Category Archives: General
Another Gutted Reading – Psalm 89
I’m looking at the readings for Proper 25A, and again I notice a large chunk of the Psalm removed from the reading, Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17, so 7-12 is left out. Now sometimes I see good reason for taking part of a Psalm, because one does need to keep the readings reasonable in length. As it [...]
Comparing a Three and Four Year Lectionary
Will Humes, a Methodist pastor in Pennsylvania, is proposing a four year lectionary. Two major benefits he sees for this lectionary is that it would give the gospel of John a bigger place in the lectionary, and also inclusion of more wisdom literature. I have already briefly commented on this. What I’m planning to do [...]
Notes Elsewhere on Advent 2C
I have written a couple of articles this week for my Participatory Bible Study Blog that relate to the week’s lectionary passages. 1) Translating Philippians 1:9-11 comparing three translations of the passage and discussing the difficulties of getting a clear English rendering and 2) The Mosaic Bible and the Lectionary – Update discussing the use [...]
All Saints Day – Cycle B
Believe it or not, I do regularly read the weekly lectionary passages. Finding time to write about them is another matter. This week I’m going to start by providng some links to previous discussions of lectionary passages. First, I have a write-up on Isaiah 26 which discusses the structure of the entire chapter. I think [...]
Getting Seriously Committed (Pr 16B – Gospel)
The gospel for this week comes again from John 6:56-69. We have five of these in a row. John 6 is an interesting chapter because in it Jesus drives to the heart of his message in speaking especially to his disciples, and many of them can’t handle it. They leave. I have discussed the gritty, [...]
Letting Wisdom Define Fear of the Lord
Ref: Psalm 111:10 – Proper 15B The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Those who practice it have good inteligence. We’ve all heard that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as stated in this passage and many others. It’s a pretty basic Christian concept. A few days ago, [...]
Added RefTagger
I have just added the RefTagger module to this site. It seems like a valuable adjunct to a site that has as many Bible references as this one. I have set the default version to TNIV. I may change that from time to time just to keep people thinking!
Jesus Responds to Offense and Resistance
For Proper 15B the gospel reading is John 6:51-58, which continues from the previous reading. In that reading, Jesus barely got started with the gritty physical metaphors, and the people were offended and resistant. This theme of offense will surface many times in portion of John in which Jesus is addressing the crowd in general. [...]
Truth and Neighbors (Ephesians 4:25-5:2)
Ephesians is such a great epistle, but I want to just mention one verse: So then put aside what is false and let each one speak the truth to his neighbor, because we are members of one another. — Ephesians 4:25 The polite lie is a common means of keeping tempers cool. We do it [...]
Out of the Depths (Psalm 130)
Out of the Depths is the title of a book on the Psalms by Bernhard W. Anderson, and an excellent little book it is! it’s title comes from this Psalm. There are just two major points I’d like to make about this Psalm. There is much excellent commentary about it, and the notes are worth [...]
