Thurzo Gizella Bible Study

A Christian’s goal should be to create the Kingdom of God here on earth just as it is in Heaven. Not just to get to Heaven.

Watch this to start your day.

To finish the Bible in one year, Read Judges 13,14,15,16 & 1 Corinthians 6

Old Testament Reading for today Judges 13, 14, 15, 16, & 1 Corinthians 6

Judges 13

1 And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. 2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. 3 And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Therefore beware, and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, 5 for lo, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God, very terrible; I did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his name; 7 but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son; so then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’” 8 Then Manoah entreated the LORD, and said, “O, LORD, I pray thee, let the man of God whom thou didst send come again to us, and teach us what we are to do with the boy that will be born.” 9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. 10 And the woman ran in haste and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” 11 And Manoah arose and went after his wife, and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” 12 And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the boy’s manner of life, and what is he to do?” 13 And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her beware. 14 She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe.” 15 Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “Pray, let us detain you, and prepare a kid for you.” 16 And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food; but if you make ready a burnt offering, then offer it to the LORD.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD.) 17 And Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” 18 And the angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” 19 So Manoah took the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the LORD, to him who works wonders. 20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground. 21 The angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the LORD. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” 23 But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a cereal offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” 24 And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the boy grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshta-ol.

Judges 14

1 Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 Then he came up, and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” 3 But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your kinsmen, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me; for she pleases me well.” 4 His father and mother did not know that it was from the LORD; for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. 5 Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and he came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion roared against him; 6 and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion asunder as one tears a kid; and he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. 8 And after a while he returned to take her; and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went; and he came to his father and mother, and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion. 10 And his father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there; for so the young men used to do. 11 And when the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you; if you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments; 13 but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14 And he said to them, “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.” And they could not in three days tell what the riddle was. 15 On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” 16 And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You only hate me, you do not love me; you have put a riddle to my countrymen, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” 17 She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted; and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her countrymen. 18 And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.” 19 And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty men of the town, and took their spoil and gave the festal garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. 20 And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

Judges 15

1 After a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a kid; and he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Pray take her instead.” 3 And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines, when I do them mischief.” 4 So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches; and he turned them tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards. 6 Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire. 7 And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged upon you, and after that I will quit.” 8 And he smote them hip and thigh with great slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam. 9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.” 12 And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not fall upon me yourselves.” 13 They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock. 14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the ropes which were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and put out his hand and seized it, and with it he slew a thousand men. 16 And Samson said, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” 17 When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramathlehi. 18 And he was very thirsty, and he called on the LORD and said, “Thou hast granted this great deliverance by the hand of thy servant; and shall I now die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and there came water from it; and when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Judges 16

1 Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a harlot, and he went in to her. 2 The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here,” and they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” 3 But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is before Hebron. 4 After this he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5 And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” 6 And Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me wherein your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.” 7 And Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings which have not been dried, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” 8 Then the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9 Now she had men lying in wait in an inner chamber. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings, as a string of tow snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known. 10 And Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies; please tell me how you might be bound.” 11 And he said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” 12 So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And the men lying in wait were in an inner chamber. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread. 13 And Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me, and told me lies; tell me how you might be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and make it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” 14 So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web. And she made them tight with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep, and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web. 15 And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me wherein your great strength lies.” 16 And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. 17 And he told her all his mind, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I be shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” 18 When Delilah saw that he had told her all his mind, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this once, for he has told me all his mind.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hands. 19 She made him sleep upon her knees; and she called a man, and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. 20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” And he did not know that the LORD had left him. 21 And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze fetters; and he ground at the mill in the prison. 22 But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. 23 Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” 24 And when the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has slain many of us.” 25 And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, that he may make sport for us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he made sport before them. They made him stand between the pillars; 26 and Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.” 27 Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women, who looked on while Samson made sport. 28 Then Samson called to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be avenged upon the Philistines for one of my two eyes.” 29 And Samson grasped the two middle pillars upon which the house rested, and he leaned his weight upon them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. 30 And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were in it. So the dead whom he slew at his death were more than those whom he had slain during his life. 31 Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshta-ol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years.

New Testament Read or today is 1 Corinthians 6

1 Corinthians 6

1 When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, matters pertaining to this life! 4 If then you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who are least esteemed by the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren. 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”–and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two shall become one.” 17 But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

The Message Bible – Eugene H. Peterson – In Contemporary Language Read today’s verses in this bible on line, if you like.

Listen to today’s Bible readings

The Catholic Daily Reading and homily, Listen, or Read it Here:

Jeremiah 7:23-28

23But this command I gave them, `Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’24But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.25From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day;26yet they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.27″So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.28And you shall say to them, `This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

Psalms 95:1-2, 6-9

1O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!2Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!6O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!7For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice!8Harden not your hearts, as at Mer’ibah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,9when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

Gospel

Luke 11:14-23

14Now he was casting out a demon that was dumb; when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke, and the people marveled.15But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Be-el’zebul, the prince of demons”;16while others, to test him, sought from him a sign from heaven.17But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.18And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Be-el’zebul.19And if I cast out demons by Be-el’zebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.20But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.21When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace;22but when one stronger than he assails him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoil.23He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

Why is Lent 40 days long?

Additional Study Materials

Previous Daily Bible Study Blogs

Book of Judges, Outline Summary, Outline Book 1 Corinthians (we are studying these books presently)

Audio Drama: Old Testament New Testament Each book is read in its entirety. You can listen to the bible, one book at a time in contemporary English.

Dr. Myles Munroe

I am including a video by Dr. Myles Munroe, I’ve listened to him back in the nineties, and rediscovered him recently. Now his perspective seems to be a good way to also look at scripture. In Pursuit of Purpose – Book Highlights

Catholic Daily Reflections

The reflection prayer for today.

Eternal Word of God, at times I am given over to fear when You call me to speak Your words of love to those in need. I feel as though I am muted in my speech, confused about what to say. Please free me, dear Lord, to be a holy instrument of Your Word and to confidently proclaim Your truth to those who are in much need. Jesus, I trust in You.