The Bible's Fantastic Four Scriptures!

Part 2.
100 Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart

Beginnings:
The Bible's Fantastic Four

1. Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. —Genesis 1:1

Scripture begins with these ten words. This is the bedrock of the Bible, the first, earliest, and most irreducible foundation for the remaining thirty-one thousand verses of God’s Word. Genesis 1:1 encompasses the totality of Truth.
 Without it there’s nothing but despair. With it there’s everything we need. If this verse is true, everything in the rest of the Bible is plausible and logically consistent. Genesis 1:1 tells us that God is, that He creates, and that He speaks; and this is the basis of all clear thinking and real hope.

Genesis 1:1 gives us roots. We’re not accidental blobs of dying chemicals mysteriously evolving from primordial sludge without purpose or meaning. We have a past rooted in the glory of the God whose image we bear. We’re wonderfully made and placed in an environment fine-tuned for our needs.
The book of Genesis gives us the history of creation, sin, the beginnings of human society, and the wondrous plan of redemption introduced by God.
If you discard Genesis 1:1, you abandon the roots and reality of humanity on earth. By removing this text from conscious thought, we lose all inherent moral law in the universe, all intrinsic bases for self-image, all eternal purpose to life, and any and all hope in the human heart.

Genesis 1:1 gives us routes. If we have a past, we have a future. If we were created in God’s image, we have eternal potential. If we have an intelligent Creator who knows and loves us, He must have a purpose and plan for time and eternity. Without Him we’re dying embers in a dying universe with no ultimate significance. With Him we have roots in a dignified past and routes to a great future.

Samuel Wesley, younger brother of John and Charles, was born February 10, 1690, but for about five years he didn’t speak a word.Then one day he hid under a table while his mother, Susanna, looked for him. Finally he cried, “Here I am, mother.”    He had learned to talk! Susanna taught him to read, using Genesis 1:1, which he quickly memorized. Soon he had memorized Genesis 1:1-10. It’s no wonder he later wrote this hymn:   Hail, Father, whose creating call Unnumbered worlds attend; Jehovah, comprehending all, Whom none can comprehend!

The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God.  —

Astronaut James Irwin

2. John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. — John 1:1

There are two great mysteries at the heart of Christianity, the Trinity and the person of Jesus Christ: (1) God the three in one; and (2) Jesus the two in one. How could God be one God yet eternally exist in three distinct persons, and how can Jesus be one person yet possess two distinct natures, fully God and fully human?

This verse touches both mysteries. He (Christ, the Word) was God, yet He was with God in the beginning. He was God, yet distinct from God.

The great theme of John’s Gospel is the divinity of Christ, and it reaches its climax in the declaration of Thomas in John 20:28: “My Lord and my God!” But the first verse,
John 1:1, provides the backdrop for the whole book. Note the progression of logic in this verse:

• John 1:1 speaks of our Christ’s preexistence: In the beginning was the Word.
• It also speaks of His coexistence: And the Word was with God.
• And John 1:1 speaks of His divine existence: And the Word was God.

The Trinity and Jesus! Both mysteries are imponderables we can never fathom, which is only to be expected if God is really God and Jesus is truly who He claims to be. It’s been said that a God small enough to be understood isn’t big enough to be worshiped.
We need a transcendent God who boggles our minds with His immensity and who brings His infinities to bear on our infirmities. We need a gospel that opens with words like these: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Georgia Gordon, who grew up in the deep South in the days of slavery, received no education as a young girl. But one day she heard a preacher reciting John 1:1. Deeply impressed, she memorized the verse; and when she got home, she asked someone who could read to point out the verse in the Bible. She studied it until she could recognize the words one by one, and she searched through the Bible for others like them. In this way, little by little, she learned to read. She later became a brilliant student at Fisk University in Nashville and one of the famous Jubilee Singers from Fisk who introduced Negro (Black) Spirituals to the world. - Amen!

Memory Tip

Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 have a similar chapter-and-verse “address,” and they start with the same words. Genesis 1:1 focuses on God in the beginning and John 1:1 on Jesus — the Word — in the beginning. By memorizing them together, you’re almost learning two verses as easily as one.

Here are two mysteries for the price of one—the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Christ.... 

