BibleWorm

This week BibleWorm reads Isaiah 9:1-7, which celebrates the arrival of a righteous king to restore the people. We talk about the anxiety of walking in darkness and the joy that comes when dawn finally breaks. We discuss the experience of oppression, bearing the yoke of hard labor and the rod of the stern ruler and contrast that with the arrival of a new king who breaks the rod and who bears autho...

This week we move into the world of prophecy and poetry with Amos 1:1-2 and 5:14-15 and 18-24. We situate Amos’s call to hate evil and love good within his broader message of economic justice. We make ourselves the audience of this prophecy, and sit with the idea that if we keep taking more than we need as we go about our daily lives,  any real communion with God through worship or through ritual...

This week Bobby and Amy read 1 Kings 19:1-18, the story of Elijah’s encounter with God on Mount Horeb. We talk about Elijah’s journey into the wilderness and God’s miraculous offering of bread for the difficult journey ahead. We think about God’s appearance to Elijah as a “still small voice” and wonder why God sometimes appears as a pillar of fire but here as a nearly inaudible whisper. And we wre...

This week Amy and Bobby read 1 Kings 5:1-6 13-18 and 8:1-13, the story of the Temple’s construction. We think a lot about the messy intermingling of self-interest and service to God or to the good, in Solomon’s time and today, and we appreciate that while the text doesn’t comment on it, it doesn’t try to hide it, either. We see the need to be suspicious about the way that religion can be manipulat...

This week we read 1 Samuel 16:1-13 and Psalm 51:10-14, the story of David’s anointing and David’s prayer of contrition. We talk about the odd mixture of the religious and the political that permeates both this text and our own lives. We ponder the claim that God looks on the human heart rather than the outer appearance and wonder exactly what kind of heart God might be looking for. And we wrestle...

This week BibleWorm reads 1 Sam 3:1-21, where Samuel in his youth is first called by God. We are enamored of this text where the prophet doesn’t realize it is God talking, and we reflect on the role of our community and our mentors in recognizing the divine voice … or to gut check us when it might just be indigestion. We are moved by the loving and complex relationship between young Samuel and his...

This week Bobby and Amy talk about Exodus 16:1-18, the story of manna in the wilderness. We’re only 6 weeks out of slavery in Egypt, and already the people are anxious about where their next meal is going to come from. We talk about the pernicious power of economies of accumulation, which convince us that there is not enough, turning our neighbors into competitors. We talk about the nature of mira...

This week we read Exod 2:23-25  3:1-15  4:10-17 -- stories of the earliest days in God and Moses’s relationship. We are struck that it is a full throated and raw cry that draws God’s attention back to God’s own covenented people.  We are humbled to witness the sharing of God’s actual name, and how it both has particularity and intimacy that the title “God” does not, and how it is itself as broad i...

On this special episode of BibleWorm we talk with Dr. Brent Strawn, professor of Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School and the author of Lies My Preacher Told Me: An Honest Look at the Old Testament from Westminster John Knox Press. We discuss common misunderstandings Christians may have about the Hebrew Scriptures and how a better of understanding of the Scripture can enrich both the l...

This week we find ourselves in Genesis 27 and 28, the stories of Jacob deceiving Isaac to receive his blessing and Jacob’s late night encounter with God at Bethel. We wonder at the ways of God, who works outside of human systems of privilege, blessing the younger son over the older and prophesying through the mother rather than the father. We struggle with the deception of Rebekah and Jacob and wh...

This week we read Genesis 21:1-3 and 22:1-14, the harrowing account of God’s command that Abraham sacrifice his long awaited and much-beloved son and heir, Isaac. In a text that is so fraught by the very nature of its plot, there is so much left unsaid. We sense deep connection and togetherness between Abraham and Isaac, even as Abraham moves toward fulfilling this terrible thing. We wonder as mod...

This week we begin Season 3 of BibleWorm by going allllll the way back to the beginning of creation as told in Genesis 1:1–2:4a. We talk about the amazing generosity of God, who not only creates but beckons forth the creativity of others—humans, animals, and the earth. We discuss the creation of humankind in God’s image and ask what it means to have dominion over a creation that God has called goo...

