Additional content related to Obedience
Philippians 3:4b-14
As I prayerfully contemplated this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, an old cliché kept coming to mind: “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” So, for example, my wife doesn’t enjoy eating beef liver. I, on the other hand, enjoy consuming a well-prepared liver. While I consider the Detroit Tigers baseball team to be the height of…
Psalm 119:1-8
The Aleph section of Psalm 119 is a little all over the place in some ways. As many of us know, the longest of all the Psalms is divided up into 8-verse units that follow the ordering of the Hebrew alphabet with each line of each segment beginning with the same letter of the alphabet. …
Psalm 19:7-14
We all recognize that rules and regulations are simply a part of life. Mostly, however, we are only too happy to dispense with recitations of such things as quickly as possible. Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial airline know that before the flight can begin, the flight attendants have to run through their…
James 2:1-10 (11-13), 14-17
“Faith without works is dead.” In a world where so many things divide Christians, nearly all sides unite to claim this famous verse for themselves. Both “progressives” and “traditionalists” cling tenaciously to this profession. While some see it as a call to a strict(er) obedience to God in response to God’s grace, others focus on…
Mark 3:20-35
Jesus goes home, but he is not alone. Presumably, along with the disciples, the crowd that has quickly started to gather around Jesus in the first three chapters of Mark have also come. Mark has made multiple references to this crowd. First, Jesus’s fame was spreading and the crowds came looking for healing (1.28-33). Then,…
1 John 5:1-6
One of the first Christian songs I ever learned was “Trust and Obey.” Its chorus still echoes in my memory: “Trust and obey/, for there’s no other way/ To be happy in Jesus/ than to trust and obey.” This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson strongly suggests that the song’s link between trusting and obeying would please the…
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
A common exercise for aspiring creative writers is to write a 6 word story. With the platform of social media, these short stories have taken off on sites like Reddit and Tumbler. Here are a couple examples: “Axe falling, the rooster crows, ‘Wait!’” “Only child, but never the favorite.” “They lived happily ever after, separately.”…
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Textual Comments, Observations and Questions: Some commentators believe that these brief excurses (v. 5-6 and 10-11) signal a later addition to the original text, which could substantiate the lectionary compiler’s choice to excise them from the reading this week. However, getting down to just 10 commands out of all the attitudes, postures, words and actions…
Matthew 21:23-32
Comments, Questions, and Observations This is the day after Jesus has cleansed the temple. Now he has returned and the leaders have come out in force to challenge this man upsetting the system. They demand that Jesus tell them who he thinks he is: by what authority is he changing and teaching things, and who…
Philippians 1:21-30
John Wooden was the hugely successful coach of America’s UCLA’s men’s basketball team. He also sought to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Wooden once famously said, “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s Paul would probably have agreed. After all,…
Romans 14:1-12
Many English translations of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’ agree on the rendering of its first verb. They translate the Greek word proslambanesthe, as “accept.” However, the English Standard Version renders this word as “welcome.” Maybe it’s on to something. In chapter 14, Paul continues to explore the implications of Romans 12:18’s “If it possible, as…
Psalm 119:33-40
The Lectionary now and again plunks down into some seemingly random segment in the sprawling Hebrew acrostic that just is Psalm 119. This week’s Year A lection lands us in the fifth section in which every Hebrew word in the first line of these 8 verses begins with the Hebrew letter ה or He, the…
Romans 13:8-14
Once again the RCL’s editors did preachers and our hearers no favors when they omitted some Scripture, in this case, Romans 13:1-7, from an Epistolary Lesson. After all, in severing this Sunday’s Lesson’s verse 8 from verses 1-7, they stripped away its theological and literary context. So preachers might seriously consider including Romans 13:1-7 in…
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Comments, Questions and Observations: On Pharaoh Over time, we’ll see Pharaoh’s heart become hardened, which means that, at some point and in some way, his heart was tender and open. How does a person like that come to the conclusion that having infants murdered and people enslaved and oppressed is a good idea? That seems…
Psalm 119:1-8
In the world of secular music, I would guess you would be hard pressed to find many songs with titles like “I Just Love Rules!” In fact the website Ranker provided their top list of songs with the word “law” in the title but songs of the variety “I’m Lovin’ the Law” don’t seem to…
Hebrews 2:10-18
If Jesus had been born not in some kind of livestock shelter but a hospital, how would anyone have been able to pick him out of the other babies in the nursery? Would he have been the baby who, as we sing at Christmas, made no crying? If Jesus’ friends had been choosing sides for…
Matthew 1:18-25
