Passages: John 7:53-8:11; John 8:12-59

Scribes and Pharisees drag a woman caught in adultery before Jesus in the temple, testing him with a question about the law of Moses — and he stoops down to write in the dust before telling whichever of them is without sin to cast the first stone. Still teaching in the temple treasury, Jesus tells the crowd that he is the light of the world, and the exchange with the Pharisees grows sharper with every answer, ending with a claim about himself — before Abraham was, I am — that sends them reaching for stones.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: John 7:53-8:11; John 8:12-59 (The Woman Caught in Adultery; I Am the Light of the World).

Passages: Luke 9:51-62; John 7:1-52

With his popularity in Galilee near its height, Jesus turns deliberately toward Jerusalem, sending messengers ahead into a Samaritan village that refuses to receive him — and answering, sharply, those who offer to follow him but ask for time first. Some months later, at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, Jesus goes up quietly and then teaches openly in the temple midway through the feast, astonishing the crowd, who can't decide whether he is a good man, a deceiver, or the Christ. Officers sent to arrest him come back empty-handed, unable to explain why. On the last, great day of the feast, Jesus stands and cries out that anyone who thirsts should come to him and drink.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 9:51-62; John 7:1-52 (Toward Jerusalem: Samaritan Rejection and the Cost of Following; The Feast of Tabernacles).

Passages: John 6:16-71; Luke 9:18-50

That evening, the disciples set out across the lake without Jesus, and a wind rises as they row — until they see him walking toward them on the water, and he tells them not to be afraid. The next day, the crowd that was fed catches up with him, and Jesus tells them plainly that he himself is the bread of life come down from heaven, a claim so hard that many who had followed him turn back and walk with him no more. Some time later, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray, and is transfigured before them, his face and clothes shining, Moses and Elijah appearing beside him, and a voice from the cloud naming him God's beloved Son. Coming back down, he heals a boy the other disciples couldn't help, then quietly tells the twelve again what waits for him in Jerusalem.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: John 6:16-71; Luke 9:18-50 (Walking on Water and the Bread of Life; Peter's Confession, the Transfiguration, and the Boy Delivered).

Passages: Luke 8:26-56; Luke 9:1-9; Luke 9:10-17 & John 6:1-15

On the far shore, a man possessed by many demons meets Jesus among the tombs, and the demons that come out of him go into a herd of pigs instead. Back in Galilee, Jesus heals a woman who has suffered twelve years just by her touching the hem of his garment, and raises the daughter of a synagogue ruler named Jairus who had already died. Jesus then gives his twelve apostles power and authority and sends them out to preach and heal. When they return and report all they had done, Jesus withdraws privately with them — but the crowds follow on foot, and by evening some five thousand men, besides women and children, are gathered with nothing to eat. Both Luke and John record what happens next: five loaves and two fish, blessed, broken, and enough for everyone with baskets left over.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 8:26-56; Luke 9:1-9; Luke 9:10-17 & John 6:1-15 (The Gerasene Demoniac, Jairus' Daughter, and the Woman Healed; The Twelve Sent Out; The Feeding of the Five Thousand).

Passages: Luke 7:18-50; Luke 8:1-25

From prison, John the Baptist sends two disciples to ask Jesus directly whether he is the one who was to come, or whether they should keep waiting for someone else. Later, at the house of a Pharisee named Simon, a sinful woman from the city washes Jesus' feet with her tears and dries them with her hair, and Jesus tells Simon that she has been forgiven much because she loved much. Traveling through cities and villages with the twelve and a group of women who support them, Jesus teaches in parables — a sower, a lamp under a basket — before a storm rises suddenly as he and the disciples cross the lake, and he silences it with a word, leaving them asking each other who this man really is.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 7:18-50; Luke 8:1-25 (John's Question and the Sinful Woman; Parables by the Sea and Calming the Storm).

Passages: Luke 6:1-11; Luke 6:12-49; Luke 7:1-17

Walking through a grainfield on the Sabbath, Jesus' hungry disciples pick heads of grain to eat, and the Pharisees object — so Jesus reminds them who the Sabbath was made for. He spends a full night in prayer on a mountain before choosing twelve of his disciples as apostles, then comes down to level ground and teaches a crowd gathered from all over Judea and the coast, blessing the poor and warning the comfortable, telling them to love their enemies and judge not, lest they be judged. Back in Capernaum, a Roman centurion sends elders to ask Jesus to heal a servant he loves — a man who understands authority well enough to know Jesus doesn't even need to come to the house. And at the gate of the town of Nain, Jesus meets a funeral procession for a widow's only son, and gives him back to her alive.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 6:1-11; Luke 6:12-49; Luke 7:1-17 (Lord of the Sabbath; Choosing the Twelve and the Sermon on the Plain; The Centurion's Servant and the Widow's Son).

