Search Results

The speaker is Isaiah (“my”; 5:1, 9); the prophet speaks in the first person for the first time. The “beloved,” the owner of the vineyard, is God and the “vineyard” is Israel (5:7). After speaking (...)

What should proper care of a vineyard look like? What should tenant farmers who lease the land give back to the one who owns all of the land? Jesus used another parable with another landowner (...)

Isaiah 25:1-9 begins with a hymn of praise to a victorious God. The opening phrases (“you are my God; I will exalt you”) allude to the ancient “Song of Sea” from Exodus, when the Lord (...)

Isaiah 25 celebrates divine faithfulness in soaring, lofty words, words too lofty for everyday reality. Yet they inspire hope. Hymns of thanksgiving stand on either side of a prophetic description of a universal banquet hosted (...)

This passage stands in the center of the first half of Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), which was composed in the middle of the sixth century B.C.E. to encourage Judeans scattered by the Babylonian destruction of (...)

It’s not surprising that a new, young leader like Joshua would feel anxious or inadequate. Joshua is taking over the reins of leadership from the great and incomparable Moses who led Israel faithfully for forty (...)

God had commissioned the Israelite leader Joshua to accomplish a two-part mission: 1) to conquer the Canaanites (Joshua 1-12) and 2) to settle the Israelite tribes in their allotted territories (Joshua 13-22). In Joshua 24, (...)

“Rejoice always.” The third Sunday in Advent has traditionally been known as Gaudete Sunday, taken from the opening of the Psalm appointed for the day so long ago. That Psalm began with the Latin command (...)

Matthew 2:1-12, the visit of the magi, is the gospel reading for Epiphany. Some congregations choose to use the Epiphany readings on the second Sunday after Christmas. In the Western Church, the visit of the (...)

Many religious and ethnic communities have intricate celebrations for the declaration of a new family member’s name.1 Even for those who do not have such rituals, deciding upon and revealing the name of one’s child (...)