Lectionary Commentaries for July 27, 2025
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Francois Bovon once remarked, “The Lord’s Prayer belongs to us and yet escapes us.”¹ Few words are more familiar to Christians across traditions than this prayer Jesus teaches in Luke 11. And yet, for all its familiarity, the prayer can be elusive in meaning and difficult to embody. What does it mean to really pray this way? And why, in the middle of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, does Luke choose this moment to slow the story and focus on prayer?

Prayer has already played a large role in Luke’s Gospel by this point in the story. We have already been given several scenes in which Jesus himself is praying. For instance, in both the account of Jesus’ baptism (Luke 3) and the account of Jesus’ transfiguration (Luke 9), Luke inserts the detail that Jesus was praying before the event occurred, which the other gospel accounts don’t mention. In fact, by Luke 11, Jesus has already been featured praying in five separate accounts (Luke 3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18; 9:28). Thus, it does not seem surprising that the disciples would notice this rhythm and ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.

Jesus responds in two parts. First, he gives them the prayer itself, and then he shares stories that illustrate God’s character and highlight the “why” behind our praying. These two sections are so familiar that we often move past them quickly. However, both are central to understanding what Luke is teaching about how and why we pray.

How we should pray: The Lord’s Prayer

Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is spare and to the point, less liturgical and more direct than Matthew’s version. It is stripped down to the most essential parts:

“Father, may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.” (verses 2–4)

By addressing this prayer not to God or YHWH but Father, Jesus here emphasizes God’s relationship with his people, not as subjects or as a faceless mass, but as children. Jesus then offers four requests: a request for the kingdom to come, a request for daily bread, a request for forgiveness, and a request for deliverance. In other words, in this prayer, Jesus summarizes all the things we need most when we come to God: God’s presence, our needs met, forgiveness, and salvation.

Jesus does not present this prayer as a magical formula or as the only acceptable prayer. Instead, he offers it as a framework, one that is rooted in trust and dependence on the Father. It is simple, accessible, and theologically rich. This is not just a prayer to recite. It is also a way to live before God.

Why we should pray: A Father who gives good gifts

Jesus then shifts from how to why, telling two brief parables. In the first, a man knocks on his friend’s door late at night, asking for bread. In the second, a parent gives good gifts to their child. These images draw our attention not to our technique in prayer, but to the One who hears those prayers.

We see here that Jesus wants his followers to be persistent in their prayers. Like the man who knocks on his friend’s door in the middle of the night asking for bread, we should keep on knocking until the door is opened to us. Luke will return to this theme in Luke 18 with the Parable of the Persistent Widow, when the widow wins justice from an unjust judge by refusing to relent from her requests.

Jesus tells his disciples to ask, to seek, and to knock, trusting that God will answer. God is better than a reluctant friend who finally opens the door just to stop the knocking. And God is even better than the best earthly parent who knows how to care for their child.

Of course, this brings us to a tension that Christians have wrestled with throughout history. Not all prayers are answered in the way we hope. Even in the third century, Origen preached about why some prayers remain unanswered (Homilies on Luke, Fragment 183).

Luke acknowledges that we can pray for both spiritual needs and everyday concerns. However, we are not to pray for things that violate the spirit of the Kingdom, such as unjust gain or harm to others. And we do not know when or how our prayers will be answered. Still, Luke offers reassurance. We do not pray because we know the outcome. We pray because we trust the One who hears us.

This is why Jesus calls us to keep seeking. In the very act of searching, we acknowledge that there is someone to be found—someone who loves us deeply, like how a father loves a child.

Preaching the mystery

For preachers and teachers, this passage offers both a gift and a challenge. It reminds us that prayer is not primarily about results, but about trust. Not about saying the right words, but about staying in relationship with the One who loves us. We knock because we believe someone is listening. We ask because we believe the Father loves us as children and that the good gift of the Holy Spirit is ours.

The Lord’s Prayer may be familiar, but it still invites us into mystery. It belongs to us, and yet it escapes us.

And maybe that is the point.

Notes

1. François Bovon, Luke 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51–19:27, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 81.

Genesis 18:20–32, the gripping account of Abraham’s intercession for the city of Sodom, is far more than an ancient tale of divine judgment and human pleading. When read through the theological horizon opened by Pentecost—the moment the Holy Spirit was poured out to form the church for witness, communion, and mission—this passage emerges as a paradigmatic expression of Spirit-empowered intercession. It offers the church today not merely a model of prayer, but a compelling vision of what it means to live in active, covenantal partnership with God on behalf of a fractured world. In Abraham’s daring exchange with the Divine, we see the shape of post-Pentecost discipleship: a people who participate in divine justice, advocate for the vulnerable, and pray with bold, theologically rooted confidence.

