The writer of Ephesians is concerned about the sin that is probably the easiest to fall into and the sin that can have the gravest consequences. It is the wrong and the hurt that is done by the words that we say.
More
Our brief scripture reading today comes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and it involves the subject of money — a subject Jesus talked about a lot.
Our reading for today is part of the story of God’s guidance for the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land of Canaan.
At Jesus’ baptism a heavenly voice proclaimed, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17).
What a powerful prayer to pray when our hearts are faint: “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
I will never read this passage of scripture from John without remembering a moment in a class I took on the Johannine literature in the New Testament (The Gospel of John and the Epistles of John) in my senior year of college.
The season of Lent is always a good time to meditate on the images of God we find in scripture, and many of those images are found in the book of Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Jesus was always pointing to the realm of God in his teachings. He was always calling people to live in the realm of God.
What are the greatest difficulties we can face? What seems to have the potential of separating us from the love of God?
Psalm 139 is a scripture that bears repeating often in times of challenge and uncertainty.