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I was recently fortunate enough to lead my second study abroad trip to Greece. We visited cape Sounion, location of a temple to Poseidon (and also one to Athena), famously visited by Byron who penned (...)

Things move quickly in the opening chapters of Mark’s account of Jesus. By the end of the first chapter, he’s gone from being just one of the crowd who had come out for John’s baptism, (...)

As you read this, I’m going to take a wild guess that you’re feeling somewhat stressed and anxious. It’s one of the vexing ironies of the Christmas season that the peace it proclaims can be (...)

Is God faithful to God’s promises? If so, why are our lives, and the world, still such a mess? There is probably no more fundamental question in all of the Christian faith; for when it (...)

Psalm 24 is an entrance liturgy. It is very likely that the liturgy was designed to accompany a procession into the Temple.1  The theme of entrance unifies the poem—it describes humans entering God’s space (“Who (...)

The “lectionary gnomes” have done the preacher no favor in isolating this passage from its preceding verses. First John 2:28-29 encourages Christians to “abide,” or persist with endurance, in that domain defined once for all (...)

John’s apocalyptic visions in Revelation 7:9-17 present challenges in two different ways. The first challenge has to do with inclusivity/exclusivity. The second has to do with the social setting of the Apocalypse and how that (...)

In the book of Revelation, “seeing” plays a fundamental role. This peculiar book in the New Testament (but not in Second Temple Judaism literature, where apocalyptic writings — writings concerned with special revelations and using (...)

Paul’s Authority Issues Have you ever had issues with your pastoral authority? What is your authority based upon? Why should anyone listen to you? How can we congregants tell if your gospel is Jesus’ gospel? (...)

As always, preaching for a festival of the church brings competing goods: Do we preach the text or preach the day? I will always want to err on the side of preaching the text, though (...)