Many of you already know that we began a brief sermon series last Sunday, one we’re calling “Three Sermons, One Text.” For three weeks in a row, the scripture passage comes from Luke 10:25-37, the well-known parable about a man jumped by thieves while traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho.
There’s an old riddle about the math of Lent, which you may recall measures forty days in length, corresponding to Jesus’ forty days of testing in the wilderness.
In his spiritual memoir, British journalist Philip Toynbee wrote, “The basic command of religion is not ‘do this!’ or ‘do not do that!’ but simply look!” That may seem overly simplistic when one considers all the things the Bible commands us to do, but I think he makes a good point.
When I was still teaching at the seminary, I wrote an article about preaching in which I compared the creative process to making a movie. Lots of scholars have borrowed various metaphors over the years to get at what putting a sermon together is like.
One way to describe a sermon is as “a small piece of the Church’s ongoing conversation.” There are obviously two sides to that equation: there is what gets said prior to any given sermon that preachers account for (scholarly commentaries and everyday conversations), as well as the discourse that continues afterward, when the sermon is no longer the preacher’s but hopefully living on in the people who heard it.
In the smash-hit musical Hamilton, the song “The Room Where It Happens” describes a closed-door meeting that took place among Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Some of you are humming along even as you read this. It’s one of the many catchy tunes in the show. Last weekend, on the Read More...
In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famously quipped, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.” According to religion scholars, more than sixty years later, the assertion remains true.
A well-known proverb among Jewish rabbis goes like this: “An hour spent in study is an hour spent in prayer.” I love that saying, not just because study is important to me as a former seminary professor but because it reminds me that study is a way of praying, of being with Read More...
On August 15, we are returning to in-person worship at our three normal times: 9:01, 10:00, and 11:00. You probably already knew that since we’ve been announcing it over and over. But what you may not know is that another “return” is in the works starting that same day, a return to Read More...
By Dr. Mike Graves, Scholar in Residence and Minister of Spiritual Formation Three years ago this January, the New York Times published an article, “Yale’s Most Popular Course Ever: Happiness.” The course was actually called Psychology and the Good Life, and within six days of being listed for the previous fall semester, Read More...
Most every week when the staff meets, we read an article or excerpt from a book for us to ponder and discuss. Some are heavy, others not so much. Some focus directly on ministry, others on a variety of topics with us having to make our own connections. But there’s always food Read More...
Clarence Jordan was a farmer. Clarence Jordan was a New Testament Greek scholar. Clarence Jordan was a Southern Baptist minister and social activist. Clearly, he was not your ordinary kind of farmer.
By Dr. Mike Graves, Scholar in Residence One of my good friends finished off 2019 by reading his 52nd title of the year. Unless a person’s diet of reading is limited to Dr. Seuss or Daniel Tiger, a book per week is impressive. Of course, my friend is a professor, so reading is part Read More...
By Dr. Mike Graves, Scholar in Residence and Minister of Spiritual Formation If you look up the word communion in the dictionary, the first entry simply reads “sharing,” whereas other entries have the usual religious overtones. Turns out, sharing is precisely what the Greek word means as well, only with definite religious Read More...
By Dr. Mike Graves, Scholar in Residence and Minister of Spiritual Formation It’s not uncommon in her sermons to hear Carla reference a book she’s been reading or a podcast she’s listened to recently, maybe an episode of “The Moth.” It only recently occurred to me that not only are there people Read More...