The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. —J. I. Packer

3. John 1:14

The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14

When was the last time you spent the night in a tent? 
It was last night. According to 2 Corinthians 5, we are currently living in the tents of our bodies, eagerly waiting resurrection day when we’ll receive permanent structures (our glorified bodies). Furthermore, we’re told in John 1:14 that when Jesus took on flesh in Bethlehem, He pitched His tent among us. The Greek term for “took up residence” has reference to tenting.
John 1:14 is arguably the Bible’s greatest verse about the incarnation.
The Word (God the Son) became flesh (human) and took up residence (pitched His tent) among us. We observed His glory and saw that He was the one and only God the Son, full of grace and truth.
The prologue of John (John 1:1-18) is one of the greatest introductions in the world of literature. The theme is Jesus, and the progression of thought is remarkable. In memorizing John 1:14, take time to study the entire passage, using this outline as a guide.

1. Jesus is the God who made us (1:1-3). He is God, existing from the beginning and through whom all things were made. 
2. He is the life who sustains us (v. 4a). In Him was life!
3. He is the light who illumines us (vv. 4b-5). His life is our light. It shines in the darkness, and the darkness can’t overcome it.
4. He is the message who excites us (vv. 6-9). John the Baptist testified about Him, and so can we.
5. He is the Savior who redeems us (vv. 10-13). All who receive Him and who believe in His name are given the right to become children of God.
6. He is the friend who dwells among us (v. 14). He pitched His tent here and tabernacles among us.
7. He is the Lord who surpasses us (v. 15). John the Baptist said of Him, “The One coming after me has surpassed me, because He existed before me.”
8. He is the Son who blesses us (vv. 16-18). No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son has revealed Him, and from the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another (v. 16 NIV).

The word incarnation means “embodied in flesh.” Dr. J. I. Packer wrote, “The incarnation is in itself an unfathomable mystery, but it makes sense of everything else that the New Testament contains.” Packer points out that the reality of the incarnation pervades the Prologue of John. “The Church of England reads it annually as the Gospel for Christmas Day, and rightly so,” said Packer. “Nowhere in the New Testament is the nature and meaning of Jesus’ divine Son ship so clearly explained as here.”

Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that man can understand. —

Samuel D. Gordon

4. John 3:16

For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. —John 3:16

Henry Moorhouse, sixteen, was a gambler, gang leader, and thief. But during the revival of 1859, he gave his life to Jesus and was soon preaching the gospel with all his heart.
His favorite text was John 3:16. One day in 1867, in Ireland, he met the world evangelist
D. L. Moody; and Henry had the nerve to invite himself to preach in Moody’s church in Chicago.
Sometime later Moody returned home from a trip and learned that Moorhouse had shown up, started preaching, and was drawing great crowds. “He has preached two sermons from John 3:16,” Moody’s wife told him, “and I think you will like him, although he preached a little different from what you do.”

“How is that?”

“Well, he tells sinners God loves them.”

Moody wasn’t so sure about that; but that evening he went to hear Moorhouse preach.
 The young man stood up in the pulpit and said, “If you will turn to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse,” said the young man, “you will find my text.” Moody later recalled, “He preached a most extraordinary sermon from that verse.... I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out, and I could not keep back the tears. It was like news from a far country. I just drank it in.”
Night after night Moorhouse preached from John 3:16, and it had a life-changing effect on D. L. Moody. “I have never forgotten those nights,” Moody said later.
“I have preached a different gospel since, and I have had more power with God and man since then.”
Later, when Moorhouse fell ill and was on his deathbed, he looked up and told his friends, “If it were the Lord’s will to raise me again, I should like to preach from the text, ‘God so loved the world.’”

Notice that the word gospel is literally spelled out in this verse: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not Perish but have Eternal Life.

Memory Tip

When you’ve memorized Genesis 1:1;
 John 1:1;
 1:14; and
 3:16,
you will have the entire Bible in the palm of your hand.
These verses are the four corners of God’s Word.

My friends, for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but I cannot do it with this poor stammering tongue. If I could borrow Jacob’s ladder and climb up into heaven and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, to tell me how much love the Father has for the world, all he could say would be, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”—    Henry Moorhouse

*  100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart.