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This three-week series, with readings primarily from the New Testament, serves as a sort of throwback.1 By “throwback” I mean that creeds are typically the result of a concerted effort to “codify” a kind of (...)

When Christ’s great emissary to the nations pivots from expounding the extraordinary good news message about the justice and mercy of God, Paul turns our attention to body-language. This body-language matches the appropriate mind-set for (...)

Lament. Complaint. Confession. Weeping.  These words are typically associated with the prophet Jeremiah. People are perhaps aware of his propensity to weep and complain.    Our Scripture lesson for this Sunday provides an excellent example from (...)

There is a reciprocal nature to how you treat other people: What you do for others you will see it again in your own life. This admonition also applies to those who are involved in (...)

Dear Working Preachers, It seems every week there is a headline or a happening that undercuts our best laid sermon preparation (Sometimes those interruptions come throughout the preparing week, and that’s what we’re here for). (...)

The setting is a mountain in Galilee, and the occasion is Jesus’ great commission: the sending out of the disciples to preach the gospel to the nations. The group of disciples has mixed feelings: some (...)

As a professor in 2023, the word “power” comes up a lot in my life, often in official sounding phrases such as power dynamics or power differentials. This past week, however, I had to think (...)

The lectionary readings for the Sundays after Easter contain passages from the Acts of the Apostles rather than a reading from the Hebrew Bible. In particular, the passages for the Second and Third Sundays after (...)

After ministry in Galilee (4:17—20:34), Matthew’s Jesus enters Jerusalem.  He has announced multiple times that he will go to Jerusalem, the center of provincial Judean power (16:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19). There the Rome-sanctioned and allied provincial (...)

The epistle lesson for the Second Sunday in Lent continues in Romans. After laying out his theology of sin and grace on the macro level in Romans 5:12-21, in Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 we see Paul’s (...)