Matthew 16:13-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, This week’s reading probably ranks among my least favorite lectionary editorial choices – not because it’s not a great story and, for that matter, an important story, but because of how the lectionary divides it into two parts, disrupting, if not subverting, what feels like the narrative integrity of the story. In short, it’s just really, really hard for me to read this week’s praise and affirmation of Peter apart from next week’s reversal and rebuke as he gains far more insight into the depth and cost of his confession. Then again – don’t you love it when the text and/or...
John 4:16-26
posted by DJL
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband;’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is...
John 19:19-22
posted by DJL
Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief...
John 1:19-22
posted by DJL
This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the...
John 1:3b-4
posted by DJL
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. There is, John says, a point to the universe. That is a debatable conclusion these days. Theories about the beginning of the cosmos, evidence of an expanding universe, the discovery of dark matter, and so on...