"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
John 1:14 "Full of grace and truth." In that phrase John recorded the full and final impression Jesus made upon His disciples. John, now a sturdy octogenarian on the Roman penal island of Patmos, was the last of the 4 Gospel writers. He took full advantage of the opportunity he had to write in a cave there not only his Gospel, but also 3 letters and the prophetic Book of Revelation, so future generations—including us—would know what it was like to spend 3 full years living with Jesus, traveling with Him, listening to His teaching, and watching His good deeds and miracles. How to sum that up? John simply said, "We saw His glory" (John 1:14). What does that mean? Two words: grace and truth. Those two ideas should hold our minds and direct our lives. God is both grace and truth, not one without the other. Just as there can be no lowering of the pure standard of Truth, so also there is no departure from the saving purpose and passion of Grace. The Cross was necessitated by the very nature of God for His beloved creatures to exist in pure joy. If we would know Truth, then we must know the Lord Jesus Christ; to understand Grace, we must come to Him.
John 2:24 "But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them." Here the verb regarding trust is the same word translated "believed" in the previous sentence: "Many believed in His name when they saw the signs He was doing." Their belief in Him was not full commitment of themselves. It was intellectual conviction naturally produced by His signs—in this chapter alone changing water into wine at a wedding and demonstrating divine authority at the Temple in Jerusalem. John was very selective in what he wrote since knowing he was the last Gospel writer, he rarely repeated what the others already recorded. There surely were many other signs that temporarily wowed these temporary believers. Jesus, being God, perceived the fickle nature of their belief in Him. When, however, our convictions are yielded to and we surrender ourselves completely to them, we perceive our Savior in His fullness. Until that is so, He cannot trust us. This withholding of Himself is not capricious. John is careful to point out that it was based upon His knowledge of all people, not a cynical suspicion of the worst. Such withholding on our parts creates and then proves our unworthiness. It is a solemn thing to say, but nevertheless important to recall what the Lord Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount: He never casts His pearls before swine.
John 3:19 "This is the verdict: that the Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light." The Lord Jesus Christ here was employing courtroom language to explain the condemnation of humanity from God's point of view: the preference of individual men and women for darkness rather than light. Jesus described Himself as the Light of the World; He had just explained what it is to be Born Again in a spiritual sense. John opened his Gospel by declaring that in Christ "was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness has not overcome it." The coming of Christ was the coming of light. Through Him we know the truth about God and ourselves—about our fractured relationship with our Creator and what our life ought to be. Through Christ we learned that divine love made it possible, at infinite cost, the healing and restoration of that fractured relationship and life as it was meant to be. If people refuse to avail themselves of that divine grace, they are refusing to walk in the light and are condemned. The reason they love darkness is they desire things that the light condemns. "The mystery of lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:7) is that people know dark deeds lead to destruction, yet for the momentary pleasure they provide (Hebrews 11:25), they deliberately reject the true and lasting pleasures of light and life. Here each soul stands alone. The Light is shining. Shall we come to it and walk it? Or shall we refuse it and continue walking in darkness? The choice is personal, but the verdict has long been determined. 
John 4:32 "I have food to eat that you do not know about." In these words our Lord revealed the secret of His strength and the weakness of His disciples. They, like us, had persistent difficulties perceiving life beyond what they could see or feel. They conceived of life as being sustained by ongoing supplies of the physical. Jesus knew that while physical food is a necessity, there is a deeper need. In fact, sometimes there were circumstances—as Jesus Himself was in just then—when a man may live in the fullest sense of the word even when he lacks physical nourishment. He went on to explain, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work" (verse 34). What work specifically? The work of spiritual harvesting (verses 35-38), which is that "many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony" (verse 39). That Samaritan woman is a person Jesus spent time talking with while His disciples left to buy food. Their conversation was so spiritually fruitful, the woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ)." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He" (verse 26)—His most direct declaration of His messianic identity. God will take care of our physical needs; our primary calling as Christ's disciples is to follow His example by being devoted to God's will and mission. When we do that our lives will be full, radiant, and joyful, like Jesus was when He spoke to His disciples of the deep nourishment from His Father's food. They did not know that food, but He came to give them that knowledge, and they then lived by it, as do all who love Him.
