October 9, 2022
Jeremiah 29:1-14 I think this is one of those cases where it is necessary to talk about the history of this passage first to understand what is going on here. Throughout the 10th through the 7th centuries BC, Assyria was the bully of the ancient Near East world. Assyria’s capital was at Nineveh, which is… Read More »
October 2, 2022
Luke 17:5-10 and 2 Timothy 1:1-14 Paul reminds Timothy that salvation is a gift. It is undeserved. We don’t do something to achieve it. It only comes because God is gracious. And salvation is received through faith. Now there’s something important for us to understand about faith. We use the word faith to describe what… Read More »
September 25, 2022
Jeremiah 32:1-15 Many people call Jeremiah the “Weeping Prophet.” He certainly had a hard go of it. He was called by God to minister to Judah at one of the most difficult times in their history, the years immediately before and after the destruction of Jerusalem and the start of the Babylonian Exile. The Exile… Read More »
September 18, 2022
Luke 16:1-13 I think this is one of the most difficult parables of Jesus. For starters, it seems to be encouraging dishonest behavior. And there was a tradition in Hebrew story-telling of the “shrewd hero,” the character who outwits others and gains the upper hand. This goes all the way back to Jacob, who “outwitted”… Read More »
September 11, 2022
Luke 15:1-10 & 1 Timothy 1:12-17 We know Luke 15 best for the Parable of the Prodigal Son, one of Jesus’ best known parables. But Jesus also told two other parables in response to the attitudes he encountered from the Pharisees, and we heard those this morning. Jesus was criticized for the way that he… Read More »
August 28, 2022
Ecclesiastes 9:11-10:20 The author of Ecclesiastes, QOHELETH in Hebrew, continues talking wisdom as he has done throughout large parts of the book. Wisdom is the greatest asset we can have in life, apart from God himself. But there is a word of caution here about wisdom. We should not count on wisdom to guarantee us… Read More »
August 21, 2022
Ecclesiastes 8:9-9:10 In case you haven’t noticed yet, the author of Ecclesiastes, QOHELETH in Hebrew, keeps coming back to the same answer, again and again: Find joy in the experiences of life. Even if there are aspects of life we find troubling, perplexing, or frustrating, we can and should still find joy in the moment.… Read More »
August 14, 2022
Ecclesiastes 7:15-8:8 In our journey through the book of Ecclesiastes, the author, QOHELETH, offering wisdom for living. What is wisdom? A definition I saw is that wisdom is “seeing life from God’s perspective so we can choose the best paths in it.” QOHELETH continues, “In my life I have seen both a righteous man destroyed… Read More »