On this episode from August 2, 2020, BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible with a look at Esther 1:1-22, the story of the Persian Queen Vashti and her refusal to appear before the king. We discuss the fragile egos of the king and his courtiers who fear the capacity of women to say no. We talk about the power of the patriarchy and the lengths it will go to to sup...

On this Episode from July 26, 2020, BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible with a look at Esther 1:1-22, the story of the Persian Queen Vashti and her refusal to appear before the king. We discuss the fragile egos of the king and his courtiers who fear the capacity of women to say no. We talk about the power of the patriarchy and the lengths it will go to to supp...

On this episode from July 19, 2020, BibleWorm explores Ruth chapters 1 and 3, trying to imagine Ruth’s own perspective and calling out some of the ways that the book portrays painful parts of the immigrant experience. We see how the scene at the threshing floor plays on the worst stereotypes of Moabite women, and how Ruth’s beautiful statement of loyalty to Naomi also carries with it an erasure of...

On this episode from July 12, 2020, BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible, with a look at the book of Ruth 2:1-20 and 4:9-17. We look at the way the book of Ruth challenges anti-immigrant sentiment in the time of Ezra-Nehemiah and in our own day. We discuss how the book lifts up the foundational contributions of Ruth the Moabite, whose persistence saves the fami...

On this episode from July 5, 2020, BibleWorm continues our study of the Song of Songs, learning more about the awesome and fearsome passion of our young lovers, and seeing the jarring ways in which the world around them - well, to be more specific, the men around them - seeks to control that passion. And in case you weren’t sufficiently challenged to read this as both erotic poetry and an allegory...

On this episode from June 28, 2020, BibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible, turning our attention to Song of Songs 1:12-2:6 and 7:1-13. We wonder at the presence of erotic love poetry in the biblical canon and wrestle what it means for our understanding of bodies, sexuality, and God. We explore themes of sexual empowerment, invitation and consent, and the joy of...

On this episode from June 21, 2020, BibleWorm continues our study of Lamentations, meeting an individual survivor in chapter 3 and hearing the voice of the community in chapter 5. We raise up the differences between this individual man’s relationship to his suffering compared to what we heard from Daughter Zion last episode, and look expectantly to the communal voice to tell us which perspective i...

On this episode from June 14, 2020, ibleWorm continues our summer series on the Forgotten Books of the Bible with Lamentations 1:8-22 and 2:10-22. Written in the wake of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, Lamentations presents the community’s response to trauma given in multiple voices. This week we look at the voice of the funeral singer, a bystander who has witnessed the trauma...

On this episode from June 7, 2020, BibleWorm continues our look at Ecclesiastes, focusing on 1:4-11 and 3:1-11. We ask ourselves—is it really true there is nothing new under the sun? We look at that most famous poem “To everything there is a season,” and see exactly why you’d best not look at only the net total of life’s experiences. And we wonder what Qohelet might say about issues of justice in...

In this episode from May 31, 2020, we return to our summer series on the Hebrew Festival Scrolls with a look at Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 and 8:16-9:10. We discuss Qohelet’s idea that everything is mere breath and ask what it means to live in a world where nothing adds up to much of anything. We talk about the inscrutability of God and why good people often suffer while the wicked get all the rewards. We...

On this last week of the narrative lectionary season, we read Acts 2:1-4 and Galatians 5:16-26. We appreciate the way that Paul draws out and builds upon imagery and tradition from the Hebrew Bible at this moment of new community formation -- the winds, the fire, the role of language, all on the Jewish holiday that marks the giving of Torah at Sinai. We continue to wrestle a bit with the balance i...

This week we continue our foray into Paul’s understanding of faith and Torah with Galatians 3:1-9 and 23-29. We discuss the relative roles of faith and practice in the drama of salvation and wonder whether finding God is like waiting at the bus stop hoping the God buss will roll by. We notice Paul’s appeal to the faith of Abraham and ask whether others can be faithful to God without knowing Jesus....

This week, we read Galatians chapter 1:13-17 and 2:11-21. It’s a challenging set of texts for an interfaith podcast, and a set of texts with a troubled history in the Jewish-Christian relationship. As we read, we wondered - what is the role of faith and of action in our relationship to God? When is the uniqueness of each person important, and when should we look past difference to similarity?