BibleWorm

This week we’re reading Philippians 1:1–18, in which the apostle Paul gives thanks to the church in Philippi for their friendship and ongoing support of his ministry. Paul writes this letter from prison where, predictably, Paul is not wallowing in self-pity but continues his mission, even converting the Praetorian Guard. We wrestle with Paul’s insistence that any proclamation of the Gospel is valu...

This week we are reading Acts 17:16-34, a story of Paul biding his time in Athens and engaging with the beliefs and culture of the local people there. Though he’s upset by their use of idols, this distress doesn't lead our notoriously hotheaded Paul to smash any idols or overturn any tables – he goes instead to conversation with a wide range of people.  Is he being earnest or savvy in his way of s...

This week we’re reading Acts 16:16-40, where we encounter both the best and worst of the apostle Paul. On the one hand we find the feisty and faithful Paul, who, when arrested by the authorities, does not succumb to fear or anger but instead, there in the darkest part of the prison, turns to prayer and song, which radiates out to the other prisoners, strengthening their souls to resist the oppress...

This week we move on from the Gospel of John to the book of Acts, which will take us through these next weeks from Easter to Pentecost, or, on the Jewish calendar, from Pesach to Shavuot. Today we read Acts 9:1-19a. We meet Saul, a young, zealous, pretty aggressive guy, who seems an unlikely fellow to be tasked with leadership in the characteristically peaceful movement of Jesus. But tasked he sha...

This week we’re finishing our study of the Gospel of John with the story of Thomas as told in John 20:19-31. While Thomas is remembered in the tradition for his disbelief, he is in fact the first person in the Gospel of John to confess that Jesus is God, making him a model of belief rather than doubt. But for Thomas to reach that conclusion, both he and the other disciples had to remain committed...

This week, as we approach Easter Sunday, we are reading John 20:1-18, the story of the unfolding discovery by the disciples that Jesus has been resurrected. We wonder – why did Mary feel such urgency to be near Jesus’s body – or maybe the question is, why didn’t the other disciples feel it? What is the connection between this resurrection and that of Lazarus? Could it be that Lazarus himself, who...

For this special episode we’re reading the Narrative Lectionary texts for both Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in John 19:23-42. The text opens with two starkly different scenes set at the foot of the cross where Jesus is dying. On the one side, Roman soldiers gamble to see who gets to keep Jesus’s nice garment, indifferent to the agony of the one they are executing. At the same time, on the other...

This week, for Palm Sunday, we are juxtaposing two texts, set less than a week apart, but with a veritable eternity between them: Jesus’s celebrated entry into Jerusalem in John 12:12-27, and his crucifixion later that same week, in John 19:16b-22.  Both texts are powerful, but the juxtaposition of them holds them each in new light. We feel the jubilant joy and hope in John 12, but we notice now t...

This week we’re reading a painfully difficult text, the continuation of Jesus’s trial before Pilate as told in John 19:1-16a. Here we find the religious leaders coercing Pilate into executing Jesus by accusing him of disloyalty to the Empire. “We have no king but the emperor,” they say, betraying the very essence of their religious faith. This text serves as a caution for us about the ways proximi...

Today we are reading John 18:28-40 - Jesus has been brought to the Roman authority by the religious authorities, and *all* the authorities mostly seem eager to make this situation go away. The story made us wonder - Why is it so very hard to speak what is true? How can it be that the intersection of religion and political power in this story seems to make it even harder? We might think that in a c...

This week we’re reading Peter’s denial of Jesus as told in John 18:12-27. In what may be one of the most challenging discussions we’ve ever had, we discuss the moral injury that accrues, for Peter and for ourselves, when we encounter the gap between who we thought we were and who we turn out to be in life’s most challenging moments. We think about the incremental decisions that lead Peter to denyi...

Today we are reading John 13:1-17, the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples as they head into the day before Passover.  The story is just steeped in relationship – Jesus's relationship to God as he prepares to return to God, and Jesus’s deep connection to the people who are here with him on earth. How do these things fit together? Why does Jesus’s awareness of the power he derives from...

