As a city girl, I sometimes get frustrated by the rural imagery that is used in our worship. I agree that green pastures and still waters can be good for the...

The book of Revelation delivers messages of judgment, but the passage that we read today offers a vision of peace, not only among humans but for the entire creation. This peaceful...

At the beginning of today’s reading, Saul is breathing threats and murder. He is hunting followers of Christ to take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. (Saul’s plan sounds eerily similar to...

After Jesus directs Simon Peter to care for his lambs and sheep, Jesus concludes his conversation with some straight talk about the likely outcome. Simon Peter might die as a result...

Jesus’ appearance in John 21 encapsulates his teaching about what it means to follow him. He has given the disciples instructions about how to fish, and then he cares for them...

Waking up in my grandparents’ house to the smell of breakfast cooking is a favorite childhood memory. My grandparents lived in Philadelphia, where scrapple is a regional breakfast food. This pan-fried...

Can we go fishing?” my thirteen-year-old daughter, Ellen, asks quite often. Her requests are usually last-minute ones, but I try to go whenever possible. I am her ride, the one who...

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” (NIV). In 2020, the year of COVID-19 and the killing of George Floyd, “having breath” became an unexpectedly urgent issue. Floyd said that...

We must obey God rather than human beings!” (NIV). How do we discern the relation of Christian belief and spirituality to human authority? Jews in New Testament times already wrestled with...

Speaking to the authorities, Peter summarized the message of the earliest church this way: “God exalted [Jesus] at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to...