At the heart of the passage is Abraham’s audacious appeal to God’s own character: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (verse 25). He does not protest judgment as such, nor does he attempt to exonerate Sodom’s wickedness. Instead, he engages the moral logic of divine justice and holds God to his revealed nature as both just and merciful. Abraham’s posture is not presumptuous but covenantal—he speaks as one who has been invited into relationship, and he prays from within that relationship with theological clarity and moral urgency. This is not manipulation, but a form of relational trust that is deeply attuned to the nature of God.

This relational trust is expressed through a boldness that is striking in both tone and content. Abraham dares to reason with God, to press God, to seek a narrowing of judgment in light of even the slightest possibility of righteousness. His humility is evident—“I who am but dust and ashes” (verse 27)—yet it coexists with astonishing courage. He persists not because he is self-assured, but because he trusts God’s justice enough to plead for God’s mercy. 

This combination of reverence and daring anticipates a central dynamic of post-Pentecost life. With the Spirit now indwelling the community of believers, the church is called to approach God not with fear, but with parrēsia—that is, with freedom of speech, boldness, and confidence (see also Hebrews 4:16; Ephesians 3:12). In the Spirit, believers pray not from a place of uncertainty, but from within the assurance that God invites, hears, and responds. Abraham’s negotiation thus prefigures the bold love that should characterize the church’s intercession: love that is unafraid to speak, to plead, to ask on behalf of the world—because it is grounded not in human worth, but in divine faithfulness.

Moreover, the moral posture Abraham embodies is not one of separation or moral superiority. He does not distance himself from Sodom’s fate. He does not withdraw to preserve his own innocence. Instead, he draws near and intercedes, putting himself at risk by identifying with a city marked by corruption. He advocates for the guilty, not because they deserve it, but because mercy is still possible. 

This refusal to detach is critical for understanding the church’s role after Pentecost. The Spirit does not empower believers to escape the world’s pain, but to stand within it, in solidarity with the broken, and to speak on their behalf. The church’s mission is not to pronounce judgment from afar, but to become a presence of advocacy, compassion, and hopeful intercession, even where hope seems least warranted. Just as Christ intercedes for humanity from within our frailty, and the Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26), so too is the church called to a ministry of intercession that is bold, embodied, and faithful.

In this light, Abraham’s conversation with God becomes not just a model of prayer, but a model of moral life in the Spirit. His willingness to engage God is matched by his commitment to advocate for others. And together these shape a theology of intercession that is both intimate and public, deeply personal yet universally relevant. His concern is not merely for justice in abstraction, but for the preservation of life and the possibility of redemption. This same concern must animate the post-Pentecost church. To pray in the Spirit is to join in God’s redemptive mission, to labor in hope that justice and mercy are not mutually exclusive, and to believe that God listens to those who stand in the breach.

Perhaps most revelatory in this passage is not Abraham’s daring, but God’s response. The divine willingness to listen, to engage, and even to adjust the terms of judgment is not a sign of instability or uncertainty, but of justice that is always open to mercy. God’s justice is not static or predetermined. It is responsive, dynamic, and relational. Abraham’s persistence is not met with divine resistance, but with welcome. 

This portrait of divine attentiveness is vital for the church’s post-Pentecost imagination. In the Spirit, we come to know a God whose will is not locked in judgment but directed toward restoration (see also John 16:8–11; 2 Peter 3:9). The church prays not to persuade God to be merciful, but to participate in mercy already in motion. Intercession is thus not a means of changing God’s mind, but a mode of co-laboring with the Spirit in God’s redemptive economy.

This movement—from Abraham’s intercession to the Spirit’s empowerment—makes it clear that the church’s identity is bound up with its willingness to stand in the gap. Genesis 18:20–32 teaches that prayer is not a passive spiritual practice, but a courageous and costly act of love. It is an expression of theological maturity and moral responsibility, one that does not shy away from the world’s realities, nor shrink back from divine holiness. It is grounded in the trust that God is not only just, but relationally just—attentive, open, and moved by the cries of those who speak from within the covenant.

Genesis 18:20–32 is a text that calls the post-Pentecost church to recover its intercessory vocation with fresh conviction. Abraham’s prayer is not merely an ancient negotiation. It is a mirror held up to the church’s calling in the age of the Spirit. To pray in the Spirit is to approach God with parrēsia, to advocate on behalf of others with compassion, and to do so from within a covenantal trust that God listens and responds. In a world in desperate need of justice and mercy, the church is called to speak, to plead, and to hope with God.

