The Undeniable Witness (5:9–10)
The Essence of the Faith (5:11–13)
The Basis and the Principle of Prayer (5:14–15)
Praying for Those who Sin (5:16–17)
Sin whose End is Death (5:16–17) (contd)
The Essence of Sin (5:16–17) (contd)
The Threefold Certainty (5:18–20)
The Constant Peril (5:21)
Introduction to the Second and Third Letters of John
2 JOHN
Love and Truth (1–3) (contd)
Trouble and Cure (4–6)
The Threatening Peril (7–9)
No Compromise (10–13)
3 JOHN
Christian Hospitality (5–8)
The Christian Adventurers (5–8) (contd)
Love’s Appeal (9–15)
JUDE
Introduction to the Letter of Jude
What it Means to be a Christian (1–2)
The Call of God (1–2) (contd)
Defending the Faith (3)
The Peril from Within (4)
The Dreadful Examples (5–7)
1. The Fate of Israel
2. The Fate of the Angels
3. Sodom and Gomorrah
Contempt for the Angels (8–9)
The Gospel of the Flesh (10)
Lessons from History (11)
A Picture of the Wicked (12–16)
The Selfishness of the Wicked (12–16) (contd)
The Fate of Disobedience (12–16) (contd)
The Characteristics of Those who are Evil (12–16) (contd)
The Characteristics of Error (1) (17–19)
The Characteristics of Error (2) (17–19) (contd)
The Characteristics of Goodness (20–1)
Reclaiming the Lost (22–3)
The Final Ascription of Praise (24–5)
SERIES FOREWORD
(by Ronnie Barclay)
My father always had a great love for the English language and its literature. As a student at the University of Glasgow, he won a prize in the English class – and I have no doubt that he could have become a Professor of English instead of Divinity and Biblical Criticism. In a pre-computer age, he had a mind like a computer that could store vast numbers of quotations, illustrations, anecdotes and allusions; and, more remarkably still, he could retrieve them at will. The editor of this revision has, where necessary, corrected and attributed the vast majority of these quotations with considerable skill and has enhanced our pleasure as we read quotations from Plato to T. S. Eliot.
There is another very welcome improvement in the new text. My mother was one of five sisters, and my grandmother was a commanding figure as the Presbyterian minister’s wife in a small village in Ayrshire in Scotland. She ran that small community very efficiently, and I always felt that my father, surrounded by so many women, was more than somewhat overawed by it all! I am sure that this is the reason why his use of English tended to be dominated by the words ‘man’, ‘men’ and so on, with the result that it sounded very male-orientated. Once again, the editor has very skilfully improved my father’s English and made the text much more readable for all of us by amending the often one-sided language.
It is a well-known fact that William Barclay wrote at break-neck speed and never corrected anything once it was on paper – he took great pride in mentioning this at every possible opportunity! This revision, in removing repetition and correcting the inevitable errors that had slipped through, has produced a text free from all the tell-tale signs of very rapid writing. It is with great pleasure that I commend this revision to readers old and new in the certainty that William Barclay speaks even more clearly to us all with his wonderful appeal in this new version of his much-loved Daily Study Bible.
Ronnie Barclay
Bedfordshire
2001
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
(by William Barclay, from the 1975 edition)
The Daily Study Bible series has always had one aim – to convey the results of scholarship to the ordinary reader. A. S. Peake delighted in the saying that he was a ‘theological middle-man’, and I would be happy if the same could be said of me in regard to these volumes. And yet the primary aim of the series has never been academic. It could be summed up in the famous words of Richard of Chichester’s prayer – to enable men and women ‘to know Jesus Christ more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him more nearly’.
It is all of twenty years since the first volume of The Daily Study Bible was published. The series was the brain-child of the late Rev. Andrew McCosh, MA, STM, the then Secretary and Manager of the Committee on Publications of the Church of Scotland, and of the late Rev. R. G. Macdonald, OBE, MA, DD, its Convener.
It is a great joy to me to know that all through the years The Daily Study Bible has been used at home and abroad, by minister, by missionary, by student and by layman, and that it has been translated into many different languages. Now, after so many printings, it has become necessary to renew the printer’s type and the opportunity has been taken to restyle the books, to correct some errors in the text and to remove some references which have become outdated. At the same time, the Biblical quotations within the text have been changed to use the Revised Standard Version, but my own original translation of the New Testament passages has been retained at the beginning of each daily section.
There is one debt which I would be sadly lacking in courtesy if I did not acknowledge. The work of revision and correction has been done entirely by the Rev. James Martin, MA, BD, Minister of High Carntyne Church, Glasgow. Had it not been for him this task would never have been undertaken, and it is impossible for me to thank him enough for the selfless toil he has put into the revision of these books.
It is my prayer that God may continue to use The Daily Study Bible to enable men better to understand His word.
William Barclay
Glasgow
1975
(Published in the 1975 edition)
GENERAL FOREWORD