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Isaiah invites us into a theological vision of what life can be for God’s faithful people. In the Isaiah traditions are interwoven memories of ancient truth and promises of a radiant future for Israel. In (...)

Treacherous days, treacherous texts. Treacherous days because the end is coming, as the texts insist. Treacherous texts because they will always lure some into trying to figure them out, to solve them, to determine the (...)

Anyone commenting or preaching on these well-known verses better hesitate. For preachers, at least in the Protestant world, these verses have become like clichés. How does one preach a cliché without always saying the same (...)

Last week’s Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 1 highlighted the importance of justice and righteousness. Both of these crucial words/concepts are featured again in Isaiah 5:1-7, another of the more memorable passages in all of (...)

The first verse of the book of Isaiah invites the reader to hear the prophecy in the context of the eighth century BCE. The scholarly consensus is to hear at least chapters 1-12, along with (...)

As one of my teachers in seminary once said to me, There’s no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid people who ask questions. Fairness in conversation: I absolutely had it coming. I was (...)

The story of Naboth’s vineyard, a tale of a wealthy and powerful person (Ahab) who oppresses (to the point of death) a less wealthy and powerful person (Naboth) who is simply seeking to do the (...)

Joel 2:1 commands the blowing of the shofar. This is not a call to a festival or celebration, but a warning sent straight from God. In language reminiscent of Amos 5:18-24, this introduction proclaims that (...)

The larger context of these verses (see 51:17-23) vividly describes how the people of Israel have been devastated and depopulated in the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BCE. These events are ascribed (...)

On this first Sunday of Advent, one cannot read the prophecy of a “righteous Branch” springing up for David in anything but a messianic light. And that is a theologically sound way of reading this (...)