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“Gotta serve somebody,” Bob Dylan sings.1 In today’s gospel Jesus says you can serve either God or Mammon, but not both. Mammon serves as a personification for the acquisition of wealth, the “most common god (...)

Any commentator will tell you that this is a difficult text. The story itself sounds quite contemporary. A dishonest manager is about to lose his job because he has misspent his employer’s assets. Because he (...)

The passage in 1 Timothy 2:1-7 consists of two units. First, the author requests prayer for those in leadership positions. Second, the author makes the theological statement that there is only one God, and that (...)

Unique to Luke is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. It follows last week’s parable about a rich man and Mammon. The entire chapter can be entitled “Rich Men and Lovers of Money,” (...)

As much as we would like to spiritualize the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, it is very difficult to explain away its central message, especially given what Luke has to say about money (...)

The story of the grateful Samaritan offers us another image of who and what matters to Jesus and should, therefore, matter to us. The story draws attention to two important themes in Luke: 1. Jesus’ (...)

Joel 2 is, perhaps, most well known from its quotation in Acts 2:14 and following. In Acts, Peter calls upon Joel’s words to help the festival crowds in Jerusalem understand the powerful in-rushing of the (...)

Payback — it’s one of the dominant themes in art and narrative. It springs from some place deep in our social sensibilities. The consequences of certain kinds of behavior, we believe, are fully warranted. Some (...)

Who knew? The ancient psalmist was a clinical therapist, saying in effect, “Don’t hold in your pain, or it will eat you alive!” The author of Psalm 32 had discovered this modern truth long ago (...)

The author of Luke-Acts was a master storyteller. Writing for a Greek-speaking audience, he communicated the good news of Jesus Christ in a style reminiscent of the Greco-Roman epic. Replete with heroes and heroic acts, (...)