![Luke 9:46-56, with words of Jesus [highlighted] and (personal notes) written on the side.
Luke 9:46-56
"An argument arose among them concerning which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side and said to them, [“Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me, for the least among all of you is the greatest.”](Care for the children, orphan and widow. Welcome the immigrant.)
John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, [“Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”](Just because they're not your flavour of Christian doesn't mean they're not faithful and used for good)
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, [“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village."](That's not very turn the other cheek, is it?)](https://jonathanpay.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/untitled-design.png?w=1024)
A two-fold post. I don’t remember why I looked specifically at this bit of my Bible yesterday. I have been listening to a variety of interviews and podcasts about faith and theology, about biblical studies and the more academic side of things as well.
More and more I desire to just lean on the example of Jesus as described in the gospels. Paul was prolific and writing and establishing the faith in the far corners while the other apostles, as far as we know(?), didn’t venture as far. But with everything that I continue to learn about the religion is that structure themselves around Jesus the more disenfranchising it can feel. For me anyway. And so I want to want more look to Jesus.
In these 10 verses the author of the gospel of Luke has Jesus telling his disciples to welcome children (the least)–we can add to that caring for the orphans in the widows and welcoming immigrants. Jesus also tells the disciples to let someone who is doing the work in Jesus name continue doing what they’re doing without stopping or recruiting them, finally Jesus rebus two of his disciples because they got angry when they were rejected.
Love God. Love your neighbour as yourself. Be kind. Be inclusive.
This was also a neat little exercise and whipping together that layout in Canva very quickly where I got the text from bible.com remove the headings and verse numbers, and then added handwriting-style text on the side (roughly 3:2) with a bit of paper texture for the background. Nothing too flashy, nothing too intricate.
I quite like this as a template! I would do it in person. The original idea when I got that journalling Bible was to do just this in a physical book except that I actually have a real fear of my terrible handwriting screwing up and making a mess of everything! There are lots of underlines and highlighting and a couple of notes in that Bible as it stands, but it’s not something I’ve done in a long time. But using this as a template, I think is a neat idea that I will do a few more times maybe as I am inspired to share.
Jonathan Pay - email marketing consultant 