THEOLOGICAL CLUE September 29th marks the celebration of another minor festival, St. Michael and All Angels. The last line of the second reading, Revelation 12: 12, supports the eschatological perspective of Pentecost, because it announces that he (Satan) "knows that his time is short." Without the theological input of the readings for St. Michael and All Angels Day to supplement the readings of the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, the eschatological framework of the church year would be almost ...
First Conclusion: Call to Rejoice “With this communication about Epaphroditus now the epistle seems to be at an end” (Ewald, ad loc.). If so, nothing remains but a final word of greeting. The reader is therefore prepared for Finally. 3:1 Finally: the natural inference from this phrase (drawn by most commentators) is that Paul is on the point of finishing his letter. If the letter be regarded as a unity, it must be assumed that something suddenly occurred to him which prompted the warning of verse 2 with ...
Have you ever noticed how many rules we unconsciously follow each day? Most of us were raised with a list of rules that help us to get along with others or to achieve some goal: Share your toys. Pick up after yourself. Don’t run with scissors. Kids often get frustrated because they have so many rules to follow. Because nobody is perfect. We all bend the rules occasionally. Yes, rules can keep us safe. They can help us create a civil society. But we can also go overboard in creating rigid rules that they ...
“When they reached the place called The Skull, they crucified him there and the two criminals also, one on the right, the other on the left.”Luke 23:33-46 Yes, “the cross is still there;” Jesus’ death on Good Friday on that little hill that looked like a skull tells us so. That cross will forever be a sign and symbol of the unmeasurable and undying love that God has for every human being. It really does declare that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” to die for all of us “… that ...
Another clash between religion and the worship of God. To put it another way, "The Bible is anti-religious because it is pro-God." That statement strikes at some of our most cherished traditions. Isn’t religion automatically pro-God? Both the Old and New Testaments say, "Not automatically so." The Bible takes issue not only with the pagan religions, it takes issue with the religion of God’s people when their religion puts God in second place. Christ said of some of the religious leaders who worshiped ...
Almost twenty centuries ago, as a carpenter from Nazareth entered Jerusalem, he was hailed by the population. About the same time, another figure made his appearance in the ancient city. His name was Herod Antipas. The two might have arrived on that significant day. Passover was at hand. A faithful Jew looked upon it as one of the three principal festivals of Israel. Its celebration brought huge crowds to Jerusalem. Josephus mentions that Governor Cestius, in reporting to Emperor Nero, asked the high ...
The story of the wedding at Cana is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. It has been the basis of many sermons and numerous misinterpretations. In fact, there are so many good misinterpretations of the text, I am not sure which misinterpretation I like the best. I recall hearing a sermon based on this text. The preacher said, “In Cana, everybody was having a good time at the wedding banquet. There was a lot of music and dancing. It was a hot day. People got thirsty. They ran out of wine. Everybody ...
Bill Bryson traveled to Hannibal, Missouri, to visit the boyhood home of author, Mark Twain. The house was a "trim, white-washed house with green shutters, set incongruously in the middle of downtown." It cost two dollars to walk around the site. Bryson found the house a disappointment. "It purported to be a faithful reproduction of the original interiors," he writes, "but there were wires and water sprinklers clumsily evident in every room. I also very much doubt that young Samuel Clemens’ bedroom had ...
The story of the empty tomb is Mary Magdalene’s story. To this point in the Gospel, Mary has been mentioned only once, with no further identification (19:25), probably because she is presumed to be well known to the Gospel’s readers. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke she is mentioned first among the women who came to the tomb on Sunday morning, but here she seems to come alone. Only her statement that we [plural] don’t know the whereabouts of Jesus’ body (v. 2) betrays a consciousness of others present with her ...
Now hear the word of the Lord. From the first apostle of John, the first three verses of that apostle. “See what love the father has bestowed upon us in allowing us to be called children of God. And that’s not just what we’re called, but who we actually are. The reason the world does not know us, is that it did not know Christ. Beloved, we are God’s children. It doesn’t appear what we shall be in the future, we only know that when we reality breaks through, we will reflect his likeness, for we will see him ...
"With Jesus in your heart, you just can't hate anybody." That is our destination, but sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination. I want to take you on a journey through the text for today. As we continue to preach on the life of our Lord Jesus, we will basically arrive at the same destination: "With Jesus in your heart, you just can't hate anybody." This is a wonderful text, a dense text that is chock full. It's almost like a good hamburger with all that good stuff hanging over the ...
Just when I think that all this talk about A.I. or Artificial Intelligence is a bunch of artificial air, something happens to show me that maybe we're further along the AI path than we think. Maybe the worlds of the born and the words of the made are coming together faster than we ever imagined. In researching this week's theme of betrayal, I undertook a Google search to reference a disturbing news story I remembered hearing the last week of October. Here's the Associated Press news release: TACOMA, Wash ...
