BibleWorm

For this second week of Advent we’re reading Ezekiel 37:1–14, Ezekiel’s famous vision of a valley of dry bones. We wonder why God asks Ezekiel whether he thinks the bones can live and why on earth he instructs Ezekiel to prophesy directly to the bones, kind of a ridiculous prophetic task. But as the bones come together with new sinews and new flesh, we recognize the importance of a prophet who can...

This week we are reading Daniel chapter 3 - a story that seems for a while to be moving in the direction of an over-the-top, cartoon worthy adventure, until you get to the utterly arresting, mic-drop statement of faith planted somewhere in the middle. We wonder: In an environment where loyalty to the king has been conflated with loyalty to the king’s god, what does it mean to live a life faithful...

This week we’re reading Jeremiah 29:1-14, a text so hopeful about the future that it is often found on t-shirts and graduation gifts. But while the passage is indeed hopeful—“I know the plans I have for you”—in the context of Jeremiah it is a certain kind of difficult hope: a hope that must first reckon with a tumultuous present reality that will not yield in your generation, or your children’s ge...

On this special episode, Amy talks with Bobby about his new book, Reading the Bible with Brueggemann: Scripture's Power to Remake the World. We discuss the nature of truth, the power of imagination, whether and how Jews and Christians can read the Bible together, and whether or not God exists, among many other things. We also encourage you to buy Bobby's book, which you can find here: https://stor...

This week we are reading Isaiah 9:1-7–a gorgeous and well-known piece of poetry that imagines a shift from darkness to light; a shift from a time where the powers that be weigh down on your shoulders like a yoke, to a time when a new leader will emerge and take that weight upon his own shoulders. These verses invited us to go back to the Hebrew original over and over, and we found quite a treasure...

This week we’re reading Amos 1:1-2 and 5:7-15, 21-24, where we hear the eighth-century prophet Amos critiquing the wealthy elite of ancient Israel for their mistreatment of the poor. We hear the voice of God roaring from Zion, rejecting the worship of the elites and declaring that justice is the precondition for an authentic relationship with God. We struggle with the idea that the wise should kee...

This week we are reading about Elijah’s encounter with God in 1 Kings 19:1-18. We have so many questions. Does Elijah know where he’s going when he heads out into the wilderness, or does some other force draw him toward Horeb, aka mt Sinai? When God asks, “Why are you here, Elijah” -- was God’s tone compassionate, curious, or irritated, or something else? And – when the battles of the world are ex...

This week we’re reading the story of Solomon building the Jerusalem temple as told in 1 Kings 5:1-18 and 8:1-13. We discuss the political alliance between Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre that makes building the temple possible, and wonder whether state-sponsored religion always exploits the poor laborers to satisfy the aims of the wealthy and powerful. We ponder whether and to what degree God resid...

This week we read about the anointing of young David in I Samuel 16:1-13, and a few verses from Psalm 51, set much later in his career, at a time when he clearly was not living up to God’s expectations , and he knew it and grieved it.  We wondered what kind of heart God was looking for when he chose young David to be king? A pure one? A steady one? And what does it mean for us to read the story of...

This week we’re reading the story of the call of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:1-21 in which the young boy Samuel at first confuses the call of God with the voice of his mentor, Eli the priest. We discuss the process through which faith becomes our own as we, like Samuel, learn to distinguish the voice of God from the voice of our predecessors in the faith. But such differentiation can at times lead to con...

Try our Patreon for one month for FREE! Click here:  https://www.patreon.com/BibleWormPodcast/redeem/46A41 This week we are reading the story of the manna in Exod 16:1-18. “Manna from heaven” is synonymous now with some kind of unexpected way that our needs are miraculously met. We all want manna from heaven. But in the story, this miracle looks so strange that the people see it on the ground and...

Try our Patreon for one month for FREE! Click here:  https://www.patreon.com/BibleWormPodcast/redeem/46A41 This week we’re reading the story of Moses’ encounter with God on Sinai as told in Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; and 4:10-17. We notice that in this text, God responds to the cry of the Israelites by first saying, “I’ve come down to rescue the people from Egypt” but then saying, “So you get going....

