Tag: faith
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Persecution Complex
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 – 5/17/2026 – Seventh Sunday of Easter Rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the…
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“I Am” not a being but Being Itself
John 8:21-30 – 5/16/2026 Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am.” John 8:28 (NRSVue) – alternative translation (see footnote in the NRSVue Biblical text) Perhaps no where is Jesus more explicit about his divinity than in the Gospel of John where he declares several…
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Testimony not Treatise
Psalm 93 – 5/15/2026 The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed; he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting. Psalm 93:1-2 Who is God? What can truly be ascribed to God?…
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Where did the Body of Christ go?
Ephesians 1:15-23 – 5/14/2026 – The Ascension of the Lord [God] has put all things under [Jesus’s] feet and has made [Jesus] the head over all things for the church, which is [Jesus’s] body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:22-23 One of Jesus’s epithets is Emmanuel, “God with us,” which…
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A God of Conquest and Genocide?
Deuteronomy 31:1-13 – 5/13/2026 The Lord your God himself will cross over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua also will cross over before you, as the Lord promised. Deuteronomy 31:3 (NRSVue) God promised the land of the Jordan Valley to the descendant of Jacob through the…
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For Our Own Good
Deuteronomy 5:22-33 – 5/12/2026 You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess. Deuteronomy 5:33 (NRSVue) What is the purpose of the command…
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A God of Two Minds
Genesis 9:8-17 – 5/11/2026 The waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. Genesis 9:15 (NRSVue) We usually talk of the problem of evil as a reason to think that God does not exist. The existence of radical evil is thought to preclude the existence of an all-powerful, perfectly good God. What…
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An Unknown God
Acts 17:22-31 – 5/10/2026 – Sixth Sunday of Easter What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Acts 17:23 Paul’s appeal to the Athenians to follow Jesus is unlike any of the other recorded words of Paul, either in his epistles or in the book of Acts. Instead of starting from the…
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The Paradox of Presence
John 14:27-29 – 5/9/2026 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ John 14:28 (NRSVue) Jesus is no longer with us in the flesh, as a living, breathing, embodied, in the room, person. We are not in the position of the original disciples. We cannot simply ask…
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Throw Your Excess Overboard
Acts 27:13-38 – 5/8/2026 After they had satisfied their hunger, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea. Acts 27:38 (NRSVue) Today’s New Testament Lectionary reading tells of Paul’s perilous sea voyage around the Island of Crete on his way to Rome to stand in judgment before the Emperor. As the ship…
Dionysus on a Bike 