Tag: faith
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“Living by Faith(fulness)”
the Biblical authors meant something different by “faith” than modernity’s notion of “believing things without proof”
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Preaching for People You Can’t See – or, a Message in a Bottle
Our wonderful pastor was taking a well-deserved vacation on Sunday, and the Worship Committee had not heard back from the other person they asked about preaching for the First Sunday after Christmas, and they knew I needed a link to a sermon I could share with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry anyway, which I…
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Asking for Money
It’s “stewardship season” at our tiny church. “Stewardship season” is Christianese for what other voluntary organizations call “the annual fund drive.” Various members get tapped to stand up and say “what stewardship means to me,” hopefully to good and inspiring effect. After three or four weeks of that, plus a couple of letters, we collect…
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What People Mean By “God”
Professor Stevenson has written a remarkable book: clear enough to understand the first time through; short enough to read through again, just to be sure; engaging enough to want to do that; interesting and important enough to want to hang on to for future reference. Stevenson, Leslie. Eighteen Takes on God: A Short Guide for…
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Studying James 2 14-26
We are studying James 2:14-26 for Sunday, August 16. This is the third in our series of five lessons in James, and the source of one of the most familiar New Testament sayings, “faith without works is dead.” We actually studied this text in this class a couple of years ago, those notes are still…
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Reflecting on Mark 6 1-6
We are studying Mark 6:1-6 for Sunday, July 19; this is the story of Jesus’s visit to his hometown, as told by Mark. [Here are some notes on the text.] Here are some questions we might want to think about or discuss in class as we think about what the text has to say to…
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All The Things
One thing that does not happen “at church” is grading. [This is one of the good things about church.] Grading happens, in my experience, not at church. Although technically, insofar as “the church is the people,” and people [some of us, anyway] periodically do this thing we call “grading,” then grading also happens “at church.”…
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Reflecting on Proverbs 2 1-11
We are studying Proverbs 2:1-11 for Sunday, June 14 (Flag Day, in the secular world), taking the next step in our exploration of the Biblical wisdom literature by reading part of the next long speech in praise of wisdom in Proverbs. [Some notes on the text are here.] Here are a few questions we might…
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Studying Esther 7 1-10
We are studying Esther 7:1-10 for Sunday, April 19. This is the climactic scene in the story of Esther where Haman is almost literally “hoist with his own petard.” [Some questions on the text are here.] Here are my notes on this text: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: We’re in the book of Esther, which is primarily…
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Questions for Reflection and Discussion – Habakkuk 2 6-14
We are focusing on Habakkuk 2:6-14 for Sunday, March 15. [The last I heard, we were going to have worship, but would encourage people who consider themselves high-risk to stay home, leaving that determination to individuals’ judgment. Since the average age of our congregation is 60+, we will probably have a low-attendance Sunday this week.…
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All Saints’ Day
Technically, All Saints’ Day is November 1. We don’t have worship on Friday, though, so we observed it today. It was one of those complex days, when a lot of ideas suddenly fit together and make sense in a new way just because of one or two words or a sentence. It could have been…
Matters of Interpretation 