This week we’re reading the story of the raising of Lazarus as told in John 11:1-53. We think about the disciples, so keenly aware of the threat to Jesus’s life but willing to follow him anyway, living in the light for as long as there is light to live in. And we ponder Mary’s words that bring Jesus to tears, as she invites him to experience the realities of human death and sorrow, saying to him w...

For our Ash Wednesday episode, we are reading John 10:1-18 and, I’m not going to lie, wishing we had a lot more experience with sheep herding and sheep folds. We wonder – who are these robbers and thieves climbing over the fence, and what kind of fence is this if robbers and thieves can just skip the gate entirely? What difference does it make that the shepherd walks out ahead of the flock, where...

This week we’re reading the rich and challenging story of Jesus healing a man blind from birth, as told in John 9:1-41. The story begins by rejecting the common theology that suffering is a result of sin, insisting instead that this man coming to see is to be a revelation of the glory of God. Yet by the end of the story, we discover not only that this blind man has recovered his sight but also tha...

Our reading today is John 4:46-54 and 5:1-18 – the first healing stories we’ll read this season. And in this time when access to healthcare seems like its own miracle, stories that really struck us both. We remember the signs and wonders of Exodus, and their importance in building a lasting faith for the people, as we see Jesus offer signs and wonders of a different kind. We imagine what it would...

This week we’re reading the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, as told in John 4:1-42. Here we find a story about a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman, from communities that have hated each other for centuries, finding common ground at the well of their mutual ancestor, Jacob. We notice that their interaction starts out tensely, shifting only when Jesus takes the time to see her dee...

Our reading today is John 3:1-21 ... and it contains within it what is probably the most famous of all biblical verses, John 3:16–for God so loved the world. We find the verse in a story about a man who is drawn to Jesus and seeks him out, but struggles mightily-almost comically-to understand what he’s saying. How do the story and the verse each help us to read the other more fully? What do love,...

This week we’re reading the story of Jesus disrupting Temple commerce during the festival of Passover as told in John 2:13-25. Unlike the other Gospels, which place this story at the end of Jesus’s ministry, John places it at the very beginning, just after Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine in Cana. If that story had led us to think that Jesus was going to be all “yes,” this story puts us s...

This week we’re reading John 2:1-11, the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding -his first miraculous sign in the Gospel of John, and an unusual place to start. Jesus himself objects to his mother’s subtle suggestion that he ought to take action when she sees the wine has run out. I mean, come on - the stakes here are not that high. So the party-goers will be disappointed, so the host...

This week we’re reading John’s version of the call of the disciples as told in John 1:35-51. Unlike the Synoptic story of Jesus beckoning Peter, James, and John from their fishing boats, this version of the call of the disciples is more subtle and variable. Two disciples follow Jesus because they’re curious, one because his brother invites him. One gets a direct call from Jesus and another is skep...

This week we move past the introductory material and into the story itself with John 1:19-34. It begins with John – John the Baptist, that is, who is indeed out there baptizing people, but he himself could hardly be more clear that what he’s doing is really not the point. What we should attune to is this lamb of God who is apparently right here among us. What does it mean to call Jesus the Lamb of...

On this special Christmas Eve episode we’re discussing the birth of Jesus as told in Luke 2:1-20. We talk about the imperial setting of this story, which takes place during the reigns of Augustus, Herod, and Quirinius but announces the good news of a different lord and savior who brings peace to all rather than to the few. We ponder the way that the message makes its way into the world—through an...

For this fourth week of Advent we’re making the move to the New Testament with John 1:1-18, which describes the Word becoming flesh to dwell among us. We think about what it means for God to become flesh, and how lonely it must be to exist in a world where there is none like you, both a human and a divine being. We discuss the darkness of the ways of Empire, oriented toward death, which cannot com...

For this 3rd week of advent and our last week in the Hebrew scriptures, we are reading the gorgeous words of Isaiah 55. This text starts us out in these bodies we’ve been given, these bodies that need water and food, and joy, and God. Why do we consume so many things that don’t fill us up? How have things gone so haywire? What if we could just trust that there is a much bigger system we are being...