Tag: paul
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Paul Can Be an Asshole
1 Corinthians 4:14-20 – 7/23/2026 I am not writing this to make you ashamed but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I fathered you through the gospel. I appeal to you, then, be imitators…
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Love Is in Our Nature
Romans 2:12-16 – 7/9/2026 When gentiles, who do not possess the law, by nature do what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. Romans 2:14 (NRSVue) The law of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, is, among other things, a statement of God’s will for God’s people, a set…
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Paul’s Moral Psychology
Romans 7:7-20 – 7/3/2026 – The Feast of Thomas, the Apostle What then are we to say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not…
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The Spirit and the Letter
Romans 7:1-6 – 7/2/2026 Now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the [spirit] and not in the oldness of the [letter]. Romans 7:6 (NRSVue with my translation correction) One of the themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans, one…
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Faith Works through Love
Galatians 5:2-6 – 6/25/2026 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love. Galatians 5:6 There is a caricature of Paul, especially among Lutherans and other Protestants, that in emphasizing faith alone as justifying and necessary for salvation, he leaves no room for…
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Sending Another
1 Thessalonians 3:1-5 – 6/15/2026 When we could bear it no longer, we decided to be left alone in Athens and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith. 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2 (NRSVue) Paul is on a mission to the…
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Always Check the Greek
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:2 – 6/8/2026 Do not be mismatched with [the unfaithful]. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? 2 Corinthians 6:14 (NRSVue, my correction) When reading Scripture, if you encounter a passage or verse that gives you pause and makes you think, “That doesn’t seem quite right” or “That doesn’t sit well…
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A Cure Not a Miracle
Acts 28:1-10 – 6/5/2026 It so happened that the father of Publius lay sick in bed with fever and dysentery. Paul visited him and cured him by praying and putting his hands on him. After this happened, the rest of the people on the island [of Malta] who had diseases also came and were cured.…
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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…
Dionysus on a Bike 