Reading for Preaching
The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation
“The Principle or Foundation” in Ordinary Graces: Christian Teachings on the Interior Life
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
The Sweet Hereafter
Additional content related to Work
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Commentary: Hear and Live “Hear” is a key word in all of Hebrew Scripture, most notably in the Shema, which is the central prayer of Judaism. Perhaps Christians might think of it also as a credal formulation. It goes like this: “hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love…
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
What we call “post-modernism” heavily influences 21st century Western culture. One characteristic of that worldview is a kind of moral relativism. In other words, the idea that most ideas are equally valuable profoundly shapes our culture. No “word” carries any more moral authority than another. In a post-modern culture that offers a buffet of religious…
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Paul spends relatively little time in his second letter to Thessalonica’s Christians talking about Christian ethics. He might have spent that addressing things like healthy relationships and the proper attitude toward those in authority, as he does in his other epistles. However, in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson the apostle talks, instead, about Christians’ work. Both…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
My wife mentions this semi-often as an item of some consternation. The issue is vocation, “calling,” and it crops up in conversation between the two of us whenever someone asks me once again to tell my “call story” to be a minister or in case some other preacher—in the course of a sermon perhaps—tells her…
Luke 3:7-18
Last week we ended with a consideration of the possibility that these two Advent weeks spent in chapter 3 could be viewed as the covenant obligations on display. Verses 1-6 highlight what God will achieve, and here in verses 7-18 we receive the invitation from God (through the prophet John) to respond to God’s activity….
Proverbs 31:10-31
What are we to make of this conclusion to Proverbs? In the past some women saw it as a kind of blueprint for life and so were honored if they could be seen as fitting this profile of the “wife of noble character.” Not surprisingly, more recent times have witnessed other reactions. Some now more-or-less…
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
When I hear James tell his brothers and sisters in Christ in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson not to “show favoritism” (1), I’m tempted to respond, “That’s easier said than done.” Favoritism isn’t, after all, both common and dangerous. It’s also terribly difficult to eradicate. Favoritism is an at least perceived fact of daily life. Almost…
John 6:56-69
We are now at the end of our long jaunt through John 6. Rather climactically, the final question of why we find it difficult to simply believe culminates with Jesus asking a very non-hypothetical question of his own, forcing us to consider ourselves in the process. Can we accept God’s work and ways? There are…
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Why were people in Thessalonica not wanting to work? Was it because they figured that Jesus was returning soon, or had already returned? Was it because things were a bit desperate after a famine in the area? Was it because many of them were continuing in a very normal pattern of client-patron relationships common in…
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
As we have been noting, throughout 2 Corinthians Paul seems a bit all over the map. The criticisms made behind his back and the charges of the “super apostles” seem to have driven Paul to a kind of emotional brink. By his own admission in one form or another, he has been nearly beside himself…
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
We all struggle with sin and temptation and so we need to heed the challenges of Scripture when it advises us on how to lead God-glorifying lives. It would be merely self-deceptive and tinged with no small amount of hubris for us to dispense with any parts of God’s Word on the premise that we…
Luke 13:10-17
When the truth humiliates you, you are humiliated indeed. Worse, when a truth so obvious that it can be stated in a sentence or two humiliates you, then your shame is profound. It’s one thing if a philosopher builds an elaborate argument to disprove some point you had made but it’s another thing if a…
Preaching Connection: Work