Dean Mazumder's Top Five Bible Verses

William E. Crenshaw Endowed Dean Mazumder first met God through his wife, Gretchen, who invited him to church while they were dating. A scholar at heart, his faith and academic passion for the Word has only grown since then. Here are some verses of Scripture he finds most prominent, compelling and influential from his reading of the Bible.

1. Romans 10:9: If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
   
   For me, this shows how we actively receive the gospel. My wife and I often share this verse with our kids.


2. Psalm 51
   
   A famous psalm which is a good and frequent prayer that we should all pray to God.


3. Jonah 4:5-11: ⁵Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." ⁹But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" "It is," he said. "And I'm so angry I wish I were dead." ¹⁰But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹And should I not have concern for the great people of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?"
   
   This is a story of the vine that challenged my worldview prior to me becoming a Christian. These verses showed me that God cares for us personally and is not an unreachable and unknowable deity.


4. 2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
   
   Apart from John 3:16, I find this verse to be the best one-verse summary of the gospel message.


5. Romans 5:8: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
   
   I love the word "but" here—by ourselves we are without hope, "but" with God, there is hope through Jesus Christ.