Category: Text of the Week – Questions
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Reflecting on Galatians 3 18-29
What do we mean, concretely, do we think, by words like “promise,” “blessing,” or “inheritance”? This seems like an important question, raised by Galatians 3:18-29, the text we are studying for Sunday, May 15. For instance, what do we think it means, rather specifically, to be “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise”? If one […]
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Reflecting on Deuteronomy 8 1-11
In Deuteronomy 8:10, Moses (the speaker) tells the assembled Israelites that “you will eat your fill and you will bless the HOLY ONE your God for the good land he has given you.” Given the context, it may actually be a little less like a prediction, and a little more like Mom saying to our […]
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Reflecting on Ezra 6 13-22
We are a few weeks in to a set of lessons that all have something to do with freedom, and with the character of God as liberator. With that in mind, we could ask ourselves where we see references to freedom in Ezra 6:13-22, the text we are studying for Sunday, March 20. But there […]
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Reflecting on Ezra 6 1-12
How would we describe what is “going on” in Ezra 6:1-12, the text we are studying for Sunday, March 13? That is, do we describe this as the action being taken by an emperor? And if so, can we tell what moves this emperor to act this way, or do we have some idea about […]
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Reflecting on Ezra 1 1-8, 11, 2 64-70
What does this text we are studying for Sunday, March 6 – Ezra 1:1-8, 11, and Ezra 2:64-70 – tell us about “redemption”? This seems to me an enormous, multi-faceted question that arises from this text. Our published curriculum [the Present Word], and presumably the Uniform Series guide on which it’s based, has cast this […]
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Reflecting on Job 42 1-6, 10-17
Is the ending of the book of Job “a happy ending,” do we think? Or is it … something else? Why do we say this? That is, what do we mean by “a happy ending,” or even, by “happiness”? This might be one of the questions we’re moved to ask about the ending of the […]
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Reflecting on Job 8 1-10, 20-22
How much do we agree with Bildad the Shuhite, that God does not pervert justice, nor the Almighty the right? (Job 8:3) How much do we agree that the pattern of sufferings and serenities we see in the human world around us and in our own lives reflects the working-out of divine or cosmic justice? […]
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Reflecting on Ezra 7 1-10 23-26
What does it mean to set one’s heart to study the torah of the Holy One, and to do it, and to teach … ? This continues to strike me as the energetic center of this text, from which everything else flows, and so maybe the central place for us to focus our attention as […]
Matters of Interpretation 