Passages: Luke 5:1-11; Luke 5:12-39; John 5:1-47

By the lake of Gennesaret, a crowd presses in so tightly that Jesus gets into Simon's boat to teach, then tells him to push out into deep water and let down his nets — and the catch is so large it nearly sinks two boats, leaving Simon Peter, James, and John to leave everything and follow him. In one of the towns, Jesus cleanses a man full of leprosy with a touch, and in Capernaum, when four friends can't get a paralyzed man through the crowd, they lower him through the roof instead. Up in Jerusalem for a feast, Jesus finds a man who has waited by the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years — sick, but with no one to help him into the water when it stirs — and heals him with a word, on the Sabbath, for the first time openly provoking the religious leaders' anger.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 5:1-11; Luke 5:12-39; John 5:1-47 (The Miraculous Catch of Fish; The Leper, the Paralytic, and the Call of Levi; The Healing at Bethesda).

Passages: John 3:22-36; John 4:1-42; Luke 4:14-30; John 4:43-54; Luke 4:31-44

John the Baptist's own disciples come to him one more time, uneasy that Jesus is baptizing more people than he is, and John tells them plainly that this is exactly as it should be — he must increase, and John must decrease. Leaving Judea, Jesus passes through Samaria, where a woman meets him at a well in the heat of the day and leaves without her water jar, running to tell the whole town about a man who told her everything she ever did. Back in his hometown of Nazareth, the people who watched him grow up can't get past the boy they remember, and drive him out of the synagogue. In Cana again, a nobleman's son lies dying in Capernaum, and Jesus heals him from a distance with nothing but a word. Settling in Capernaum, Jesus casts a demon out of a man in the synagogue and heals Peter's mother-in-law of a fever, and by evening the whole city is at his door.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: John 3:22-36; John 4:1-42; Luke 4:14-30; John 4:43-54; Luke 4:31-44 (John's Final Testimony; The Woman at the Well; Nazareth Rejects Jesus; The Official's Son Healed; Capernaum: The Demoniac and Peter's Mother-in-law).

Passages: Luke 4:1-13; John 1:19-51; John 2:1-12; John 2:13-25; John 3:1-21

Fresh from the Jordan, Jesus doesn't return to public life right away — the Spirit leads him into the wilderness first, where he fasts forty days and is tempted three times by the devil. Meanwhile, back at the Jordan, John the Baptist tells the priests sent to question him exactly who he is not, then points to Jesus walking by as the Lamb of God, sending two of his own disciples after him. Three days later, at a wedding in Cana, Jesus turns water into wine — his first public sign. At the Passover in Jerusalem he clears the temple courts of moneychangers, and that night a Pharisee named Nicodemus comes to him after dark, and is told that no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 4:1-13; John 1:19-51; John 2:1-12; John 2:13-25; John 3:1-21 (The Temptation; John's Testimony and the First Disciples; The Wedding at Cana; The Cleansing of the Temple; Jesus and Nicodemus).

Passages: Luke 2:1-20; Luke 2:21-40; Luke 2:41-52; Luke 3:1-22; Luke 3:23-38

A Roman census sends Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth in circumstances plain enough that shepherds, not kings, are the first to hear the news from an angel choir. Eight days later the child is named Jesus, and at the temple in Jerusalem an old man named Simeon, who has waited his whole life to see this, finally does. Twelve years pass in a single verse, then Luke offers one glimpse of Jesus as a boy, found in the temple astonishing the teachers with his questions. Nearly two decades after that, a wilderness preacher named John begins baptizing crowds by the Jordan, and one day Jesus himself steps into the water, with a voice from heaven and a dove descending. Luke then traces Jesus' lineage backward, generation by generation, all the way to Adam.

We are in a Luke-John Harmony. Today's episode covers: Luke 2:1-20; Luke 2:21-40; Luke 2:41-52; Luke 3:1-22; Luke 3:23-38 (The Birth of Jesus and the Shepherds; The Presentation in the Temple; Simeon and Anna; The Boy Jesus in the Temple; The Ministry of John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus; The Genealogy of Jesus).