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In Matthew 21, the Evangelist has crafted an electrically charged reflection on spiritual fruitfulness and divine power. It sparks in the incendiary moment when Jesus curses a fruitless fig tree and it withers where it (...)

The Bible’s first creation story as prelude to the flood story The story of Noah, the flood, and the promise of the rainbow in Genesis 6–9 is God’s “do-over” of the first creation of the (...)

Water is life. This Lakota truth disseminated during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests starting in 2016 highlights that all life depends on clean water. The 2014 water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and more recent water (...)

Jeremiah’s lament reveals that prophetic ministry is both a difficult task and a divine gift—the burden of bearing God’s word and the blessing of proclaiming God’s redemption. Jeremiah 15:15–18 describes the agony of prophetic life (...)

As we continue our romp through Romans, a chapter per week until now, the editors of the Revised Common Lectionary are clear about the emphasis of proclamation from Romans 11. God is faithful. Has God (...)

After disputing with Pharisees and scribes about ritual handwashing (Matthew 15:1–20), Jesus and his disciples left Gennesaret, located northwest of the Sea of Galilee (14:34; 15:21). He went away (anachōreō) to the district of Tyre (...)

Preachers face a temptation to emphasize everything good about the life of faith. We shouldn’t forget these good things, but sometimes faith is marked by struggle, difficulty, and wrestling. Building to this moment Jacob faces (...)

Trauma theorists tell us that one of the essential steps for trauma victims in reconstituting their shattered lives is to repair their narrative identity—that is, constructing fragments of their former selves into a sense-making narrative.1 (...)

Isaac and Rebekah go 20 years without a child (Genesis 25:20, 26). Things look as hopeless for them as they did for Abraham and Sarah. But both Isaac and Rebekah have access to God. Isaac (...)

The book of Jeremiah revisits his calling—not to celebrate it, but to wrestle with it. Jeremiah 20:7–13 offers one of the most honest and troubling reflections on prophetic ministry in all of Scripture. In this (...)