Comments, Questions, and Observations Oddly, we close out Advent this year with the birthing story. Matthew’s birth narrative doesn’t usually get much attention on Christmas day because it’s rather anti-climactic in comparison to the Luke’s—our tried and true Christmas story. As I discuss in the textual points section below, we don’t even get the actual…
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
“It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up” has spilled from the lips of at least some of us. Sometimes, of course, we try to cloak our braggadocio in the mantle of false humility. But few of us easily resist the temptation to brag about ourselves or people who are dear to us. Thugs…
James 1:17-27
I suspect that many of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s proclaimers consider ourselves reasonably self-sufficient. At least some of us were raised in solid homes and received better-than-average formal educations. Many of us have good jobs that support comfortable lifestyles. Since we have worked hard to get where we are, we naturally see our current station…
Hebrews 5:5-10
This week’s Epistolary Lesson assumes that for a relationship to exist between God and God’s people, as well as among groups and between individuals, things must be repaired and restored. However, Hebrews 5 insists that the only way that can happen is if God does it. We’re sometimes angered to hear our various leaders reveal…
Exodus 17:1-7
Israel is wandering in territory that is all too familiar to us—in the great wilderness of In Between, between release from bondage and possession of the Promised Land. As the New Interpreters Bible puts it, this passage is “a paradigm for the crisis of faith that occurs between bondage and well-being.” Thus it is relevant…
Matthew 21:23-32
A while back I heard an old Jewish witticism in which someone asks his rabbi, “Why do rabbis always answer a question with another question?” to which the rabbi replied, “Why shouldn’t a rabbi answer a question with another question?” So also in Matthew 21: Jesus side-steps the question of the Pharisees as to the…
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
This is one hard text to preach. On the one hand, it seems so simple that it doesn’t even need a sermon. I mean, what more can we say about a text that is this straightforward. On the other hand, its simple straightforward message is so demanding and absolute that it will be unpalatable for…
2 Kings 5:1-14
This story has more interesting characters than a novel by Charles Dickens—stormin’ Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, this brave little girl kidnapped from Israel and enslaved, the clueless King of Israel, the greedy Gehazi, and, of course, the unflappable prophet Elisha. It’s a seemingly straightforward story about a little girl, a muddy river, and…
Mark 12:28-34
Digging into the Text: The first thing I noticed about this text is that this is that while all the other encounters Jesus has with the Scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, are adversarial, this one is positive. This particular Scribe had been listening to Jesus discuss theology with the Jewish leaders, and he was…
Hebrews 5:1-10
This week’s Epistolary Lesson assumes that for a relationship to exist between God and God’s people, as well as among groups and between individuals, things must be repaired and restored between us. However, Hebrews 5 insists that the only way that can happen is if God does it. During this American political campaign season, both…
Psalm 26
Digging into the Text: I am writing this piece a day after the gut-wrenching spectacle of the Kavanaugh hearing. If you ever wondered about the context and meaning of Psalm 26, just think of it on the lips of either one of the witnesses who testified before the Judiciary Committee. Think of Blasey Ford’s hesitant,…
Mark 9:38-50
The challenge of this lectionary text is that it reads like a hodgepodge of Jesus’ sayings, something like the book of Proverbs with its often unconnected string of wisdom sayings. Because of its lack of apparent cohesion, it would be difficult to build a coherent sermon by moving though the entire text. So, the text…
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
When I read Psalm 78, I can’t help but think about my Sunday School experience years ago. Before we would go off to our separate age-appropriate classes, the whole motley crew of us would gather in the sanctuary for a time of singing. It was my favorite part of Sunday School. And I think it…
Matthew 21:23-32
A while back I heard an old Jewish witticism in which someone asks his rabbi, “Why do rabbis always answer a question with another question?” to which the rabbi replied, “Why shouldn’t a rabbi answer a question with another question?” So also in Matthew 21: Jesus side-steps the question of the Pharisees as to the…
Psalm 95
The readings from the Psalms for this season of Lent are carefully and well chosen. We began our Lenten journey with Psalm 32, which sets the penitential tone of Lent while still calling us to rejoice in forgiveness. Psalm 121 gives Lenten pilgrims the deep assurance that Yahweh is watching over us as we make…
Psalm 2
This is Transfiguration Sunday, the glorious conclusion of the season of Epiphany. The story of Christ’s Transfiguration pre-figured in Exodus 24:12-18, told in Matthew 17:1-9, and retold in II Peter 1:16-21 (our other lectionary readings for today) is given a dark twist in our reading from Psalm 2. The other lectionary readings point to the…
2 Peter 1:16-21
It’s wonderful when you can see that a very important lesson finally took hold and sunk in for someone. If you are a teacher, then seeing a student avoid making the same mistakes all over again as a result of your instruction is so very rewarding. Some days those of us who teach wonder if…
Psalm 119:33-40
