SCRIPTURE STUDY: Mark 1:29-39 – Irrelevant widows, to be sick and poor, and when religion goes rogue

In this middle section of Mark’s first chapter, we’re seeing early scenes from the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. There are three distinct, short passages contained in these eleven verses, which continue the 24 hour period which began in verse 21 and sort of represents “a day in the life of Jesus.”
In verse 29, as [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE STUDY: Flyer with dates and readings for this semester

For folks coming to the scripture study this semester or those who want to follow along, here is a flyer with the dates and readings for scripture study over the next few months: Scripture Study: January-April 2009
Feel free to join us anytime! I’ll also be posting regular reflections after each scripture study if you want [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE STUDY: Approaching the Story seriously as a story

This semester at the GCW, we’re going to look at a series of readings based on the Church’s liturgical calendar–namely the readings which will be used in many churches on the Sundays following our Tuesday scripture study. This is a departure for us, and for me. We typically study a book or a lengthy section [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE STUDY: Jerusalem Spring

Following the initial Pentecost event, where a new moment in salvation history is signaled by the reversal of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11, Peter delivers a speech invoking Isaiah, Joel and the Psalms of David to interpret the experience of this new fledgling community of Jesus’ followers (Acts 2:14-36). The passage ends with [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE STUDY: A new start

When we last left the apostles, they were holed up in a room, hiding, unsure of what what was to happen next. The book of Acts opens with Jesus enjoining them not to depart from Jerusalem, intimating that this was exactly what the apostles had hoped to do. And who could blame them? Just a [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE STUDY: A Church pre-occupied with neither heaven nor politics

I am convinced in reading the opening passages of the Acts of the Apostles that it is Luke’s primary purpose to make sure the early church is oriented to that which is at the heart of the proclamation and passion of Jesus. The central message of Acts 1:1-14 resonates not only in the time of [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE STUDY: The intersection of our story, our culture’s story and The Story

Last night, we had our first scripture study, focusing on the Acts of the Apostles, for the Fall semester. It is now a tradition that at our first session together, we don’t even crack open our bibles. Instead, we take the time to learn a little bit about each other, about the folks who will [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE: Hope takes the initiative

It has been a few weeks since we finished our scripture study on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, but I find myself running across passages from other things that I am reading and studying that keep sending me back, with new eyes, to some of those passages. My daily prayer includes short [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE: Financial concerns … or idol worship?

Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners — the community and the magazine — and a best-selling author (God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, among others) used to give a stump speech that included a much-told story from his youth that made quite an impression on me. He [...]

Read Full Post »

SCRIPTURE: When we pray as Jesus taught us, do we know what we are asking for?

Matthew 6:9-15
For most Christians, it is the most familiar passage of scripture, the one part that nearly all of us have memorized – Matthew 6:9-15, commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer,” the “Our Father,” or “The Prayer that Jesus Taught Us.” Despite our familiarity, despite the fact that this prayer is said in Churches every Sunday, [...]

Read Full Post »