Commentary posted on January 25, 2016

Epiphany 4C Sermon Commentary

 

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Luke 4:21-30 Sermon Commentary

Epiphany 4C

I confess that I don’t quite understand this passage. Or at least I don’t understand how it turns out. It’s not so much what is contained in this Lectionary snippet of verses 14-21 as in what follows when the people in the synagogue turn on Jesus with a murderous ferocity.  After all, Luke 4:15 assures…

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Psalm 71:1-6 Sermon Commentary

Epiphany 4C

Psalm 71 seems to be an elderly person’s plea for God’s help in dealing with his enemies. While some scholars see this as aging King David’s prayer, the identity of the psalm’s author is not essential to the psalm. In fact, James Mays calls its language “plastic.” By that he seems to suggest that the…

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1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Sermon Commentary

Epiphany 4C

For this 4th Sunday after Epiphany, the lectionary returns for a 3rd time in a row to Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, particularly this section focused on the divisions in that church created by their abuse of spiritual gifts. Having emphasized that all the gifts come from the same Spirit for the common good…

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Jeremiah 1:4-10 Sermon Commentary

Epiphany 4C

My wife mentions this semi-often. For her, it’s a combination of envy and consternation. The issue is vocation, “calling,” and it crops up in conversation between the two of us whenever someone asks me once again to tell my “call story” to be a minister or in case some other preacher—in the course of a…

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