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ON Scripture
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20: Ten Commandments – Rules and Regulations?
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Odyssey Networks
By Eric D. Barreto How many of the Ten Commandments can you name? If you are like most Americans, the number is far below the full ten. A 2007 survey reported that most Americans could rattle off the ingredients of a Big Mac more readily than the Ten Commandments. And yet the Ten Commandments play…
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32: Prophetic Vision for a Just Economic Future
By
Odyssey Networks
By Greg Carey Ezekiel speaks compellingly to the current situation in the United States. But is the prophet’s message true? Precise Diagnosis The society the prophet addresses suffers from a severe lack of perspective. It knows God’s standards. These appear in the verses our Lectionary passes over, Ezekiel 18:5-24. God condemns idolatry, sexual immorality, exploitative…
Matthew 20:1-16: Justice Comes in the Evening
By
Odyssey Networks
By Matthew L. Skinner
Exodus 14:19–31: Singing Through the Sorrow
By
Odyssey Networks
By Barbara Kay Lundblad What is the text for this Sunday, September 11? The minister may read a text from the Bible but many people will be hearing other texts that aren’t in the book: the reading of names, the melancholy drone of bagpipes, a final goodbye left on an answering machine. Some of…
Matthew 18:15-20: Insiders and Outsiders
By
Odyssey Networks
By Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman Matthew 18:15-20is an insider’s text for outsiders. From Matthew’s perspective, Jesus is both warning and assuring those inside the young Christian church. It is a church, however, whose members stand outside the main streams of both religious and civil practice. For Christians today reading it as insiders, the…
Matthew 16:21-28: Jesus Has No Part-Time
By
Odyssey Networks
By Greg Carey Matthew 16:21-28 confronts us with the gap between Jesus’ gruesome fate and our own modest discipleship. Jesus’ verbs say it all. Deny the self, take up the cross, follow Christ. Moreover, only in losing one’s life – the primary meaning of apollymi is to destroy – one may save it. And Jesus apparently…
Exodus 1:8-2:10: Faith in the Past, Present, and Future
By
Odyssey Networks
By Eric D. Barreto Had fear prevailed, we would not know the name “Moses” today. Had Pharaoh triumphed, the story of God’s liberation of God’s enslaved people could not be told. Had a number of women not acted out of compassion and courage, the extermination of a people would have been sharply felt by them…
Matthew 15:21-28: Teaching Jesus
By
Odyssey Networks
By Barbara Kay Lundblad This story in Matthew 15 is very troubling. A Canaanite woman cries out to Jesus to heal her daughter. By the end of the story, her daughter has been healed — but between the crying and the healing, Jesus says some terrible things. He’s arrogant, racist and just plain mean. We…
Matthew 14:22-33: Faith within the Chaos
By
Odyssey Networks
By Matthew L. Skinner In Matthew’s Gospel, the story of Jesus walking on water morphs into a story of Peter walking on, then sinking into, the same water. It begins as a statement about Jesus’ authority; for Jesus’ contemporaries had learned from scripture that such mastery over the waters is God’s accomplishment. When Peter tells…
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