Additional content related to Righteousness
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
At 98 years of age, Jimmy Carter is now not only the oldest currently living former President of the United States but he has now lived to become the oldest former President ever. Strikingly, he has also been a former President for over 40 years. During those four decades of time, Carter’s reputation has soared…
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
As most every Bible commentary would tell you, the way Paul uses Habakkuk 2:4b (“the righteous will live by faith”) in Romans and Galatians may be a bit different from how the text “sounds” and seems to function in the original context of Habakkuk 2. Habakkuk has spent most of his prophecy up to this…
Psalm 1
It’s not by accident. It wasn’t editorial happenstance. No one flipped a coin to decide which Hebrew poem to turn into Psalm 1 in this collection. Rather, the Hebrew Psalter is a carefully edited, thoughtfully and intentionally put together collection of poems. The design of the larger book is evident in many ways (for instance,…
Psalm 112
Very often the Psalms are actually a form of beatitude. Psalm 1 sets the tone: “Blessed is the one who does not walk with the wicked.” Beatitudes—including the most famous ones of them all from Matthew 5—are very often blessings spoken over people whose lives the rest of the world may not deem to be…
Psalm 82
What are we to make of Psalm 82? Who are the “gods” that get referred to multiple times? If you as an orthodox believer are convinced there really are no other gods beyond the God and Father of Jesus Christ, then these references to other gods may be a bit unsettling. But as I read…
Psalm 1
Few of us do what many monastic and other traditions have done in history with the Psalms: namely, read them straight through and in order. Instead we bob and weave our way through the Psalms, picking and choosing to read this Psalm or another for no particular rhyme or reason. And so it’s easy to…
2 Samuel 23:1-7
The so-called “last words of David” are curiously placed. For one thing, there is quite a bit more action involving David in the balance of even 2 Samuel. But there will be more words and more narrative to come in also the opening portion of 1 Kings. It’s as though the author and editor of…
Psalm 85:8-13
To be honest, Psalm 85 is a little all over the place. The first four verses reflect a time when God forgave Israel for some transgressions and restored them. But then the next set of verses seems to indicate Israel went backwards, sinned again, and so found itself under the wrath of God again. And…
Ephesians 5:8-14
Few Lectionary texts begin more mysteriously than this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. “You were once darkness,” Paul reminds Ephesus’s Christians, “but now you are light in the Lord” (8). The apostle seems to assert that God’s adopted sons and daughters don’t just naturally live in spiritual darkness. We naturally are spiritual darkness. God doesn’t just summon…
Psalm 1
It’s not by accident. It wasn’t editorial happenstance. No one flipped a coin to decide which Hebrew poem to turn into Psalm 1 in this collection. Rather, the Hebrew Psalter is a carefully edited, thoughtfully and intentionally put together collection of poems. The design of the larger book is evident in many ways (for instance,…
Psalm 112
Very often the Psalms are actually a form of beatitude. Psalm 1 sets the tone: “Blessed is the one who does not walk with the wicked.” Beatitudes—including the most famous ones of them all from Matthew 5—are very often blessings spoken over people whose lives the rest of the world may not deem to be…
Psalm 82
What are we to make of Psalm 82? Who are the “gods” that get referred to multiple times? If you as an orthodox believer are convinced there really are no other gods beyond the God and Father of Jesus Christ, then these references to other gods may be a bit unsettling. But as I read…
Isaiah 65:17-25
Every preacher knows what a challenge it is to preach on Easter. On the one hand, it is the epicenter of the Gospel, the event that makes or breaks the claims of Jesus, as Paul says in I Corinthians 15. So, how can we mere mortals do justice to such a world changing moment in…
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
Across the spectrum of poems in the Hebrew Psalter are prayers that fit most every occasion and season in life. Laments, petitions, confessions, praise, thanksgiving; songs that fit happy days and songs that fit rotten days; lyric expressions of trust and bitter cries of abandonment and anger. It’s all in there. That’s an important thing…
Psalm 1
Few of us do what many monastic and other traditions have done in history with the Psalms: namely, read them straight through and in order. Instead we bob and weave our way through the Psalms, picking and choosing to read this Psalm or another for no particular rhyme or reason. And so it’s easy to…
Psalm 17:1-7, 15
Psalm 17 deals with the age old problem of oppression and wickedness. It’s a popular topic in many of the ancient Psalms, and it is a constant feature of news reports today. All through history and all over the world, the wicked oppress the innocent. How should the innocent respond? Well, there are two basic,…
Genesis 38
Genesis 38 has to be near the top of the list of least-preached texts in Scripture. There’s death (by the hand of God no less), sex—both in marriage and outside of it, and lots of things that parents might not be ready to have their kids understand (i.e. parents are too embarrassed to have to…
Psalm 1
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Psalm 1, in combination with Psalm 2, introduces the entire Psalter that is the book of Psalms. James May suggests that the combination of those psalms invites hearers to read and use the entire psalm book as God’s guide to a what constitutes a “blessed” or “happy life.” Some…
Preaching Connection: Righteousness