John 5:46 "If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me." This most explicit statement by our Lord sets His seal of authority upon the first 5 Books of the Bible as penned by Moses under divine inspiration. In those days the name "Moses" was constantly employed by the Jewish people to describe those Books. Jesus uses the term here to show He thought of those Books as actually written by Moses. To say He was accommodating His language to the ignorance of His audience—as some scholars foolishly say—is to charge God's Son with perpetuating ignorance. The Lord Jesus goes on to say that Moses's writings are about Him. That is the key to interpreting them. For example, Moses said, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me. To Him you must listen!" (Deuteronomy 18:15-22). In Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy we discover the first movements towards His coming. In their teachings we read the first declarations of His ethical standards. What they say about God's character we see on living display in the Person of Christ Himself. The writings of Moses were prophetic. In them nothing was completed; they pointed to other things that came to pass when Jesus arrived "in the fullness of time" (Galatians 4:4). Moses himself, along with Elijah the prophet, spoke with Jesus at His Transfiguration shortly before His crucifixion. What were they talking about? Dr. Luke tells us: "His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). In the statement above, Jesus at once makes clear the authority and limitation of Moses.
John 6:6 "He Himself knew what He would do." Jesus posed a great problem to His disciples: how were they to get enough bread to feed the hungry multitude He had been ministering to? The difficulty is revealed in the answers of Philip and Andrew. The first calculated the cost; the second emphasized the inadequacy of their resources. The Lord Jesus asked His question, as John reveals, to test or prove them. By facing their own poverty, they would learn an unforgettable lesson about His power in the feeding of the 5,000—one of the few miracles recorded in all 4 Gospels. How often still Jesus brings His disciples into such perplexity: in our own lives something needs to be done that is impossible from our own private resources. We need to remember that Jesus Himself knows what He will do in each situation we face. We profit from the feeding of the 5,000 if we say to Him, "Lord, we do not pretend to know how things are to be done, but we bring whatever resources we have to You and are confident that whatever You have in Your heart to do, You are able to do with these poor things of ours! We do not know, but You know. Therefore, we do not ask to know how, but simply request that we will be directed by Your wisdom and enabled by Your power." If we develop that habit of mind and heart, how strong and quiet life will be!
John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." So what is righteous judgment? Just what Jesus says right here: judgment that is free from prejudice, which considers things as they really are, not as they appear—or are manipulated to appear—on the surface. The context here is revealing. Christ is speaking to religious people in a religious setting who are anything but truly religious in a righteous sense. Incredibly, they are criticizing Him for healing a man on what they considered to be the wrong day for healing! Their anger and hatred blocked clear thinking about the matter. As Jesus's half-brother James later wrote, "Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger for the anger of man does not bring about the justice of God" (James 1:19-20). To form true conclusions, we need a mind free from bias and mastered by love. That is a characteristic of true religion.
John 8:30 "As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him." Jesus again is speaking to a hostile crowd in an atmosphere of criticism and enmity. He sternly and openly rebuked and denounced the hypocritical religious leaders. Then to those very people in that tense situation He made superlative claims for Himself, declaring He worked and taught in fellowship with God and that He always did the things that pleased God. It was as He spoke those things that "many came to believe in Him" (although only in a superficial way, as the context reveals). Try to imagine any other teachers making such claims. If we did, we would at once doubt their sincerity and truthfulness. Yet that is not what happened here: everyone obviously knew He was who He claimed to be. Truth not only fell from His lips, it emanated from Himself. This quality still remains as we encounter Him in His words on the page. It is possible to disobey Him and even to deny the practicality of His ideals, but it is not possible to deny the beauty of those ideals or to disbelieve in the sincerity and glory of the Lord Himself.
John 9:35 "Jesus heard that the Pharisees had thrown the man out. Finding him..." This was a form of social ostracism. It was imposed by religious leaders upon a man born blind from birth healed by Jesus. They didn't like hearing the man's honest and insightful answers to their interrogation about how and by whom he had been healed. To punish this newly healed blind man, they excommunicated him from his religious rights in the Temple and synagogue. When Jesus heard that, He found the man, revealed His divine identity to him, and received the man's worship. That led to a wonderful discussion about the Shepherd, the sheep, and the one flock. Organized religion has often made the mistake of excommunicating those who, in loyalty to conscience, run counter to its prejudices. This account reveals the danger of excluding the Lord and His true followers when acting that way. The man cast out by spiritually blind religious leaders was received by the living Lord and found his way to the one and only true center of worship. At times a person may excommunicate a community as surely as be excommunicated by it. If he or she finds and receives the one true God, what does it matter who rejects?
John 10:3-4 "The sheep hear His voice and ... follow Him, for they know the Shepherd's voice." That is literally true of sheep. Jesus went on to say, "A stranger they will not follow, for they do not know the voice of strangers" (verse 5). The strangeness of other voices is a warning to the sheep: they do not know the voices and so take no risks. Think of how this applies to those who belong to the Lord: we know the voice of the Lord. We may not immediately understand what He is saying, but there is no mistaking His voice. It is the voice of understanding, tenderness, strength, purity, and authority. There is no other like it. It often corrects us, runs counter to our initial desires, calls us to service we at first dread, and sometimes to suffering we prefer to miss. But we know when He speaks, and then it is ours to follow, knowing He makes no mistakes and that every word He says—the sternest as well as the tenderest—is love-inspired. We are always wise to refuse to follow any strange voice. We do not others as we know Him. Their suggestions may be false even when their intentions are good, or their intentions may be evil when their suggestions are pleasant. Let us listen only to the Voice we know, and hearing let us follow.
