Shows / Word for Word: The Bible
Word for Word: The Bible
Word for Word: The Bible is a simple invitation to read the Bible from beginning to end — carefully, faithfully, and without shortcuts. For the first time, I’m reading the Bible cover to cover, in canonical order from Genesis to Revelation, and inviting others to join me in the journey. This podcast isn’t a sermon, a debate, or a commentary. It’s a daily practice of slowing down, paying attention, and allowing Scripture to speak for itself. Each episode follows a steady, consistent rhythm. We…
Episodes
- Word for Word: The Bible
Love Your Enemies: Blessings Turned Upside Down and a Widow's Son Raised | Luke 6–8
Episode Overview Today we read Luke chapters 6 through 8. Jesus spends a night in prayer before choosing the twelve, then comes down to a level place and…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Fulfilled in Your Hearing: A Hometown Turns Violent and Nets Left Behind | Luke 3–5
Episode Overview Today we read Luke chapters 3 through 5. John's preaching is notable for how practical it gets. The crowds ask what they should do and he says…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Surely This Was the Son of God: An Empty Tomb and an Angel's Announcement | Mark 15–16; Luke 1–2
Episode Overview Today we finish Mark and begin Luke. Mark's crucifixion account is spare and devastating: mockery, darkness over the land, and Jesus crying…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Love God, Love Your Neighbor: Wicked Tenants and a Kiss in the Garden | Mark 12–14
Episode Overview Today we read Mark chapters 12 through 14. Jesus tells the parable of the tenants who beat the servants and finally kill the owner's beloved…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A House of Prayer for All Nations: Arguing About Greatness on the Way | Mark 9–11
Episode Overview Today we read Mark chapters 9 through 11. The Transfiguration comes first—dazzling white, Moses and Elijah, a voice from the cloud saying this…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Take Up Your Cross: A Hometown's Rejection and Bread for Five Thousand | Mark 6–8
Episode Overview Today we read Mark chapters 6 through 8. Jesus returns to Nazareth and the reaction is telling: isn't this the carpenter? Aren't his sisters…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Who Touched My Clothes? Storms Stilled and Three Lives Restored | Mark 2–5
Episode Overview Today we read Mark chapters 2 through 5. It opens with four friends who cannot get through the crowd, so they dig through the roof and lower…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Go and Make Disciples: An Empty Tomb and a Gospel That Starts Again | Matthew 27–28; Mark 1
Episode Overview Today we finish Matthew and start Mark. Matthew 27 moves through the trial before Pilate, the crowd choosing Barabbas, the mocking, and the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Least of These: Ten Virgins, a Last Supper, and a Denial Before Dawn | Matthew 24–26
Episode Overview Today we read Matthew chapters 24 through 26. The disciples admire the temple buildings, and Jesus tells them not one stone will be left on…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Seven Woes and a Hen's Wings: A King Enters and the Temple Is Cleared | Matthew 21–23
Episode Overview Today we read Matthew chapters 21 through 23, and the week that will end at the cross begins. Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Last Will Be First: A Mountain of Glory and a Rich Man Who Walked Away | Matthew 17–20
Episode Overview Today we read Matthew chapters 17 through 20. On a high mountain Jesus is transfigured—His face shining like the sun, Moses and Elijah beside…
- Word for Word: The Bible
You Are the Messiah: Bread for Thousands, Steps on Water, and a Cross Foretold | Matthew 14–16
Episode Overview Today we read Matthew chapters 14 through 16. It opens with John the Baptist's execution at a birthday party, and Jesus withdrawing to a…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Come to Me, All Who Are Weary: A Prophet's Doubt and Seeds in Four Soils | Matthew 11–13
Episode Overview Today we read Matthew chapters 11 through 13, and it opens somewhere unexpected: John the Baptist, in prison, sends messengers to ask whether…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Even the Winds Obey: A Table of Outcasts and Twelve Sent With Nothing | Matthew 8–10
Episode Overview Today we read Matthew chapters 8 through 10, and the miracles come in rapid succession. Jesus touches a leper—a detail worth pausing on, since…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Salt, Light, and Solid Rock: The Sermon That Redefined Blessed | Matthew 4–7
Episode Overview Today we read the Sermon on the Mount, the longest block of Jesus' teaching in any Gospel. It opens with the Beatitudes, and the word…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A King Born Under Threat: Magi, a Baptism, and Forty Days of Testing | Matthew 1–3
Episode Overview Today we open the New Testament. Matthew begins with a genealogy, which modern readers tend to skim, and that is a loss—because of who is in…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A Refiner's Fire: Broken Covenants and a Messenger to Prepare the Way | Malachi 2–4
Episode Overview Today we finish Malachi, and with it the Old Testament. Chapter 2 opens on the priests, and the language is blunt—a priest's lips ought to…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A Fountain Opened: A King Over All and Gifts No Governor Would Accept | Zechariah 13–14; Malachi 1
Episode Overview Today we finish Zechariah and open Malachi. Zechariah 13 begins with a fountain opened to the house of David to cleanse them from sin and…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Humble and Riding a Donkey: A Pierced One and the Shepherd of His People | Zechariah 9–12