From Persia to Greece (11:2-20): Big Idea: Often working behind the scenes, God foresees and oversees the struggles of his people with hostile world forces. Understanding the Text See the unit on 10:1–11:1 for a discussion of the larger context, structure, and comparisons of chapters 10–12. Against this backdrop, 11:2–20 (the extended unit’s second section) divides into two parts: a summary of the transition from Persia to Greece (11:2–4) and a description of key events in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid wars ( ...
Some of you may know that Jean and I have just returned from a two-week trip to Germany, where we rented a car and visited the so-called Luther sites, the towns and cities where Martin Luther lived four hundred years ago, and where the Reformation began. It was a wonderful time and we are very grateful to your generosity in making it possible. We want to show you our slides, so we have decided we are going to have a potluck supper on Wednesday, June 25. You are all invited. You may feel that making you ...
Did you know that sometimes there is conflict in a church? It’s true. Churches are made up of people. And people, as we all know, have differing opinions about things. For example, there is evidence that the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the church of Galatia because certain members of their congregation were stirring up trouble. Surely you would think that couldn’t happen in the church that early in Christian history, but it did. There was much disagreement. Here was the issue: many of the early ...
How many of you know what BASE jumping is? BASE jumping is the very scary sport of jumping off Buildings, Antennae, Spans, and Earth objects. If you want to do it more than once, you jump with a parachute or perhaps a hang glider. Some of you may have seen examples of this daring sport on television. An example: Austrian extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner, 30, took a sunrise swan dive off the outstretched hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro. BASE jumpers, who parachute from ...
David loved Jonathan and, from the day they met, David was loved in return, with a love which has virtually defined the meaning of friendship down through the generations. "The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." - 1 Samuel 18:1 The difficulty was that Jonathan was Saul's son and heir. Jonathan was to be the next king of Israel, following his father, King Saul. God had disinherited Jonathan, dethroned Saul, and sent Samuel to anoint David King of Israel ...
SETTING: Monologues by the father, mother, brother, sister and grandmother of Judas TIME: Christ's ministry FATHER OF JUDAS: I am just so angry with that ... that Jesus ... that self-proclaimed Messiah ... why he knew exactly what he was doing, taking those twelve fine young men down a dead-end path. You can't tell me for a second that Jesus didn't know what he was doing ... he knew he'd be crucified ... he even predicted it, I'm told. No, he knew. He tempted fate every chance he had. He challenged the ...
Laura was going home for the holidays. As she sat in O’Hare Airport one Christmas morning, she bristled with anticipation. Her vacation would last only two and a half days, but two bags of luggage were stuffed with presents. She had finally gotten the first job that paid any real money, and she was eager to go home and lavish gifts upon people she loved. Her family met her at the airport and took her back to the familiar neighborhood. The house was bigger than she remembered. They exchanged gifts that ...
Our lesson from Matthew’s Gospel for today reminds me of a story of a pastor in a drought-stricken part of Alabama last summer who implored his people to pray for rain. In fact, he asked each member of the church to join in a prayer vigil that would continue day and night until God granted their request. Never had there been a greater sense of urgency in that church than was revealed over the next few days. At any hour, one might pass that small rural church and find the lights on and someone at the altar ...
I just love the story of Jordan Gollub. It came out of Religious News Service in June of 1989. It seems that Jordan Gollub was leader of the Mississippi Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. (Now there’s a contradiction in terms for you!) At least he was until they discovered that he was born of Jewish parents. Then they kicked him out. Thus, this bigot found himself ousted by his own bigoted group! The article says that he now plans to start his own organization, so he can kick everybody else out, I ...
The 13th chapter of Hebrews stands out, and some say stands apart. Whereas the first 12 chapters lay out complex patterns of themes and develop the author's thoughts with creative images, chapter 13 turns suddenly brusque and clipped. So dramatic is this stylistic change that there has been some suggestion that a different author composed this addendum at a different time and place - leaving the church to affix this conclusion at some later date. But while most scholars note this possibility, few actually ...
The 13th chapter of Hebrews stands out, and some say stands apart. Whereas the first 12 chapters lay out complex patterns of themes and develop the author's thoughts with creative images, chapter 13 turns suddenly brusque and clipped. So dramatic is this stylistic change that there has been some suggestion that a different author composed this addendum at a different time and place - leaving the church to affix this conclusion at some later date. But while most scholars note this possibility, few actually ...
How many of you have ever tried to sell anything? Would I be wrong if I said that, at some time or another, every one of us has tried to sell something? It may be no more complicated than trying to sell your toddler on the idea that vegetables really do taste good. O.K., you’re still trying to sell your teenager or your husband on the idea that vegetables really do taste good. But all of us have been sales people at some time or another. Selling is truly our oldest profession. Remember the serpent ...
As the Cadillac owner walked to his car, he saw a boy about ten years old staring intently through the windows. Wondering what he was up to, the man put his hands on the youngster's shoulders, pulled gently and asked him what he was doing. The boy said he was interested in cars and had read a lot about different models. The owner talked with the boy for a while explaining to him details about this particular model and style. After a little while, the boy asked, "Mister, how much did you pay for this car?" ...