John 11:15 "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there." This is how Jesus responded when He told His disciples plainly that their beloved friend Lazarus of Bethany was now dead. They had been informed Lazarus was seriously ill, but Jesus then mysteriously replied, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it." We are then told, "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister [Mary], and Lazarus. So when He had heard that he was sick, He [deliberately] stayed 2 more days in the place where He was" (verses 4-5). On the surface that seems like a strange form of love: If Jesus had been at Bethany, Lazarus would not have died for Jesus could have healed him. What happened next explains why He was glad He was not there. Jesus and His disciples traveled to Bethany, where Lazarus was now in a tomb, 4 days dead. Everyone was about to learn that death is not stronger in Jesus presence than disease. To us death is unconquerable. We may grapple with disease and sometimes win, but in the presence of death we are helpless. Jesus was glad for His disciples to have yet another opportunity to realize God's power to raise the dead. How slow we are to believe! That makes His gladness all the more beautiful because it reveals His patience. He often permits us to pass into deeper darkness and pain so we may more perfectly experience His power. Let that thought remain with us if our pathway lies in some dark valley where for the moment no light is shining and no path is clear. He knows, and all He permits will reveal Him more clearly and give us strong confidence.
John 12:33 "He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He would die." The Lord Jesus had just entered Jerusalem in triumph and taught a great multitude, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, My servant will be also.... Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world [Satan the usurper] will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth [on His cross a few days later], will draw all peoples to Myself" (verses 23-32). Jesus's death was a triumphant death. He died to cast out the authority and power of evil in which the world was enslaved. He died to create a center toward which people could now enter into freedom and life. Christ's is the one and only death that is in itself victorious. Now all who are gathered to Him around that cross, having received its pardon and gift of life, will also triumph in their dying. The first experience is spiritual and immediate to the trusting soul; the final experience comes when he or she dies and immediately comes into His presence.
John 13:1 "Jesus, knowing that His hour had come." The Lord's hour is referred to several times in John's Gospel; here is the definitive explanation: it is the hour of His cross. That is why Jesus came into the world. Yet notice how John points to what would happen after: the Son of God would "depart out of this world to the Father." He gives insight to the heart of Christ, for this must have been our Lord's conception of that hour. It was the hour of departure from the world—lonely, dark, full of unutterable anguish—and the hour of going to the Father. Beyond the loneliness, there was the restoration of fellowship; beyond the darkness, eternal light; beyond grief, fullness of joy. As He contemplated that hour, He had no misgivings. Triumph was certain. Knowing all that, He loved His beloved people to the uttermost. That love was His inspiration as He faced the horror and shame of the cross. He was not groping heroically through darkness, uncertain of His destination. Our Lord Jesus Christ was walking in the light, even as He passed through the darkness.
John 15:9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you." That supreme love of God for the Son is the measure and nature of the Son's love for His own. It is amazing to contemplate that while the Son is worthy of the Father's vast love, we ourselves are unworthy. Yet the Lord Jesus gloriously loves us in spite of our unworthiness, knowing He is able to make us worthy. Such love is "a deep where all our thoughts are drowned." A few chapters previously Jesus said, "My Father loves Me because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again" (John 10:17-18). He adds now, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love" (John 15:10). The perfection He seeks to work in us, His redeemed, is His selflessness that is willing to suffer to serve others, and His obedience to God's Word, which causes us to abide in divine love.
John 16:31 "Do you now believe?" In these words, Jesus very tenderly but intentionally challenged His disciples when they confirmed their belief in His divine mission. They were sincere, feeling they had at last passed beyond the point of doubt. But how much better Jesus knew them than they knew themselves! He knew they would soon find themselves in shattering circumstances, scattering them and leading them to doubt everything. His question here was meant to prepare them for those experiences, creating a foothold for their faith when the flood would sweep around them. The fact He had known and foretold of the coming events would be something to hold onto, and the memory of it would bring them back again to faith. Our faith, in itself, is a poor and even non-existent foundation. We truly believe today but tomorrow may bring storms that, for the moment, strain faith to the breaking point. But the Lord Jesus is always faithful: He Himself is our foundation. In the fiercest hour of upheaval, He enables our failing faith to gather strength. Our faith is truly "the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
John 17:20 "I do not pray only for them. I pray also for those who will believe in Me because of their message." These are the most comforting words for us in this great prayer of our Lord. We are among the number who have believed in Him through the apostolic Word, so His requests were on our behalf as well as for those immediately with Him. At this point He was surrounded by a few loving followers who nevertheless would soon be scattered because of fear. The outlook was very dark to all but the Lord. He also saw the darkness, yet He understood it better than any other. He saw through it the light shining down through the coming millennia. He saw His apostles, gathered after their scattering and proclaiming His Word throughout the world, preserving it in writing for His truth to be passed down in an unbroken chain. So Jesus prayed for us and those after us as He prayed for His immediate followers. He knew their weaknesses and how they would fail; He knows our weaknesses and all about our failures. He also knew His intercession for them and us would prevail. Therefore, let us rest united together in the Lord Jesus Christ by our loving obedience to Him and sure confidence in Him.