Try our Patreon for one month for FREE! Click here:  https://www.patreon.com/BibleWormPodcast/redeem/46A41 This week we read stories about Jacob’s young adulthood in Gen 27:1-4 and 15-23, and Gen 28:10-17. We think a lot about the push and pull of driving toward our desired outcomes vs just letting things unfold. How is Rebecca SO sure of what she’s doing? Why does Isaac bless even when he knows h...

Try our Patreon for one month for FREE! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/BibleWormPodcast/redeem/46A41 This week we’re reading one of the most difficult passages in all of scripture, the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 21:1-3 and 22:1-14. After years of waiting, Sarah and Abraham have finally received Isaac, the child promised to them by God. But almost as soon the promise is fu...

Try our Patreon for one month for FREE! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/BibleWormPodcast/redeem/46A41 We are back to the beginning this week, reading Genesis 1:1-2:4-the very first Bible story, the story of creation in 7 days. But come on. Isn’t it really 6 days? In 6 days, God shows us a way of creating in “yes AND” mode–constantly making space for what is breathtakingly new without destroyin...

In this replay from Summer 2024, BibleWorm concludes our summer series on creation care with Ezekiel’s vision of a river of life flowing from the temple as told in Ezekiel 47:1 –12. The prophet Ezekiel, writing from the devastation of the Babylonian exile, envisions a radical re-creation of the world that takes place when God’s glory returns to the Jerusalem temple. What begins as a tiny trickle o...

In this replay from Summer 2024, BibleWorm continues our series on Creation Care, with Leviticus 26:3-22, 34-35, and 40-45.  It's a text that presses the question – what happens when we lose track of the fact that we are part of magnificently interconnected system, and begin to imagine that we can – or even that we must -- function on our own? How does the anxious productivity of humans impact the...

In this replay from Summer 2024, BibleWorm continues our summer series on creation care with Psalm 104, a profound text celebrating the magnificence of creation, which brings joy not only to the human heart but also to all creatures, from the birds in the trees to Leviathan in the deeps of the sea. We even see the celebratory nature of God, who whisks about on the clouds, wearing a fabulous cloak...

In this replay from Summer 2024, BibleWorm continues our summer series on Creation Care with Psalm 65 and special attention to the water. This psalm brings together scenes of prayer and silence, of humans and of nature, and of a God who is the orientation point for all of it. It made us wonder: What if we could see ourselves, for a moment, as almost like a sibling to the water? Both of us oriented...

In this replay from Summer 2024, BibleWorm continues on in our summer series on creation care with Job 38:1-38 in which God speaks to Job from the whirlwind, reminding Job of the beauty, grandeur, and complexity of nature that is beyond human understanding. Where humans were said to have “dominion” over the world in Genesis 1, in Job 38 humans seem almost irrelevant—God guides the constellations;...

In this replay from Summer 2024, BibleWorm begins our summer series on Creation Care with “the” Creation text, Genesis 1. For such a familiar text, it sure did open up a lot of questions for us. How should we think about our place so late in the proverbial line-up – what does it mean to us that God has already issued a commandment directly to the animals before we are here; that we are created on...

This week we conclude our series on Revelation and Resistance with John’s vision of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1-7, 22-27, and 22:1-5. The text presents a moving depiction of God come to earth, dwelling among the people and wiping every tear from their eyes. In a renewed world with no death or suffering, humanity thrives beside the river of living water, eating from the tree of life, relieved...

This week we are reading Revelation chapter 7, a vision that unfolds in the midst of the unsealing of seals and undoing of worlds as we have known them. It’s a vision that seems anchored in the past and the future simultaneously, a vision that evoked for us Ezekiel and Isaiah and Genesis and Kohelet and Exodus and also a also future time when whatever suffering the faithful have endured, they can...

This week we’re continuing our series on Revelation and Resistance with the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2:1-7 and 3:1-22. We note that most of the churches receive both praise and admonition from Jesus, celebrating what they have done well but warning them against their shortcomings. But we also notice that in these letters appearances can be deceiving. Those churches that appear p...

This week we are reading Revelation 5 – the whole thing, which is only 14 powerful verses long. We encounter the image of a scroll covered with words that might change the world as we know it -  but it has been sealed tight, with nobody to open it. We encounter the Lamb, in a series of images that just make no sense – this lamb who is the lion, this lamb who stands as if slaughtered. This slaughte...