Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The NIV Concordance - My New Best Friend

I have discovered the awesome power of my family's NIV Exhaustive Concordance.



 
The thing is huge -- it's surface area is almost the same as my laptop computer, and the book is (by my calculations) more than double my computer's thickness. Not to mention the weight. Our concordance weighs almost as much as my dog, for goodness' sakes.

Okay, that might have been a slight exaggeration. But just look at the thing! It's enormous.

...and also very helpful. I used it a few days ago for something, and was so enthralled by the idea that I lugged it all the way upstairs to my bedroom last night. I paged through verses on love for what must have been the better part of a half-hour.
It was a really neat experience. If any of you guys have a concordance at home, go look through it. RIGHT NOW.

I was a little surprised by the fact that a lot of the verses I looked up were completely new to me. It was really neat to get a new take on a subject I thought I was kind of familiar with.

Anyways, here's some of the verses I found. :) Not just on love -- some are kind of random, but I thought they were cool.

"Hatred stirs up dissension but love covers all wrongs." - Proverbs 10:12

"Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:9-21

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-9

"The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35-39

"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up..." 1 Thessalonians 5:11

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..." - Romans 12:2

(this is one of my favourites)

"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."
- 1 Corinthians 13:1-13


I know this post was really long, but I really love all of these verses. Hopefully some of you can identify with them like I did. 

2 comments:

  1. I love this! And you are hilariously amazing! We used to have that concordance, but now it's at our church library. Maybe I should borrow it. How ridiculous would that look? *Lugs concordance to check out* "Yeah, Hi! can I borrow this?" Thump! Haha!

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    Replies
    1. Hahaha, thank you! :) I knew it was downstairs somewhere, but I'd literally never touched it until a few days ago. :P
      hahaha, yeah, that would look pretty odd. :P It's worth it, though!

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