and defeat, our hearts should be kept firm and faithful to Him in the assurance of His perfect knowledge. The details of how future prophecies will be fulfilled are perplexing, but the general principles are not: Wars and distresses, along with false prophets and false Christs, are to continue and multiply until Jesus returns bodily as King of kings and Lord of lords. This view of future events is not popular with many people's notions of how life ought to unfold, but it reflects the actual facts of history and experience until now. We may rest assured that King Jesus, whose predictions have been verified completely so far, will return just as He said He would, and there will be no mistaking the fact when He does. Let us not be lured away from our loyalty to Him by any false Christs.
Matthew 25:13 "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man is returning." That is our Lord's word to His disciples then and now about our attitude toward His Second Coming. The fact of His return He clearly proclaimed, and all the New Testament writers repeatedly affirmed it. The light and glory of that certainty falls upon the darkness of the processes through which the final victory of the Kingdom of God will be won. Nothing will be completed until the Lord Jesus Christ returns, but everything is working under His mediatorial reign as events continue moving toward that consummation. The day and hour of that glorious end remain hidden from us by divine design. It is wrong to seek to know what God has chosen to hide. To know the day or hour would make watching unnecessary, and that would rob us of the alertness essential to true discipleship in life and service. Concerning times and seasons we need have no care since they are within the Father's authority, and there can be no failure with Him. Our responsibility is to have our lamps lit and be clothed for action, busy about our Lord's business with the Great Commission He has given His people so that when He comes, we shall be neither surprised nor ashamed. That is what patient waiting for Christ looks like.
Matthew 26:30 "When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." Twelve men are singing, a company composed of eleven and One. The circumstances, judged by human standards, are tragic: the eleven are losing the One, going out to bruising, beating, and a death of shame. Yet they sing, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself probably led the singing. We in fact know what they were singing: Psalms 113-118, known as the great Hallel in hymn form and sung during the annual Passover celebration. All that had been foreshadowed in Passover for about 1,400 years was now approaching completion by the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" in the Person of the Christ or Messiah. His disciples thought they were losing Him, but He was going out to gain them so they might gain Him in a sense never before possible. He was going forth to crush the head of the Serpent—the first Messianic prophecy in the Bible—to put to shame all the evil things that brought sin and death into the world. No sweeter singing, no mightier music ever sounded amid the darkness of a sad world's night than the singing of Jesus and His first disciples as He moved out to the Cross that provided redemption for His people past, present, and future.
