God Gives and He Takes Away

I talk about this quite a bit (here, for example), but I don’t think it can be emphasized enough.  It’s very difficult to get people to listen to your theology, your theories about how God works.  It’s much easier to get them to listen–and understand–when they hear your story. Psalm 107 from this week’s lectionary…

Scripture:  Matthew 25:14-30, especially 24-27.  Partially cross-posted from Jody’s Devotionals. I’m interested in knowing just what meets God’s disapproval. We all have our ideas on this, which often involve truly despicable and perverted behavior according to our cultural standards. But sometimes the Bible will shock us and make us stop and think. This thought was…

This week’s gospel reading is Matthew 25:31-46.  There will be plenty of sermons preached on serving one’s neighbor and how this is serving Christ himself.  There will also be quite a number preached on the judgment and how we will stand in it.  I have already written a bit about how the texts today would…

I have posted a devotional to my wife’s devotional list under this same title.  It includes a partial translation of the Old Testment lectionary for this week (Christ the King Sunday) and some meditations on Judgment.  Read it at Jody’s Devotionals.

I want to focus on just one line of text.  In 1 Kings 3:5, God tells Solomon to ask God what God should give Solomon. It’s a simple enough question.  Most of us remember the answer.  Solomon wants wisdom.  God decides to give him wisdom and lots of riches as well. As I reflect on…

The story in Mark 8:31-38 fascinates me because the disciples were, in one sense, so right, yet they were so wrong.  What we often forget is that there was good reason for the disciples to expect the Messiah to take over the throne of David immediately, to rescue their nation from the Romans, and to…