1 Corinthians 4:6-21 1 Corinthians 4 is 1 Corinthians 13 in action. Because 1 Corinthians 13 is Paul’s great hymn about love, 1 Corinthians 4 is therefore love in action. Rather than seeing 1 Corinthians 13 as being some highfalutin theology, I see it as a record of the love that Paul has lived in his own life, the kinds of things he writes about in 1 Corinthians 4. Come with me, and let us learn of love from the... Read more
Matthew 9:1-13 What in the world is an Ember Day? Without going into all the details, Ember Days are days throughout the Church Year in which fasting and prayer are particularly emphasized. Sometimes also giving to the poor is emphasized. If you take these 3 together: fasting, praying, and giving alms, you have the three godly disciplines that Jesus teaches about in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. If you have undertaken a food fast, it is appropriate... Read more
I resolve to meditate today on the treasure of God in me and us. Read more
1 Corinthians 3:1-17 “You are the temple of God,” and “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” “We are God’s fellow workers,” and “you are God’s building.” What shall we make of these most amazing and exhilarating of words? As Christians, these are probably not new concepts to us, but I wonder how often we let such monumental, miraculous truths become as invisible and unappreciated as the air we breathe. We understand by faith that God became man and that... Read more
1 Corinthians 2 St. Paul is making a very important argument here in I Corinthians 2, but if we treat the Bible as a collection of individual verses to cherry pick for argumentation or meditation, we’ll miss his point. He seems to be arguing like this: 1. No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man. 2. In the same way, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 3. We... Read more
Glory comes only after humility Read more
1 Corinthians 1:1-17 Surprise! Surprise! St. Paul begins a letter of his by talking about the grace of God. Paul is talking about grace, even when that may not appear to be the theological point he is making. Paul begins his letter with the grace of God because that is the way the salvation has come to all of us: through the grace of God and nothing else. Even in places where we might not expect it, Paul is thinking... Read more
Hebrews 12:1-17 Hebrews Chapter 12 is the crescendo of the majestic and glorious symphony of themes that the writer of Hebrews has been conducting. I wish the lectionary divided it up into smaller movements because there is so much to meditate on. Chapter 11 is the astounding Hall of Faith, an amphitheater filled with our heroes, those saints and martyrs who obeyed God in faith and have become our examples. But Chapter 12 takes them out of the arena itself... Read more
Mark 10:1-16 “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” These are very strong words that Jesus has spoken, and we must take them seriously. Knowing that God has created marriage and that He hates divorce, we should take Jesus’ words very seriously. I don’t intend to enter into an argument about the exceptions to what seems to be an absolute statement by Jesus... Read more
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Friday of 1st Sunday in Lent (Ember Friday) – Matthew 10:24-42
Matthew 10:24-42 I feel like Jonah running away. I saw that Matthew 10 was the lesson for this Ember Friday and included the difficult sayings of Jesus. I thought about meditating instead on how if you just trust God and pray hard enough, He is guaranteed to financially bless you. Then I gave serious consideration to verse 31 (at least the second half): “you are of more value than many sparrows.” That seemed easy enough to talk about. But the... Read more