Tag: jesus
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
An Unknown God
Acts 17:22-31 – 5/10/2026 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 Jewish belief in One God,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
The Incompatibility of Wealth and Wisdom
Proverbs 3:13-18 – 5/6/2026 Happy are those who find wisdomand those who get understanding,for her income is better than silverand her revenue better than gold. Proverbs 3:13-14 (NRSVue) Hoarded wealth is evil, on this the communist and the Christian are in agreement. The reason the accumulation of wealth is evil is usually understood to be…
-
The Weight of Choice and Knowing how to live
Proverbs 3:5-12 – 5/5/2026 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and do not rely on your own insight. Proverbs 3:5 (NRSVue) For the Lutheran and indeed for the Christian, we are to rely on God’s will and wisdom as superior and more conducive to flourishing than our own fallen human wisdom. We lack the…
-
Dionysus and the Crucified
by Justin Marquis A Nietzsche scholar in seminary, a Christian writing a blog invoking the pagan God of wine; what exactly is going on? Nietzsche himself proposed a dynamic and even violent opposition, expressed as Dionysus versus the Crucified, between the God of wine and Christianity. Dionysus the god of subterranean, sometimes violent urges, the…
-
Why Jesus?
by Justin Marquis Last week I was asked by an old friend, “Why Jesus?” regarding my return to a life of faith. This is an unsurprising question given my past rejection of Christianity and the Church. I have attempted to answer this question before, but that answer was just as provisional as this one. What…
Dionysus on a Bike 