Living the Lectionary

                              Matthew 5:1-12 “Blessed are those” becomes “blessed are you” when you live the Beatitudes. By that I mean the ...

                              Revelation 7:9-17 These words were written to encourage and comfort people who were suffering terribly for the...

                                     John 8:31-36 Maybe if I knew what my “we are descendants of Abraham” was I would know what keeps me fro...

                                    Romans 3:19-28 God is the one who is just and the one who justifies; period, end of sentence. So why do ...

                                   Psalm 46 To “be still” in the presence of shaking earth, falling mountains and roaring seas is not the na...

Jeremiah 31:31-34 When will the “days are surely coming” finally get here? I know some will quickly point out “the days are surely coming” c...

                                        Matthew 22:15-22 You can’t trap Jesus. This text is not about taxes. There are no options save death...

                            1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 One reason Paul may be continually thankful for the church of the Thessalonians is becaus...

                                            Psalm 96:1-13 What a lovely coincidence! I just did Psalm 96 this morning for my FB live devotio...

  Isaiah 45:1-7 Cyrus the Great was good to all the gods who had been displaced by the Babylonians returning  “the images of the gods… to th...

                                                       Philippians 4:1-9 Paul writing from prison encourages the Philippians with a lovely l...

                             Isaiah 25:1-9 When the city is reduced to rubble and the fortified town turned into a ruin then the strong will...

                               Philippians 3:4-14 Like the apostle Paul I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh. Born to Lutheran e...

                                       Isaiah 5:1-7 God’s lament sounds familiar because God’s sad song is so often ours as well. We invest ...

                          Matthew 21:23-32 The chief priests and elders of the people are stuck between a rock and a hard place by Jesus’ qu...

                             Philippians 2:1-13 The whole of the scriptures is expressed in Philippians 2:5-11 and if all we had was this an...

                              Psalm 25:1-9 David trusts that the rebellious sins of his youth will not be remembered by the Lord and I have ...

                                       Ezekiel 18:1-4 ;  25-32 Apparently the prophet is not familiar with family systems theory. The sins o...

                             Matthew 20:1-16 The kingdom of heaven is a contradiction of the more common kingdom where fair play is measured...

                                               Jonah 4:1-11   Debate on the Book of Jonah is often focused on the detail of the “whale” and ...