Hosea’s family life serves as a powerful but potentially problematic metaphor for Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.

Powerful metaphor

The opening chapter of Hosea depicts a prophetic sign act in which God commands the prophet to take a “wife of prostitution” (verse 2, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition) and have children. While symbolic actions often involve temporary dramatic activities—one might remember Isaiah walking around naked or Jeremiah wearing a yoke—Hosea is called to symbolize his prophetic message personally and familially. Similarly, Jeremiah will later be commanded not to marry (Jeremiah 16:1–2), while Ezekiel will be commanded not to mourn the death of his wife (Ezekiel 24:15–25). The divine command to Hosea is intended to shock the audience, which would not associate a holy person of God, a prophet, with promiscuity.

The symbolic action serves as a metaphor for the relationship between God and God’s people, Israel, placing the prophet in the role of God, and Gomer, his wife, as Israel. Thus, according to the logic of the marriage metaphor, God is like a faithful husband who is married to Israel, a faithless wife. A compelling metaphor is at work. Powerful contrasts are at play.

God                 People of Israel

Hosea              Gomer

Husband          Wife

Faithful           Unfaithful

This living message—Hosea’s family life—complements the prophet’s oracles in the rest of the book. In the historical context of the eighth century BCE, the prophet judges Israel and its leaders for a lack of faithfulness, as witnessed by their worship of other gods. In addition, the leaders of the day are not demonstrating trust in God but instead forming alliances with Egypt and Assyria.¹ Their disloyalty is both religious and political.

The marriage metaphor is expanded in Hosea 1:3–9 when the focus shifts to the prophet’s family, not just his wife. Hosea gives each of his children symbolic names:

1. Jezreel – “God sows”
2. Lo-ruhamah – “Not shown mercy”
3. Lo-ammi – “Not my people”

Therefore, Hosea and Gomer’s children continually remind the community of their faithlessness. We might imagine Hosea calling his child “Not My People” home for dinner, reminding his neighbors of their breach of the covenant.

Intriguingly, the chapter concludes with a reversal—the children’s names lose the “not” and transform into images of hope: “For great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brother, “My People,” and to your sister, “Shown Mercy” (1:11b–2:1). It’s a small moment of hope within a larger literary context of judgment in Hosea 1–3. It’s almost as if the original message was too extreme, judgmental, and shocking for folks.

Potentially problematic metaphor

Some contemporary Christians have seen a story of God’s mercy and redemption in this passage. For example, Francine Rivers’ 1990s novel Redeeming Love is a Christian romance novel that interprets this biblical story. In her retelling, Hosea’s character becomes a hero, and all possible threats of abuse against Gomer (as portrayed, for example, in Hosea 2) are completely ignored in order to preserve the quality of romance.

Yet, there are several reasons to interpret Hosea 1 with great theological and ethical care.

It may be, in fact, that the prophetic marriage metaphor—with its gendered power dynamics—is ultimately unhelpful for a contemporary understanding of the relationship between God and God’s people. Indeed, we need additional and alternative metaphors. Hosea 11, later in this same prophetic book, provides a parental metaphor full of tenderness and concern.

Metaphors are not perfect—they always break down at some point. So, while this metaphor attempts to call Israel back to faith, its depiction of Gomer (and, thereby, of wives) as promiscuous is harmful. To place the male character in the role of God and the female character in the role of the people may reflect ancient thinking, but it leads to unfruitful interpretations today.

There is no faithful reading of this passage that leads to abuse or violence of any kind against women.

We do not hear from Gomer in Hosea 1. We are told little about her. This paucity of information only fuels Christians’ imagination, often in damaging and misogynistic ways.

But how might she respond to such a marital situation?

How might she react to Hosea’s depiction of her?

One creative way to push against the detrimental potentiality of this marriage metaphor may be to give Gomer her voice, to consider her rejoinder to God’s command, and to center her agency in an inspired reimagining of the story.

Notes

1. For more information about the overall message of Hosea, see the following free, online course: Rolf A. Jacbson and Tyler Mayfield, “Hosea,” Enter the Bible, https://enterthebible.org/courses/hosea.

In Hebrew, the name for the book of Psalms is tehillim, or “praises,” because from beginning to end, the God we confess is the subject of our praise.¹

Yet we must be clear, this unbridled praise is always grounded in gritty reality. There is no room for escapism or denial in these texts; the Psalter does not afford us this kind of luxury. What the psalms do provide, however, is a lens through which to see this world, and even more, a language that can lead us to full confession in the midst of it. Psalm 138 provides both.

