Category: Explaining Myself
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Self-Discovery
Here’s what I’ve learned in less than three days of teaching a class online: It is abundantly far more difficult to video a deck of slides than I had asked for or imagined. Corollary: twice my usual last minute, so what I thought would be the last couple of minutes, which is twice what I…
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For Such a Time as This
If I hadn’t wasted all that time blogging over the years, I wouldn’t have been able to spend the last few days of pandemic purdah making this nifty web page for our tiny congregation. So you just never know. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle;…
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This is why I’m so behind in my work
Just sayin’. Great are the works of YHWH studied by all who delight in Him. – Psalm 111:2
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Pentecost
Yesterday was a lovely day. The sanctuary was decorated in red, the liturgical color for Pentecost. We received new members – a somewhat rare, and happy, event at our church. All the music was great. [Here’s the call to worship, basically, though it’s someone else’s church and someone else’s video:] The sermon was on how…
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Study Notes to Come
We are studying Mark 14:17-24 and Hebrews 8 for Sunday, June 2. [Right on the heels of our study of Romans 11. This will be a good reminder.] Study notes are coming. Life has simply delayed them a bit. With luck, later today. Without it, a bit later than that. Update 5.29.19: Study notes on…
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Hooked on the Juice
Stanley, Andy. Irresistible: Unleashing the New that Jesus Brought to the World. ePub edition, Zondervan, 2018. How did this book, of all books, end up in the “Read Me” collection at all, let alone read ahead of all the others? Funny story … I have been practicing not taking the “someone is wrong on the…
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Forth to Thy New Year We Go
… starting out a little slow. 0 to 60 takes a little longer these days. The regularly scheduled study notes over the text we’re studying for Sunday, January 6 – 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5 and 2 John 4-11 – are in the works and will be here by Friday, along with some questions. One or two…
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Boxing Day
The regularly scheduled notes on the upcoming Sunday school text (Matthew 25:31-46, the “judgment of the nations,”) will be slightly delayed due to the recent holiday. They should be online by Friday. In the meantime, Happy Christmas!
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What I Like Most is Having Lots of Time
Someone asked me the other day whether I like teaching. I don’t really know how to answer that question. I like students. I like talking to them, I usually like listening to them when I can get them to talk to me, I like thinking about what they are thinking and why they are thinking…
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On Reading Revelation “Literally”
Reading Revelation seemed to bring up many more questions or difficulties than usual in our class. These questions seemed to revolve around the problem of “how exactly are we supposed to read this,” which flows into “how exactly are we supposed to read the Bible”? We usually, it seems, assume we’re on the same wavelength…
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Second Sunday of Easter
Presumably, the class this morning discussed the significance of Jesus’ meal on the beach with the disciples, and our pastor shared yet more insight on the disciple Thomas’s encounter with the risen Christ, which turns up in the Sunday lectionary every year on the second Sunday of Easter. I confess I don’t know, because we…
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First Day of Class
Today is day one of “Introduction to Religion” taught by me. Usually I love to teach this class. Teaching takes a lot of time – at least for me, I don’t know about other people. Every term I say “I will keep up the blog anyway.” We’ll see whether anything changes this time around.
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Dead Petunias
It’s that time of year again. It’s been hot. The novelty has worn off. The sense of resolve (“This year it will be different. This year I will be different.”) has worn off, too. There has been a string of “those days”: the ones when I forgot, until it was after dark, followed by the…
Matters of Interpretation 