Readings for August 8, 2025: Friday of the 9th week after Pentecost

26 What is it then, brothers? When you come together, each one of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has another language, or has an interpretation. Let all things be done to build each other up. 27 If any man speaks in another language, let there be two, or at the most three, and in turn; and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly, and let him speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three of the prophets speak, and let the others discern. 30 But if a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first keep silent. 31 For you all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be exhorted. 32 The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, 33 for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints. 34 Let the wives be quiet in the assemblies, for it has not been permitted for them to be talking except in submission, as the law also says, 35 if they desire to learn anything. “Let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a wife to be talking in the assembly.” 36 What!? Was it from you that the word of God went out? Or did it come to you alone? 37 If any man thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you, that they are the commandment of the Lord. 38 But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant. 39 Therefore, brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy, and don’t forbid speaking with other languages. 40 Let all things be done decently and in order.

Matthew 21

12 Jesus entered into the temple of God and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables and the seats of those who sold the doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!” 14 The lame and the blind came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

17 He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and camped there. 18 Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves. He said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!” Immediately the fig tree withered away. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree immediately wither away?”

7 However, I consider those things that were gain to me as a loss for Christ. 8 Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death, 11 if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Mark 10

29 Jesus said, “Most certainly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News, 30 but he will receive one hundred times more now in this time: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land, with persecutions; and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

42 Jesus summoned them and said to them, “You know that they who are recognized as rulers over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant. 44 Whoever of you wants to become first among you shall be bondservant of all. 45 For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”