“Four Hundred and Thirty Years Too Late” The math is what keeps Paul calm in the middle of his fury. The teachers in Galatia were arguing as though the law was the older, more permanent thing and the promise was a recent addition that needed to be brought back under the law’s authority. Paul reverses […]
# Day 39 — The Father of All Comfort “Treasure in Clay Jars” Two images run through the letter. The first is a triumphal procession — the Roman victory parade, with priests swinging incense down the streets. Paul says we are part of that procession, and the air around us smells different because of it.
“You Are Christ’s Body” Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 12 has two halves. The first half is for the people who feel small in the room: if the foot should say, because I am not the hand, I do not belong to the body. The second half is for the people who feel big: the
“The Righteous by Faith Will Live” Romans is built on a word: therefore. Romans 5:1: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Romans 8:1: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 12:1: Therefore, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Paul does not pile
“You Will Receive Power” If the disciples kept the count, then on the day we are calling Day 36 they were doing what we are doing — reading their lives against fifty days they had been told mattered. The difference is that for them the count had been happening for sixteen hundred years. Every spring,
“The Word Became Flesh and Made His Dwelling Among Us” John’s gospel is the gospel of presence. Where the other gospels show what Jesus did, John shows where Jesus stayed. He stays at a wedding when the wine runs out. He stays with Nicodemus through a long late-night conversation. He stays at the well in
“He Has Anointed Me to Preach Good News to the Poor” The poor, in Luke’s gospel, are not only the financially poor. They are the people the world has stopped seeing. The Samaritan woman at the well had a body, a history, a mind, a soul, a community standing — and most people in her
“Not to Be Served, but to Serve” James and John did not get it. They came to Jesus with a request: when the kingdom comes, can we sit at your right and your left? They wanted in on the seating chart. Jesus answered with the verse Mark placed at the heart of his book. The
“The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand” The promise-plan that began in Genesis converges here. Every covenant — Abraham, Moses, David, the new covenant of Jeremiah and Ezekiel — was preparing the ground for this announcement. And the announcement is not first about ethics or doctrine or what to do about sin. It is about
“The Desired of All Nations” “Despise not the day of small things” is the underlying logic of all three of these short books. The temple looked small. The community looked small. The future looked small. And God’s response was: you have no idea what I am preparing. The thing being built in front of you