This psalm is typically labeled as a psalm of thanksgiving, as the opening line suggests. Yet, the verb “to give thanks,” yadah, can also mean “to praise,” or better still, “to confess” in the sense of giving testimony. To thank God is always to confess something about this God; gratitude apart from testimony always falls short. The psalmist announces, “On the day I called, you answered me” (verse 3).

Although some thanksgiving psalms provide specific details regarding deliverance (for example, Psalm 118), others, such as this psalm, remain rather muted in their description, perhaps leaving us to wonder: What testimony is being offered here? The point, however, is not what God did; it is that God did. It is that God moved in response to the psalmist’s cry and God answered. The testimony is that the God who made the heavens and the earth (Psalm 115:15), the one who stands over all, heard a cry and answered. God’s willingness to answer serves as the ground of our hope. It is the very thing that strengthens our souls (verse 3); it is the very thing that makes possible the larger confession of this psalm.

These thanksgiving psalms always ask us to look backward and forward simultaneously. We glance to the past—to those moments when the faithfulness of God was on full display—so that we might stare into our present with great hope for the future. Such a perspective should not be underestimated, however; it is an act of a bold, and even at times defiant, faith.

We might be tempted to take the references to “gods” (verse 1a), “kings of the earth” (verse 4a), and “wrath of the enemies” (verse 7b) as antiquated categories from another day, but if we do, we empty this psalm of its power. In our proclamation, we need a “thick description” of those categories so that we might better understand how to transfer them to our world, how we might best overlay them onto the reality we experience. The psalmist declares that he will give thanks to God “with [his] whole heart” and that “before the gods” he will sing God’s praise (verse 1).

In the ancient world, there was a close association between the gods and nations; the unfolding of the world and the rise and fall of empires and peoples were all associated with the deities confessed by each nation. But in this psalm, as an act of defiant thanksgiving, the psalmist pushes back against the forces that lay claim to the world. Before these forces, the psalmist says he will pour out his life in declaring the steadfast love (hesed) of this God and this God’s enduring faithfulness. The reference to the gods and all other systems that lay claim to shaping this world are not ignored, but instead they are drowned out by thankful praise.

In verse 4, the psalmist announces that all the kings of the earth will one day join in confessing (yadah) this God. In the second stanza, the psalmist pushes back against the human systems and structures that assert authority in the world, declaring that one day, they too will sing of the “glory of the LORD” (verse 5b). Those who run the most powerful empires, those who presume the world is their plaything, will one day hear the words of God (verse 4) and see the works of God (verse 6) and understand that this God works in ways counter to our presumably well-ordered world. This is the God who regards the poor and lowly while keeping the arrogant at a distance (verse 6).

In the final section (verses 7–8), the psalm narrows considerably, moving from the threatening forces that are more global and structural to that which is more personal. The psalmist pushes back against those circumstances within his own experience that threaten to diminish life. In verse 7b, the psalmist references the “wrath of my enemies.” While this phrase might prompt us to consider the identity of those enemies, as with all good poetry, such particularity remains largely elusive.

A better place to start might be in verse 7a. The psalmist bemoans a life lived “in the midst of trouble.” The rendering of the Hebrew word sarah as “trouble” in the New Revised Standard Version and New International Version diminishes the image at work here. The Hebrew root of this word refers to “narrowness, constriction,” here understood as something that is “squeezing the life out of a person.” The psalmist refuses to allow such moments of seeming constriction and sheer distress to have the last word; redemption comes from the One who willingly “stretch[es] out [his] hand” (verse 7b).

The final plea in the psalm, “Do not forsake the work of your hands” (verse 8), may seem surprising, given all that has been confessed thus far. In the fifth book of the Psalter, “the work of your hands” frequently refers to God’s work of deliverance (for example, 107:22; 111:2; 118:17), and that seems to be in view here. The word “forsake” (rapah) might be better rendered as “abandon” or, more literally, as “let go.” Thus, the psalmist concludes with a plea for God not to abandon or walk away from his works of deliverance.

At first glance, this may seem counterintuitive, given his confession in verse 3 and his claims concerning the gods, kings, and enemies in the remainder of the psalm.

But in fact, it is not. The psalmist concludes with such a plea because he knows full well that in the midst of such a world, he cannot save himself. Deliverance can only come from this God—the One who answers the cries of his people.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for August 23, 2020.

