At the end of last year, YouVersion highlighted the top 10 Bible verses that were shared the most. I found the list interesting and thought that it could be helpful to understand them in their original context. For the past few months I’ve commented on each of these verses in their original context. Click on the verse to read the article.
Philippians 4:13 was the most “bookmarked, highlighted, and shared” verse in 2013. Here are the top 10 other verses:
- Psalm 118:24
- 1 Peter 5:6
- Isaiah 41:10
- Matthew 7:7
- Isaiah 40:31
- Hebrews 4:15
- Ephesians 5:25-26
- Joshua 1:9
- 2 Timothy 1:7
- Psalm 18:2
Final Reflections:
Looking over these ten verses a common theme emerges—weak people finding strength in their God.
This theme could either be a reflection of a deep love for the gospel or it could be an indication that we merely see God as a means to get what we believe we are lacking. In my mind these ten verses brings us back to a penetrating insight by John Piper:
We claim to be praising God because of his love for us. But if his love for us is at bottom his making much of us, who is really being praised? We are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man-centered. (God is the Gospel, 12-13)
The Bible is a story of God’s ruin and man’s remedy. It is a story of God rescuing and redeeming the hopeless and the helpless and lavishing upon them His riches. All of these verses that we share are profoundly true and reasons to rejoice. But God is much more than just a means to make weak people strong. Again I turn to Piper:
Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven—none of these is good news except for one reason; they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. (God is the Gospel, 47)
I don’t know why people shared these ten verses so many times in 2013. Where they sharing them because they wanted to say “see how big my God is, that he would be a rock for such a weak sinner as myself”? Or where they saying, “see how awesome this God makes me”? I pray that it’s the former.
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