Episode Overview Today we read Zechariah chapters 9 through 12, where the book turns from visions to prophecy about what is coming. Chapter 9 contains the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Streets Full of Children: A Crowned Priest and What God Wants More Than Fasting | Zechariah 6–8
Episode Overview Today we read Zechariah chapters 6 through 8. Four chariots come out from between two bronze mountains, patrolling north, south, and across…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Not by Might nor by Power: Filthy Garments Exchanged and a Golden Lampstand | Zechariah 3–5
Episode Overview Today we read Zechariah chapters 3 through 5, three visions about cleansing. The first is a courtroom. Joshua the high priest stands before…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A City Without Walls: Greater Glory Ahead and God Himself as Its Defense | Haggai 2; Zechariah 1–2
Episode Overview Today we finish Haggai and begin Zechariah. Haggai 2 addresses a discouragement specific to the older generation: some of them remembered…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Singing Over His People: A Day of Reckoning and an Unfinished Temple | Zephaniah 1–3; Haggai 1
Episode Overview Today we read Zephaniah and begin Haggai. Zephaniah's opening is one of the most sweeping in the prophets—God will sweep away everything from…
- Word for Word: The Bible
How Long, O Lord? An Honest Complaint and a Choice to Rejoice Anyway | Habakkuk 1–3
Episode Overview Today we read Habakkuk, a book built as a conversation. It does not open with a sermon. It opens with a grievance: how long, Lord, must I call…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Nineveh Falls at Last: When an Empire's Violence Finally Runs Out | Nahum 1–3
Episode Overview Today we read Nahum, and it helps to read it alongside Jonah. Roughly a century after Nineveh repented at Jonah's preaching, the city is back…
- Word for Word: The Bible
From Little Bethlehem: Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly | Micah 5–7
Episode Overview Today we finish Micah. Chapter 5 contains the promise the wise men would later quote to Herod: out of Bethlehem, small among the clans of…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Prophets for Profit: Judgment on a Corrupt Land and a Mountain Above All | Micah 1–4
Episode Overview Today we begin Micah, a prophet from a small farming town speaking to both Samaria and Jerusalem. Chapter 1 is a lament that names actual…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Angry at Mercy: A City That Repents and a Prophet Who Cannot Celebrate | Jonah 2–4
Episode Overview Today we finish Jonah. Chapter 2 is a prayer offered from inside a fish, and it reads like a psalm—seaweed wrapped around his head, the deep…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Running the Other Way: Amos Rebuilds, Edom Gloats, and a Prophet Flees | Amos 9; Obadiah; Jonah 1
Episode Overview Today we cover three books. Amos closes with a reversal that the preceding eight chapters did not prepare us for. After relentless judgment…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A Famine of Hearing: Those at Ease, a Plumb Line, and Warnings That Run Out | Amos 6–8
Episode Overview Today we read Amos chapters 6 through 8. Chapter 6 opens with a phrase worth sitting with: woe to you who are at ease in Zion. What follows is…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Let Justice Roll Down: Dishonest Scales and Worship God Will Not Accept | Amos 2–5
Episode Overview Today we read Amos chapters 2 through 5, and Amos stops speaking in generalities. He names what is happening: people sold for silver and for a…
- Word for Word: The Bible
I Will Pour Out My Spirit: Restoration After Ruin and a Shepherd's Warning | Joel 2–3; Amos 1
Episode Overview Today we finish Joel and begin Amos. Joel 2 sounds an alarm—a day of the Lord approaching, dark and dreadful. Then the passage pivots on a…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Return and Flourish: Hosea's Final Call and a Plague That Wakes a Nation | Hosea 13–14; Joel 1
Episode Overview Today we finish Hosea and begin Joel. Hosea's last two chapters hold together the two things this book has refused to separate. Chapter 13 is…
- Word for Word: The Bible
I Taught Ephraim to Walk: A Vine of Thorns, Sown Righteousness, and Jacob's Struggle | Hosea 10–12
Episode Overview Today we read Hosea chapters 10 through 12. Israel is described as a spreading vine that brought forth fruit for itself—prosperous, and the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Love Like Morning Mist: Mercy Not Sacrifice and the Cost of Empty Words | Hosea 6–9
Episode Overview Today we read Hosea chapters 6 through 9, and they open with what sounds like exactly the right response. Come, let us return to the Lord; He…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Bought Back Again: A Nation Without Knowledge and the God Who Wounds to Heal | Hosea 3–5
Episode Overview Today we read Hosea chapters 3 through 5. Chapter 3 is short and staggering. Hosea is told to go again and love a woman who has been…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Called Not My People: A Prophet's Broken Marriage and a Love That Will Not Quit | Hosea 1–2
Episode Overview Today we begin Hosea, one of the most personally costly assignments given to any prophet. God tells Hosea to marry a woman who will be…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Seventy Weeks: A Prayer of Confession and a Promise to Shine Like the Stars | Daniel 9–12
Episode Overview Today we finish Daniel with chapters 9 through 12. It begins with Daniel reading Scripture. He is working through Jeremiah, comes across the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Writing on the Wall: A Night in the Lions' Den and the Ancient of Days | Daniel 5–8
Episode Overview Today we read Daniel chapters 5 through 8. Belshazzar throws a feast and drinks from vessels looted from the temple in Jerusalem—a deliberate…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Ten Days on Vegetables: A Dream of Kingdoms and Four Men in the Fire | Daniel 1–4
