Tag: faith hope and love
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Democracy, and Innovation
The Presbyterians love deliberative bodies. This was brought home to me once again yesterday, because it was annual congregational meeting day, and also because I have been reading The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, in which one of the central concerns is why we think the unfreedom of various authoritarian arrangements is…
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Reflecting on Genesis 21 8-20
Considering the challenges of our text for Sunday, January 9, and considering how close we are to the beginning of a new year, maybe the main question this text will raise for us is: how do we want to write our own stories? What do we want our own stories to include, and to exemplify,…
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Sanctuary
What does it mean to be “close to home”? We’ve been reflecting on the various meanings of “home,” our little congregation, this Advent. And yesterday’s fourth Sunday of Advent focused on the idea of “sanctuary” – “somewhere God’s love dwells freely and abundantly.” How we need that. Need that ourselves. And then, can be that…
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Misery
People’s children are sick. Their grown children. Sick in ways that children should not be before their parents. Sick in ways that are wrong and heartbreaking and exhausting and unbelievable. Sometimes this happens: The world turns strange in an instant. Things that were always remote theoretical possibilities become hideously concrete and immediate. The world goes…
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Reflecting on Revelation 11 15-19
What do we think it would take, concretely, for “the kingdom of this world” to become a place where God’s will is done as it is in heaven? If we understand the book of Revelation as a vision of that transition, what does it tell us about that? That seems to me to be a…
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Life after Birth
One of the perennial questions of the humanities is “What is a good life?” Religious studies ends up in the College of the Humanities in some universities because religion is fully absorbed in answering that question. At least, that’s one way of looking at it. Some Christians think of Christianity as being primarily about “life…
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Coverage
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care,and everywhere that we can be, Thou, God, art present there. God fills time and space. We don’t always notice that. We get distracted, and forget to remember that God is always with us. But wherever we are, whatever is happening, we can worship…
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Reflecting on 2 Corinthians 4 16 – 5 10
What gives us our ultimate hope? In 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10, Paul affirms his confident hope in the reward of eternal life, as promised by God and sealed in the Spirit, that comes from faith in and service to Jesus Christ. We are studying this text for Sunday, August 29. [Here are some notes on the…
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Studying 2 Corinthians 4 16 – 5 10
We are winding up our summer study of “hopeful” texts with 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10, Paul’s emphatic statement of hope for what cannot be seen in preference to what can, the text we’re studying for Sunday, August 29. Here are some notes [and some questions are here] on that text: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: As we might…
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Reflecting on 1 John 4 & 5
Do we ourselves still need to “test the spirits” today? When? How do we make use of the test proposed by the author of 1 John: the confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? That might be the first set of questions raised by 1 John 4 & 1 John 5 (specifically, 1…
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Studying 1 John 4 and 5
We will be thinking about testing the spirits and overcoming the world this week, as we are studying some verses from 1 John 4 (specifically vv 2-3 & 13-17) and 1 John 5 (specifically vv 4-5) for Sunday, August 22. [Some questions on the text are here.] Here are a few notes on this text:…
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Reflecting on Hebrews 10 23-36
We will need to think hard about whether, and how, the distance between the first century CE and our own time affects the meaning of what the author of Hebrews is saying. That’s because we are studying Hebrews 10:23-36 (more inclusively, 19-39) for Sunday, August 15. [Some notes on the text are here.] This week’s…
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Studying Hebrews 10 23-36
Our text this week forces us to deal with some particularly knotty theological questions, like “the perseverance of the saints” and the relationship of Christianity to Judaism. We are taking a step “back,” to chapter 10 of Hebrews, for Sunday, August 15 – specifically, we are studying Hebrews 10:23-36. The select verses are, frankly, an…
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Reflecting on Hebrews 11 1-3, 8-16
What meaning of “faith” makes the statement “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen” true? Can “faith” in this context possibly refer to a purely intellectual assent to an abstract proposition? Or does it need to mean something other or additional to that? This seems like the main question…
Matters of Interpretation 