If you look at the Believing section of my website, you’ll see that I’ve finally got round to updating my “current top Bible verse”. It was Romans 12:6, and the theme of making wise, worshipful and effective use of the gifts God has given us to strengthen the body of the church is still very important to me.

However, I’ve recently been thinking on Isaiah 42:3:

He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but he’ll steadily and firmly set things right. (The Message)

For me, that summed up the passage my Cell group studied on Sunday afternoon (the parable of the wheat and the weeds – Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43): rather than risk harm to the wheat, the farmer allows the tares to grow alongside in order to separate it cleanly at the harvest. From my experience of gardening, where the prevailing view is that you remove weeds from around your crops to help them grow better, it doesn’t quite make sense but, in the context of the parable, the “compassion” for the wheat seems quite clear (v. 29).

What got me started on the theme? Probably the prayer / poem I read on the Greenbelt website last week. When we look around, we see people who are flawed and causing us annoyance; the blog reminded me that, when God looks around, he sees people with compassion, love and understanding!

Anyway, that’s enough for me to promote a new top verse!