Reading: Luke 5:1-11
This reading is a little quirky and fun to visualize (people so excited that they crowd the speaker into a lake! a preacher “seizing” a boat! a rough, tough fisherman taking unsolicited advice from a carpenter!).
There are a lot of different things we could look at, but I’m going to focus on a [...]
Archive for the "Into the Word" category
Okay, sneak peak at my sermon for this weekend…
We live in a scary time. Have you watched the new recently? A friend had their boss laid off today – the layoffs got close to home again. The stock market is more than a roller coaster – it’s sea sickness on the Titanic….
How did we get [...]
I admit it: I slacked this week on my reading. I got behind on my work, spent too much time goofing around online, and my Bible study felt the brunt of my self-inflicted time crunch. Why do I always do that?
Then last night, I admitted to myself that there was no way I’d be doing [...]
Reading: Galatians 4:21-31
I think Ishmael kind of got a raw deal. Other people made some questionable choices—understandable, given the culture, but not ideal choices—but he was the one who mostly had to live with the results.
Granted, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sure, he was a slave, but reading between the lines, [...]
Reading: Genesis 21:1-21
There is a lot I’d like to know about these stories of Abram/Abraham’s family.
I’m curious about Ishmael. How was he raised? There were 13 years between his birth and the time that God told Abram that he would have another son, this one with Sarah as the mother. Until that point, who raised [...]
Reading: Galatians 3:1-22
Yesterday’s reading was focused on Abram’s physical children (or lack thereof), and today’s reading takes that concept a step further by talking about his spiritual children—or at least that’s the theory.
The problem is that, as humans, we pretty much always manage to confuse ourselves and pick the wrong things to focus on. This [...]
Reading: Genesis 16
Trying to do God’s will can be a challenge. Sometimes it’s a challenge because of temptation or selfish desires, but other times, even good motives and our attempts at the “right” actions aren’t enough.
For years, God had been telling Abram that he was going to be the head of a big family, despite [...]