John 18:11 "The cup that the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" Jesus said these words to Peter, who out of love for his Master and in mistaken zeal, struck a bloody blow in an attempt to deliver the Lord from His enemies. That rhetorical question reveals Jesus's ongoing commitment to the will of God no matter how dark the circumstances. Jesus had spoken of the cup of God's wrath before; now it is time for Him to taste it to accomplish the salvation of His people as their perfect atoning sacrifice. The Lord Jesus knew that cup had been given Him by His Father, who loved and confided in Him. We see clearly how the highest love, the love of God, must always qualify and sometimes even cancel the suggestions made by other loves, however loyal and well-intentioned they may be. The love of God is always wise. The love of our fellow human beings is often unintelligent. Let us follow our Lord's example in trusting in and following the will of God as revealed in His perfect Word first and foremost.
John 19:30 "It is finished!" Dr. Luke tells us that after "Jesus cried out with a loud voice, He said, 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.' And having said this, He breathed His last" (Luke 23:46). John says, "He said, 'It is finished!' And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit." What the Lord said with a loud voice was, "It is finished!" It was a divine cry of triumph—unimaginable from any other crucifixion victim. Many eyewitnesses heard it, and it is recorded for all time. The hour had come when the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished all that was within "the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). He had entered into and passed through the deep mystery of spiritual death on behalf of His people. In that experience He cried out rhetorically in anguish, "My God, My God, why Have You forsaken Me?"—an echo of King David's prophecy in Psalm 22. In that mystic cry He uttered all that it is possible for mere mortals to know of that experience. That anguish was over now, so He passed with calm composure into His Father's hands. In Christ's exultant cry of accomplishment on the cross—It is finished, tetelestai, "paid in full" in Greek—is the good news of freedom from the slavery of sin and the possibility of realizing all the purposes of God. While there is much for each believer to "work out" his or her "own salvation with fear and trembling," God is at work in us "both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). There is nothing for us to do to make our own salvation possible. Everything has been done by Christ on that cross, and now God is working His will in His people's lives as He did in His own Son's life "as a forerunner for us" (Hebrews 6:20).
John 20:19, 21 "Peace be with you.... Peace be with you." Twice the risen Christ used these common words of greeting to His disciples on the evening of His resurrection. Now those words had behind them the authority of His death and resurrection. He had faced and defeated all the forces that destroy peace. In saying, "Peace be with you," He was doing much more than expressing a wish: He was making a declaration and bestowing a blessing. The repetition is significant. The first was a greeting addressed to men filled with fear because of the hostile environment they found themselves in because of Christ's execution. Christ is essentially saying, "Peace be with you! The things you fear are powerless to harm you in an ultimate sense. Death is not the end. Beyond it, see Me alive! Be at peace, for whether in life or death you are safe." The second "Peace be with you" is followed by this: "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." He gave them a divine commission. They were to be at peace, knowing by the fact of His resurrection that they would be victorious, even though they went His way of suffering and death. Christian history reveals that Christian people have never had a more striking experience of peace than when they have been called to suffer for His name.
John 21:2 "... and two other disciples were there." This last chapter is devoted to a delightful morning that lingered in the apostle John's mind. We would not know about it if John did not write about it in his old age. The risen Redeemer and Ruler was showing His disciples His interest in the most common aspects of their lives, and the great responsibilities that flow from them. He touched their daily doings with light and glory, enhancing their fishing and even preparing their breakfast. He underscored the supreme importance of feeding His people nourishing spiritual food. Who were these disciples? Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, James, and John—all outstanding figures. Two others were there as well, but they are not named. They represent the anonymous and hidden multitudes of faithful disciples whose names are never published in human documents and whose deeds are never recorded in human reports. To these the Lord Jesus Christ manifested Himself as surely as to the others. Let all such remember that of His fullness they also receive. To all His own, Christ continually ministers with His grace and truth.
