Blessing Those Who Have Cursed Us (Jonah 3:10—4:11)

September 15, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Eric D. Barreto. Volunteers channel faith, compassion, and muscle into new homes for the poor. Sometimes, we teach children the oddest Bible stories. It is certainly curious that we would decorate baby nurseries with images from the story of Noah’s Ark. The smiling elephants in the comically tiny boat must always be blocking out the mass of humanity and animal life drowning under a seemingly never-ending deluge. The story of Jonah is another favorite in the Sunday School classroom.... Read more

Foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18-24)

September 8, 2014 By Guest Contributor

By Margaret Aymer. Children are suffering from violence in the U.S. and around the world. Thug. Thief. Pot smoker. He should have surrendered to the authorities. Terrorists. Anti-Semites. They use their own children as human shields. It’s their own fault that thousands of their children are dead. Illegals. Drug smugglers. Who cares if their average age is under 13, if they are prey to gangs and sex traffickers? They are coming across the border to attack our women. Michael Brown.... Read more

A Strange Summer Vacation (Romans 13:8-14)

September 1, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Barbara K. Lundblad. Five students from different faiths travel the world in pursuit of interfaith dialogue. “What did you do on your summer vacation?” Even now students may be answering that question in essays at the start of this new school year. Maybe you wrote such a paper years ago. No matter what you did or where you went this past summer, it was almost impossible to escape the heaviness of the headlines. Thousands of children traveled alone from... Read more

God Hears the Cries of #Ferguson: A Burning Bush and a World on Fire

August 25, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Keith Anderson. What can the people of faith do about racism in America? “Then the LORD said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people…I have heard their cry…Indeed, I know their sufferings…’” – Exodus 3:7 For the last few weeks, the eyes of America have been riveted on the town of Ferguson, Missouri, a formerly little-known suburb of St. Louis. It was there on August 9th that an unarmed African-American teenager named Mike Brown was shot six... Read more

Sweaty Spirituality: Fighting Obesity with Paul (Romans 12:1-8)

August 18, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Jacob D. Myers Obesity is hitting the current generation of US children particularly hard. Do you want to know a secret about working out? Here it is: we don’t grow our muscles in the gym. When we lift weights we perform controlled damage to our bodies; we literally tear our muscle fibers, forcing our bodies to adapt. We improve outside of the gym by consuming healthy foods. To “battle the bulge” requires a commitment to strenuous exercise and healthy... Read more

Preaching Reflections on Michael Brown and Ferguson

August 15, 2014 By Guest Contributor

In light of this week’s events in Ferguson, Missouri, several of our ON Scripture writers took a few moments to reflect upon what they would/will be preaching on this Sunday. To continue the conversation, join us on Twitter at #onscripture. Eric D. Barreto Associate Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary The last thing a preacher wants to do on a Saturday night is to log into Facebook. I exaggerate, of course, but I found myself scrambling last week when I... Read more

Our Dysfunctional Families (Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28)

August 4, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Rev. David Lewicki. People talk about their families and sibling relationships. Before I knew God, I knew Joseph. If you grew up in the ’80s, like I did, there’s a decent chance that your earliest knowledge of Joseph’s story came through a local high school or community theater production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That musical (by Broadway legends Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice) playfully (and rather faithfully) tells the story of a young boy, the... Read more

Could Loaves and Fishes Change the Immigration Dilemma? (Matthew 14:13-21)

July 28, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Verity Jones. People react to the dramatic rise in unaccompanied children arriving illegally in the U.S. from Central America. In June, reporters for The Washington Post described the deplorable detention conditions of the Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas. “The sick are separated by flimsy strips of yellow police tape from the crying babies and expectant mothers. They subsist on bologna sandwiches and tacos, with portable toilets and no showers, and their wait can last for days.” Soon after... Read more

More than Conquerors: Romans 8:26-39 and Disability

July 21, 2014 By Odyssey Networks

By Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37 NRSV). I hope you’ve all read or seen The Fault in Our Stars by now. Each of the main characters has a disability: Gus has a prosthesis after his leg is amputated; Hazel remains on an oxygen tank due to faulty lungs; Isaac becomes blind during the course of the movie. I wonder how this verse from Romans would... Read more