Episode Overview Today we open the book of Daniel with chapters 1 through 4. Daniel and his friends are teenagers carried off to Babylon and enrolled in a…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Lord Is There: A River from the Temple and a Sea Brought Back to Life | Ezekiel 47–48
Episode Overview Today we finish Ezekiel with chapters 47 and 48. The vision ends with water. A river flows out from under the threshold of the temple, and…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Gate That Stays Shut: Restored Worship and a Life Ordered Around God | Ezekiel 44–46
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 44 through 46, where the temple vision moves from architecture to practice. The first detail is quietly…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Glory Returns: A Temple Measured Gate by Gate and a Presence Coming Home | Ezekiel 40–43
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 40 through 43, and the tone of the book changes completely. Twenty-five years into exile, Ezekiel is taken in…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Can These Bones Live? Two Sticks Made One and a Final Enemy Overthrown | Ezekiel 37–39
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 37 through 39, beginning with one of the most famous scenes in all of Scripture. Ezekiel is set down in the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
I Myself Will Search: Shepherds Who Fed Themselves and a Heart of Flesh | Ezekiel 34–36
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 34 through 36, some of the most comforting chapters in the prophets. Chapter 34 opens with a charge against…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Cedar That Fell: A Monster Caught and a Watchman Given His Post Again | Ezekiel 31–33
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 31 through 33. Egypt gets two more portraits. First a cedar in Eden—so tall that no tree in God's garden could…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Ship That Sank: The Pride of Tyre and Egypt the Monster of the Nile | Ezekiel 27–30
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 27 through 30. Chapter 27 is an extraordinary piece of writing—a funeral song for Tyre imagined as a ship…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Forbidden to Mourn: The Siege Begins and Judgment Falls on the Gloating Nations | Ezekiel 24–26
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 24 through 26, and the long-announced crisis finally arrives. Ezekiel is given a date—this exact day—on which…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A Sword Made Ready: A City's Catalog of Sin and the Story of Two Sisters | Ezekiel 21–23
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 21 through 23. The chapter opens with the song of the sword—a blade sharpened, polished, and made ready…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Sour Grapes No More: Personal Responsibility and a God Who Wants You to Live | Ezekiel 18–20
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 18 through 20. The exiles had a saying: the parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Idols in the Heart: A Useless Vine, a Rescued Child, and Two Eagles | Ezekiel 14–17
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 14 through 17, four chapters built around images. It begins with elders sitting down in front of Ezekiel to…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Packing for Exile: New Hearts Promised and Prophets Who Whitewash a Flimsy Wall | Ezekiel 11–13
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 11 through 13. The leaders still in Jerusalem are confident they are safe—they compare the city to a cooking…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The Glory Departs: Hidden Idols in the Temple and a Presence That Withdraws | Ezekiel 8–10
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 8 through 10, one of the most sobering passages in the book. Ezekiel is lifted in a vision and carried to the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The End Has Come: A Shaved Head, Scattered Hair, and Warnings Too Blunt to Ignore | Ezekiel 5–7
Episode Overview Today we read Ezekiel chapters 5 through 7, where the prophet's sign acts turn even more startling. Ezekiel shaves his head and beard with a…
- Word for Word: The Bible
A Throne in the Storm: The Scroll That Tasted Sweet and a Watchman's Call | Ezekiel 1–4
Episode Overview Today we open the book of Ezekiel with chapters 1 through 4. Ezekiel is a priest in exile by the Kebar River, and his book begins not with an…
- Word for Word: The Bible
New Every Morning: Hope in the Middle of Suffering and an Ending Left Open | Lamentations 3–5
Episode Overview Today we finish Lamentations, reading chapters 3 through 5. Chapter 3 narrows from a ruined city to a single voice—one man describing what the…
- Word for Word: The Bible
The City Sits Alone: An Alphabet of Grief and Sorrow Poured Out to God | Lamentations 1–2
Episode Overview Today we begin Lamentations, reading chapters 1 and 2. The poems are acrostics—each stanza starting with the next letter of the Hebrew…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Even Babylon Falls: Jerusalem's Last Days and Kindness to a Captive King | Jeremiah 49–52
Episode Overview Today we read Jeremiah chapters 49 through 52 and reach the end of the book. The oracles against the nations continue, but they build toward…
- Word for Word: The Bible
Do Not Seek Great Things: A Word for a Weary Scribe and Judgment on the Nations | Jeremiah 45–48
Episode Overview What do you say to someone who is simply worn out? Today we read Jeremiah chapters 45 through 48, which open with a short, deeply personal…
- Word for Word: The Bible
They Asked, Then Refused: Flight to Egypt and the Queen of Heaven | Jeremiah 42–44
Episode Overview What does it mean to ask God for direction you have already decided to ignore? Today we read Jeremiah chapters 42 through 44. The remnant left…