Author: Administrador

Notes (and hymns) for a six-part preaching series on the Psalms1 This worship and preaching series on the psalms is meant to move through the psalms in a manner that reflects both how the Psalter progresses, but also in a manner that reflects how we actually experience life. With regard to how the Psalter progresses, … Continue reading “Drinking Deeply from the Psalms (Part I) Commentary by Rolf Jacobson”

Drinking Deeply from the Psalms Commentary and hymns for a six-part preaching series on the Psalms.1 This worship and preaching series on the Psalms is meant to move through six psalms in a manner that reflects how believers actually experience the life of faith. The series loosely follows Walter Brueggemann’s typology that in life we … Continue reading “Psalm 1:1-6 Commentary by Rolf Jacobson”

How fascinating: the book of Psalms, the prayer book of the Bible, the hymnal of ancient Israel, opens with a poem about ethics, lifestyle, and decisions. It is as if the secret tip is being shared before we bother praying or worshiping. The goal is a changed life. God requires a decision, it’s black and … Continue reading “Psalm 1 Commentary by James Howell”

“Why do they keep messing with my Bible?” I chuckled at this exasperated question following an adult forum on Bible translations that I was leading in one of our local congregations. Upon asking for more specificity, I was deluged with the likes of “When did the Red Sea become the Reed Sea?”; “What’s wrong with … Continue reading “Psalm 1 Commentary by Mark Throntveit”

Albeit an unlikely starting point, the place to begin any discussion of this short psalm is at the poem’s end:            for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,            but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:6, NRSV) The contrast could not be starker. The LORD oversees … Continue reading “Psalm 1 Commentary by Walter C. Bouzard”

Scripture compares humans to trees far more often than contemporary discourse does. Isaiah, for instance, warns the unjust that they will be “like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water” (1:30). At rumors of an invasion, Ahaz and his royal family “shook as the trees of the forest shake before the … Continue reading “Psalm 1 Commentary by Patricia Tull”

The poets and compilers of the Book of Psalms were clearly in touch with a perennial human issue — happiness. “Happy” is the very first word in the Psalter, and the repetition of “Happy” in Psalm 2:12 provides an envelope-structure for the two psalms that introduce the book. Given this introductory function, it is not … Continue reading “Psalm 1 Commentary by J. Clinton McCann”

[This is Week 6 of a 6-week preaching series on 2 Corinthians.] Week 6 (June 26, 2016)          Preaching text: 2 Cor 8:1-15; accompanying text: John 13:31-35 Theme: Generosity  As we have seen, Paul’s ministry was about a “word” of reconciliation that could only be authentically embodied in a life of “service” freely given for others. … Continue reading “6-week preaching series on Job.]

Psalms

Psalm 1

Psalm 1 Commentary by Paul K.-K. Cho”

[This is Week 6 of a 6-week preaching series on Job.] Week 6 Job 42:7-17 In the last chapter of the book, Job is commended by God for speaking “to me rightly” (42:7-8; a better translation than “of me what is right.”) Job, unlike his friends, has continued to speak to God rather than just … Continue reading “Job 42:7-17 Commentary by Kathryn M. Schifferdecker”

In some ways I kind of hate the ending of Job, at least the very, very end. Here, after all his struggling with suffering and faith and the apparent absence of God, the story raps up with Job getting it all back, twice over.  I struggle with the ending because it almost seems to undo … Continue reading “Job 42:1-6, 10-17 Commentary by Karl Jacobson”