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Lifestyles of the Rich and Ransomed The four lectionary texts assigned for this Sunday have a common theme: wealth. More specifically, the texts are concerned with attitudes toward wealth. The theme is considered in a (...)

Matters of life and death have a way of focusing one’s attention. It has not been long since Lazarus, still wrapped in grave cloths and smelling four days dead, stumbled out of the tomb and (...)

A single voice speaks to us in this text. Its words ring of agony, pain, desperation, brokenness, and great remorse. The speaker directly addresses God himself, but God says nothing. Instead, this text invites us (...)

The overarching focus of Paul’s letter to Christian communities in Rome is the multifaceted nature of faith.1 Paul’s apostolic call to bring about the obedience of faith literally bookends the letter (1:5; 16:26). Throughout Romans, (...)

This Sunday marks some major transitions. Up until now, our attention has been on the infant Jesus. We celebrated his Nativity, his presentation in the Temple, and the good news of the Word having come (...)

Paul’s great letter to the Romans ends with a doxology — a moment of praise. (There is widespread scholarly opinion that Paul did not write these verses; however, the person who did and the editor (...)

In this paragraph the theme of love as a force in interpersonal relationships emerges after Paul’s tangent in the first paragraph of chapter 13 on why one could obey an institution that repays evil for (...)

Paul continues to draw upon the whole of scripture, the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms to show that his kindred by race have heard the gospel but remain unbelieving: “But I ask, have they (...)

Following the introduction to these three chapters in Romans (9:1-5), Paul draws upon several Old Testament quotations to show that the rejection by the Israelites has not prevented God’s election of Israel. The foundation of (...)

Romans is regularly recognized to be Paul’s most seriously sustained theological reflection in the corpus of his letters. In turn, Romans 5-8 are recognized as four chapters devoted to Christian life as the experience of (...)