Home » New Testament »
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Proper 17B
Comments and Observations After observing the Nazis in action for a while, the German philosopher and writer Heinrich Heine once said that you can count on it: wherever they burn books, they will sooner or later burn people. Maybe a similar or related observation could be made from what we read in Mark 7: wherever…
James 1:17-27
Proper 17B
Comments and Observations The millennial generation in your church will love the Epistle of James, because it presents the Christian faith as less of a head trip than as a way of life. Indeed, James is so filled with practical instructions for Christian living that Martin Luther famously called it a “right strawy epistle… for…
John 6:56-59
Proper 16B
Comments and Observations: But how does it all end? After plunking us down in John 6 for the whole of August in Year B, the Lectionary puts on the brakes before we can get to the end of the story where the REACTION of the crowds to all of this is recorded. So I would…
Ephesians 6:10-20
Proper 16B
This is now our eighth week in Paul’s magnificent letter to the Ephesians. We have moved from the heights to the depths, from Paul’s soaring revelation of the mystery of the Gospel to his down and dirty commands for everyday living, from the church’s witness to the “rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” to…
John 6:51-58
Proper 15B
Comments and Observations: In her short story “The River,” Flannery O’Connor depicts a child who actually drowns when trying to baptize himself in a river. After this startling story was published, someone asked O’Connor about this grotesque depiction of baptism. O’Connor’s critics thought this story was too extreme. But her goal was to remind her…
Ephesians 5:15-20
Proper 15B
Comments and Observations This text is a kind of hinge between the black and white moral exhortations of 4:1-5:14 and the relatively grayer areas of personal relations in the family and the workplace in 5:22-6:9. Paul’s fierce condemnation of pagan lifestyles and his no nonsense commands for the Christian life have come to a head…
John 6:35, 41-51
Proper 14B
Comments and Observations: “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert yet they died.” That’s what Jesus said and it’s a pretty easy verse to cruise past and not much ponder. I mean, of course those people died—in fact, they had died about 1,000 years ago!! And since no one even a millennium earlier had…
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Proper 14B
Comments and Observations At last the rubber hits the road. For three long complicated chapters, Paul has been explaining God’s plan of salvation in breathtaking terms: “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” (1:10) That plan begins with God saving individuals “by grace… through faith.” (2:8) But…
John 6:25-59
Proper 13B
Sample Sermon: Never Go Hungry; A sermon on John 6:25-59 In a sermon I once preached on the famous “I Am” sayings in John’s Gospel, I mentioned the Simon and Garfunkel song that had the line, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. What’s that you say, Mrs….
Ephesians 4:1-16
Proper 13B
Comments and Observations “A great man,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “is a man who draws a larger circle around what we think is possible.” If that’s true, then Paul was a great man, because he drew a larger circle around the Christian church than anyone would have ever thought possible. Of course, Paul would (and…
Content related to New Testament