If chapter 1 of the letter to the Colossians was filled with thanksgiving, hymns, and introductions, chapter 2 inaugurates the body of the letter, where the motivating concerns for the author come to light.¹ The writer of Colossians is acutely aware that the community is being bombarded by external and internal pressures and temptations. As they continue to figure out who they are and articulate what they believe amid a hostile environment, a new “philosophy” has shown up and threatens to take hold.

We get hints about this philosophy later in the letter—it seems to be marked by extreme asceticism and rejection of the body. But even in this earlier pericope, the author declares that this new belief system is full of “empty deceit” and finds grounding in “human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe,” not in Christ (verse 8). The author takes seriously the temptation of this new philosophy, particularly in the unsteady times in which the community is forming, worshipping, and figuring out how to live together.

Despite using unrelatable or somewhat enigmatic language like “the philosophy,” “elemental spirits,” and “rulers and authorities,” this text speaks powerfully to our present time—a time in which we are bombarded by powers that feel out of our control and we are therefore tempted to seek solace in ideologies, political parties, or the powers of wealth, control, or progress. Following the lead of the author of Colossians, we are invited to take seriously the ways the unsteadiness of our world tempts us to follow other philosophies, ones grounded in “human tradition” and not Christ.

This temptation is real—for the Colossian community and for us. The author of the letter knows how easy it is to buy into new ideas or systems of belief that are flashy, trendy, or appear to offer clear rules or easy solutions. And at the heart of this letter is not simply a rebuke of this new philosophy or a chastisement for falling prey to such temptations. Instead, the author extends an invitation to go “back to basics,” to remember who they are and who they are called to be.

In this pericope, the author responds to the philosophy and its temptations by reminding the people of who they are, regrounding them as followers of the God made known in Jesus. Instead of simply fighting against the philosophy, the author suggests that a resistance to its temptation is found by recentering in Christ, a point driven home throughout the text:

• First, the pericope begins with, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him…” (verse 6). The language of “received” as rendered in the New Revised Standard Version is not “received” as in “earned” or “gained by faith” or “learned.” As Andrew Lincoln emphasizes, the Greek verb used (paralambano) points to “the receiving of a tradition that has been passed on.”² Put another way, the community is invited not to lean on their own learning or understanding or effort; they are to lean into what they have been gifted by their ancestors in the faith—by those who have come before and taught them the good news. In response to the chaos and temptation of the new philosophy, they do not need to manufacture something new but can rely upon what has been imparted to them.
• Second, verse 7 continues by imploring the community to be “rooted and built up in [Christ].” This image of rootedness is a rich one that reminds the people not simply to respond to what is coming at them in the present moment, but, even more, to dig deep into the soil of their faith and community. This image of rootedness reminds them (and us!) to find sustenance not from shallow places, but from the soil of faith that has been tilled by the community and is secured by Christ. To be built up as a community in this time of challenge requires no fashionable ideology or strict ascetic regimen; it requires being rooted in Christ, “established in the faith … you were taught” (verse 7). It requires the faithful to dig deep and pull nutrients from the soil of the faith that has been gifted, a faith that has carried those who have come before.
• Third, the author of the letter invites us and the Colossian community to recenter ourselves in the truth of our baptism: “When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses” (verses 12–13). Reaffirming the reality that we are forgiven, made new, and made alive with Christ through baptism reminds the faithful that they need not be subject to any whim. Though the world continues to change, and temptations pull at our attention, we have already been made new in and through Christ in our baptism. Put simply, the author of Colossians reminds the struggling faithful to return to the grounding moment of faith—our baptism, in which we are claimed by Christ, held by the community, and affirmed as forgiven children of God.

In these days of political division, social upheaval, economic uncertainty, communal instability, and ecological degradation, we may, like the Colossian community, find ourselves tempted to buy into the promises of flashy ideologies, self-help theories, or quick solutions. We may believe that what we have is not enough to respond to the rising pressures of the time. But the invitation extended by the author of Colossians is to resist such temptation and engage such chaotic times by remembering the power of our baptism, leaning into the faith gifted and taught us by our ancestors, and grounding ourselves in Christ, “in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells … who is the head of every ruler and authority” (verses 9–10).

Notes

1. Andrew T. Lincoln, “Colossians 2:6–4:6, Body-Middle: Exhortations, Overview,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. XI (Abingdon, 1995), 619.
2. Lincoln, “Colossians 2:6–7, Live in Accordance with the Tradition About Christ,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, XI: 620.