Rev 19:1-10 Am I a paragon of faith? (The honest answer is no.) While I once thought that I should labor to look and act and believe just like the other "successful" Christians in my life, I've been freed up by something Thomas Merton once wrote: "For me to be a saint means to be myself." Noth that godly person I greatly admire, but myself. I see n…

Rev 18:1-20 The kingdom of God is an alternative political fact that stands in tension with the empires, all of which are falling away. If this is true, then the hostile and belligerent partisanship among American Christians might be compared to a fistfight over table manners on the sinking Titanic. - Lee Camp, Scandalous Witness…

Rev 13:1-18 To trust in the strength of God in our weakness; to say, "I am weak: so let me be: God is strong;" to seek from him who is our life, as the natural, simple cure of all that is amiss with us, power to do, and be, and live, even when we are weary, - this is the victory that overcometh the world. - George MacDonald, "Life," in Unspoken Ser…

Rev 12:1-17 Jesus and other early Christians were not executed because they were spiritual. They were executed because their politic was a threat to the powers that be. - Lee Camp, Scandalous WitnessPar Rev. Chris Currie

Rev 7:9-17 "Imagination is one of the essential ministries in nurturing the life of faith. For faith is not a leap out of the everyday but a plunge into its depths." - Eugene Peterson, Run With the Horses | The church in eternity will appear more lovely, but it will not be more loved. - Megan Hill, A Place to Belong…

Rev 5:1-14 The gaze of God is both what we fear and what we can't do without. Scripture makes it clear that apart from God's coming to us and opening our eyes, we cannot know him truly. Talk about epistemic difficulties! For us to know him, he must know us first. Our knowing is warped, especially when it comes to knowing God, because of human rebel…

Rev 3:1-22; John 17:20–26 The life of faith revealed and nurtured in the biblical narratives is highly personal but never merely individual: always there is a family, a tribe, a nation - church. Eugene Peterson, Reversed ThunderPar Dr. Cyndi Parker

"A dissident is a person of hope, someone who imagines a better, future world, and then begins to embody that world. It's someone who speaks to promote that better, future vision and against what is wrong in the present." - Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett, Revelation for the Rest of Us Rev 2:1-29; John 17:13–19…

An introduction to the context of the Book of Revelation by Professor Emeritus at Missio Seminary, Steve Taylor.Par Steve Taylor

Rev 1:1-20Par Rev. Ryan McCormick

Ephesians 3:14-21, Psalm 103 “Dear friend, being the Beloved is the origin and the fulfillment of the life of the Spirit. I say this because, as soon as we catch a glimpse of this truth, we are put on a journey in search of the fullness of that truth and we will not rest until we can rest in that truth. From the moment we claim the truth of being t…

Luke 14:15-24Par Rev. Vito Baldini

John 15:1-11 / Isaiah 5:1-7 When we read Scripture in light of the resurrection, we understand Scripture as testimony to the life-giving power of God. The resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated miracle but a disclosure of God's purpose finally to subdue death and to embrace us within the life of the resurrection.... The God with whom we have to d…

Mark 7:24–30 You either come to the text with a view of what is and isn’t possible in the world, which won’t allow any fresh evidence - which is not, perhaps, the best way of approaching a book like John, which is all about the challenge of the gospel to all existing world-views - or you come with at least an open mind to new possibilities hitherto…

Isaiah 55:10-13; Mark 4:1–20 With Christ as our true teacher, we are called to a lifelong journey of joint inquiry in which we seek to embody Scripture wisely and faithfully in Christian community. After all, even as we apprentice ourselves to Christ and to saintly exemplars before and around us, we are simultaneously called to live in such a way t…

Matt 20:1–16 When we ignore or minimize the importance of the original context, our default position will be to fill in the textual backdrop with our own social context. In other words, we will assume that things in the biblical context are just like they are in our own. So there is no way to attain a reading of a biblical text without a context. -…

Luke 19:1-10 Ezekiel 34:11-16 The gospel story is precisely this: it is a story. It is not a collection of esoteric philosophical musings, nor is it a reflection upon a series of mystical experiences or contemplative insights. The gospel story is a narrative, or rather a series of narratives; it issues from the testimony of those who saw and heard …

Ezekiel 43:1–5 and 47:1–12; Rev 22:1–5 "We need a way of approaching Scripture that will move us very concretely from our overreliance on information gathering to an experience of Scripture as a place of intimate encounter." - Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred RhythmsPar Dr. Cyndi Parker

Ezekiel 37:1–14; John 20:19–23 Whenever we pick up the Bible, read it, put it down, and say, "That's just what I thought," we are probably in trouble. The technical term for that kind of reading is "proof-texting." Using the text to confirm our presuppositions is sinful; it is an act of resistance against God's fresh speaking to us, an effective de…

2 Samuel 6:1-11; Luke 8:40-48 We do not invite the text into a transformation of its original meaning, into a new application geared toward our thought forms; rather, the text invites us into a transformation of allegiances and commitments, which will manifest itself in behaviors appropriate to our social worlds. - Joel Green, "Practicing the Gospe…

Daniel 5 Luke 20:5-19 Our understanding does not seamlessly conform to God's reality, and instruction that suggests otherwise inevitably distorts the truth. The explanatory power such instruction generates is a mark of propaganda, not faithful Christian witness. Good teachers do not make Christianity easier for students by providing them with count…

Genesis 18:16–33; Matthew 11:20–24 Interpretations of Scripture are not just right and wrong, although at times such categories are useful and necessary. But perhaps ultimately a more adequate way of judging our readings is the way we judge works of art - according to the standards of beauty. To what extent do our readings reveal the intricacy, the…

Genesis 3; Matthew 4:1-11 Biblical authority is tied inseparably to the author's intention. God vested his authority in a human author, so we must consider what the human author intended to communicate if we want to understand what God's message is. Two voices speak: the human author is our doorway into the room of God's meaning and message. Thus, …

Acts 8:26-40Par Rev. Vito Baldini

Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17Par Rev. Chris Currie

Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15 The Spirit is given to begin the work of making God's future real in the present. ... Just as the resurrection of Jesus opened up the unexpected world of God's new creation, so the Spirit comes to us from that new world, the world waiting to be born, the world in which, according to the old prophets, peace and j…

Ephesians 4:1-16; John 20:19-29 "I believe that we need to rethink the nature and priority of the corporate body, the church. Throughout biblical history God has been gathering people together so that in them and through their life together he might work out his purposes for the world. It was never simply about God calling out an individual so that…

John 15:9-15Par Dr. Cyndi Parker

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