Proper 7: OT, Jeremiah 20:7-13 Having years ago been influenced by a book on the prophet Jeremiah, Kim and I gave that name to our first-born. Characterized often by weeping and lamenting over his people, there was no greater champion of the Old Covenant. In our Old Testament reading this week...
Proper 6: Gospel, Matthew 9:35-10:8 Matthew is a tough gospel for me. It’s a Jew writing to Jews about THE JEW, and no matter how much one reads and studies it, there is that “inside track” where not knowing and understanding language, culture and history leaves an outsider...
Proper 6: Epistle, Romans 5:6-15 Romans is the great exposition of the gospel from a legal mind that even moderns admit to be one of history’s greats. Nowhere else in all of Holy Scripture is the gospel so well explained. And just so the blessing doesn’t stop with bare explanation...
Proper 6: OT, Exodus 19:2-8 Most of us are familiar with the fact that the number 40 figures prominently in the Bible. I’m not going to list all the “40’s” and I’m not even going to deal directly with any of them in extended fashion other than the “40&rdquo...
Trinity Sunday: Gospel, Matthew 28:16-20 It’s that passage again. The one that can bring a sense of challenge and perhaps guilt. “The Great Commission” given to the eleven before Jesus’ ascension. For many of us it might better be called “the great omission.&rdquo...
Trinity Sunday: Second Reading, Acts 2:14a, 22-36 Fresh off the Feast of Pentecost, the week has passed and the normal, (well as normal as can be) course has taken us through pandemic, protest and riot. Nothing much is normal these days in our country, and following the colossal incoming of the...
Trinity Sunday: OT Reading, Genesis 1:1-2:4a I love reading the Biblical account of the creation. There is nothing else quite like it in all the reading I’ve done through the years and I would think that would be true of you as well. There is no better word to describe it in my mind than...
Pentecost: Gospel, John 7:37-39 Have you ever thought about how much we need water? All of us could survive several weeks without food. But water? That’s altogether different. And water plays prominently throughout the Bible whether as a means of sustaining God’s people physically...
Pentecost: Epistle Reading, Romans 8:12-17 All Holy Scripture is inspired. All of it, every jot and tittle is the out-breathing of God. I believe that. Every Lutheran should. And the source of that inspiration? The Holy Spirit. Not a difficult question to answer to be sure. But Romans chapter 8...
Pentecost: OT Reading, Numbers 11:24-30 What is it that we really need? I mean as God’s chosen people, what can we simply not live without. If you have spent any time in the gospels, you will have encountered Jesus being tempted by His adversary and ours in the wilderness. Following...
