Reflective Bible Study

¹² So, do not let sin control your life here on earth so that you do what your sinful self wants to do. ¹³ Do not offer the parts of your body to serve sin, as things to be used in doing evil. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have died and now live. Offer the parts of your body to God to be used in doing good. ¹⁴ Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under God’s grace.

¹⁵ So what should we do? Should we sin because we are under grace and not under law? No! ¹⁶ Surely you know that when you give yourselves like slaves to obey someone, then you are really slaves of that person. The person you obey is your master. You can follow sin, which brings spiritual death, or you can obey God, which makes you right with him. ¹⁷ In the past you were slaves to sin—sin controlled you. But thank God, you fully obeyed the things that you were taught. ¹⁸ You were made free from sin, and now you are slaves to goodness. ¹⁹ I use this example because this is hard for you to understand. In the past you offered the parts of your body to be slaves to sin and evil; you lived only for evil. In the same way now you must give yourselves to be slaves of goodness. Then you will live only for God.

Read Romans 6:12-19 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes as King and all the angels with him, he will sit on his royal throne, ³² and the people of all the nations will be gathered before him. Then he will divide them into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the righteous people at his right and the others at his left. ³⁴ Then the King will say to the people on his right, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. ³⁵ I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, ³⁶ naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.’ ³⁷ The righteous will then answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? ³⁸ When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ ⁴⁰ The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Away from me, you that are under God’s curse! Away to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels! ⁴² I was hungry but you would not feed me, thirsty but you would not give me a drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger but you would not welcome me in your homes, naked but you would not clothe me; I was sick and in prison but you would not take care of me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they will answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we would not help you?’ ⁴⁵ The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of these least important ones, you refused to help me.’ ⁴⁶ These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life.”

Read Matthew 25:34-40 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

¹ It happened that when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching Him closely. ² And there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. ³ And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” ⁴ But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. ⁵ And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” ⁶ And they could make no reply to this.

Read Luke 14:1-6 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

³² The people of Israel were in the desert. One Sabbath day, people saw a man gathering wood. ³³ They brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole community. ³⁴ They kept him under guard. It wasn’t clear what should be done to him.

³⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole community must kill him by throwing stones at him. They must do it outside the camp.”

³⁶ So the people took the man outside the camp. There they killed him by throwing stones at him. They did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Read Numbers 15:32-36 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!