Psalm 119 asserts again and again (almost ad infinitum) that the Law of God is the source of joy and delight, because it gives life and light. But that’s not how the Law feels to most of us most of the time. And, as we saw last week, that’s not how Paul talks about the…
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
If you can’t remember the last sermon or lesson that you preached, taught or heard on a text from the book of Leviticus, you’re not alone. Even most of the preachers and teachers I know who are committed to communicating the Scriptures’ full truth seem reluctant to talk about Leviticus. By appointing just one text…
Matthew 5:21-37
Say the word “radical” to the average person and the name of “Jesus” will likely not be the first thing that springs to anyone’s mind. If you think about “radical acts,” the Sermon on the Mount is unlikely to come to mind, either. Radicals throw Molotov cocktails at police and stage sit-ins and carry placards…
Psalm 119:1-8
Whenever I read Psalm 119, alarm bells go off in my head. For one thing, it feels like a literary monstrosity, 176 verses of boring, repetitious monotony. The great Old Testament scholar Artur Weiser wrote that Psalm 119 is “a particularly artificial product of religious poetry. The formal external character of the Psalm stifles its…
Matthew 5:13-20
At a restaurant in California recently I asked the waitress if their Cioppino was good. She assured me it was. Cioppino is a wonderful seafood stew, and the server assured me theirs contained a lot of very fresh clams, shrimp, calamari, and more. I ordered it. And . . . it lacked all salt. Seemed…
Psalm 15
Psalm 15 opens with a question that will trouble a lot of people in many congregations. It’s a question put to God. Now, questioning God is not a problem for most Christians these days. In fact, it’s much in vogue. Folks like David Dark speak eloquently about the necessity of asking questions if our faith…
Psalm 40:1-11
“The correct ‘voice’ for Psalm 40 is not in doubt,” says Patrick Henry Reardon in his Christ in the Psalms. “We know from Hebrews 10 that these are words springing from the heart of Christ our Lord and have reference to the sacrificial obedience of his Passion and death.” That may be ultimately true and…
Acts 16:9-15
Occasionally the Lectionary’s choice of where to begin and end a text boggles preachers’ and teachers’ minds. This Sunday’s text is a good case in point. It’s not just that it begins in the middle of a paragraph in most English translations. It’s also that this text begins in the middle of what we often…
Exodus 15:22-27
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Three days is a long time to go without finding water, especially if you have little ones under four. Nursing mothers are beginning to get desperate. When water is sighted, the kids run to it, laughing, whooping, but just a taste leaves them gagging, spluttering, wiping their tongues on…
Mark 4:1-20
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Why does the same message produce different returns? Consider the chapter before our text. Mark 3 is chock-full with Jesus-resisters. Pharisees tag-team with Herodians. Evil spirits blab the Messianic secret. Jerusalem’s doctrinal deputies censure Jesus as Satanic. Judas is introduced as the betrayer. Even Jesus’ own family–including Mary meek…
Numbers 13
Here in Numbers 13, the Israelites have arrived at the southern border of the Promised Land. Ever since the days that they left Egypt, this is where they were heading. The land was the gift that God had promised them. This was “the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (13:1, emphasis…
2 Corinthians 2:12-3:6
The gospel brings trials and trouble and in life. Paul has suffered greatly for the sake of the gospel and because of this there are those who doubt his apostolic authority. Paul in vss. 12-13 describes the burden on his heart for the church. There is cause for thanks however. If you choose to take…
Numbers 16
Comments and Observations Who has the LORD chosen? Who belongs to him? Who is holy? These are the questions at the heart of our passage. But how we ask often matters as much as the content of the questions themselves. The people who oppose Moses and Aaron’s leadership, led by Korah, ask these questions with…
1 Timothy 3
Comments and observations Timothy is a young pastor in Ephesus. Paul and Timothy had served the church together until Paul went on to Macedonia. Timothy was left behind in order to provide leadership in a rather challenging situation regarding self-appointed teachers who had slipped into the church. Their teachings were reminiscent of true Christian doctrine,…
Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Common Misperceptions: It is far too common for us to have images of God that don’t match the way He is described in the Bible. One of those misperceptions is picturing God as a sadistic overlord who watches diligently to make sure no one is violating His commandments. We might be prone to believe that…
Hebrews 5:1-10
Comments, Observations, and Questions I doubt that most preachers will chose this lectionary reading for their sermon on this fifth Sunday of Lent. Hebrews is just plain tough to preach. For one thing it is so complex, dealing as it does with long forgotten aspects of the Jewish faith. Sermons on Hebrews require detailed explanations…
Psalm 25:1-10
Notes and Observations The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has suggested one helpful approach to preaching and teaching the psalms is to ask what an “anti-psalm” might look like. What, in other words, might be the opposite tone of that expressed by a particular psalm, whether it expresses trust, praise, complaint or something else? So…
Preaching Connection: Obedience