Tag: <span>jesus</span>

Summary: Maundy Thursday falls during Holy Week and is the day prior to the Christian observance of Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ execution. When the biblical Gospels recount the night before Jesus’ death, they describe Jesus’ final meal with his followers (the Last Supper appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and a scene in which he washes their feet (in John). What are Christians remembering when they observe Maundy Thursday? In the biblical texts that talk about Jesus’ last night before his crucifixion, he gives himself away to his followers.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post.

Bible commentary: general audience The Bible and Christian practices

Summary: The Gospel according to John describes Jesus as a new temple, a new “place” where God is accessible to people. This suggests that we might encounter God in any and all aspects of life. What does this mean for our public speech about religion, and for the political rhetoric offered by presidential candidates?

Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on The Huffington Post and Day1.

Bible commentary: general audience ON Scripture--The Bible

Summary: Healing a man with a skin disease alters the course of Jesus’ ministry. It’s a reminder that God’s entrance into human existence involves God in the vagaries of human existence. As  God is affected by the challenges of alleviating suffering, we should expect the same from our own efforts.

Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on The Huffington Post, Day1, and Patheos.

Bible commentary: general audience ON Scripture--The Bible

Summary: When Jesus says, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and God the things that are God’s,” he exposes the ways in which our lives involve us in commitments that demand our allegiances. Without calling us to be ascetics or separatists, he calls us to renewed loyalty to God. This piece explores the difficulty of cleanly navigating the ambiguities of our social and political lives.

Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on The Huffington Post, Day1, and Patheos.

Bible commentary: general audience ON Scripture--The Bible

Summary: This article offers a basic introduction to the Gospel of Thomas, which was a document produced probably in the second century. It appears to reflect the values and perspectives of Christians who were committed to ancient “gnostic” ideas. The question of why this gospel was not included in the New Testament connects to larger questions about how early Christians understood Jesus and his significance. Various Christian groups remembered and described Jesus in various ways. The different perspectives among these groups describe different theologies, different understandings of how Jesus reveals God and God’s salvation to us.

Read the full article, and listen to an accompanying podcast, in the “Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible but Were Afraid to Ask” section of EnterTheBible.

Bible commentary: general audience

Summary: Jesus’ Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard tells us something about the scandalous character of God’s generosity. It also identifies the kinds of people most likely to attract God’s gracious attention. Those people are always with us, and their numbers seem to be getting larger in the current American cultural context, with its persistent unemployment rates and its contempt toward undocumented immigrants.

Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on The Huffington Post, Day1, and Patheos.

Bible commentary: general audience ON Scripture--The Bible

Summary: In this biblical passage, as Paul continues a discussion that spans Romans 9-11, he enters into an abstruse conversation with biblical texts to argue that God’s salvation is near and available to all through Jesus Christ.

I wrote this biblical commentary for those preparing to preach or teach on the passage. Read the commentary at Working Preacher.

Bible commentary: preachers & teachers

Summary: In this biblical passage, the resurrected Jesus gives final instructions to his followers then ascends into the sky. His followers respond by returning to Jerusalem, where they wait and pray.

I wrote this biblical commentary for those preparing to preach or teach on the passage. Read the commentary at Working Preacher.

Bible commentary: preachers & teachers workingpreacher.org commentary

Summary: It’s important to know something about what was going on in the world when the Bible was written. In this article I briefly introduce three big events or social phenomena that were shaping people’s religious understandings when the New Testament was being written. The Bible itself shows us people of faith articulating how their beliefs speak to their concerns and everyday lives.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post.

Christianity and culture

Summary: During Holy Week, when Christians commemorate the final events of Jesus’ life, they usually read and hear the biblical accounts of Jesus’ appearance before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Pilate held the power to decide Jesus’ fate. As the Gospels tell the story, Pilate does not express sympathy or apathy toward Jesus. How he deals with his helpless prisoner reflects a commitment to mocking Jesus’ identity as a purported king, to disgracing Jesus, and to reasserting Roman authority over the Jewish people.

Read the full article on The Huffington Post.

Bible commentary: general audience The Bible and Christian practices