Today’s readings: 2 Samuel 1:1-16; Acts 15:22-35 Mark 6:1-13 Today’s text seems like two stories: Jesus rejected by his home town, and Jesus sending out the twelve. Upon closer look, it is indeed one. Jesus says a prophet is not without honor except in his home town. Then he sends his disciples to preach the gospel

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 31:1-13; Acts 15:12-21; Mark 5:21-43 When I was very young, I volunteered to serve on an altar guild. I lasted only one month. Unbeknownst to me, the altar guild duties included cleaning the bathrooms and hauling out the garbage. I got critiqued strongly for not doing that. It was not a training

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 28:3-20; Acts 15:1-11; Mark 5:1-20 When I was in high school I was invited to join the Order of the Rainbow for Girls. This is a secret society for teenage girls, an offshoot of Master Masons and Eastern Star. Socially awkward and on the lower end of the economic scale in my

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 25:23-44; Acts 14:19-28; Mark 4:35-41 Jesus and his disciples were caught in a storm out on the water in a small boat—not the perfect place to be. Many of the disciples were fishermen who knew that the Sea of Galilee was renowned for this type of storm. More often than not, things

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 25:1-22; Acts 14:1-18; Mark 4:21-34 Once, while making a presentation on Christian leadership, a man interrupted as soon as I began speaking. He wanted me to begin with a definition of “Christian leadership.” I asked him to wait, promising we would get to it. He did not seem pleased; he wanted that

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 24:1-22; Acts 13:44-52; Mark 4:1-20 I would venture to say that all of us have been wronged at one time or another. Moreover, most of us have had opportunity to strike the perpetrator back and return the harm done to us. However, as God’s people we are not to return evil for

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 23:7-18; Romans 11:33–12:2; Matthew 25:14-30 Believe it or not, the parable of the talents is not about money. As it is in so many churches, we read this parable and immediately think about the talents rather than the servants. Two of the servants entrusted with talents quickly go to work producing more

Today’s readings: 1 Samuel 22:1-23; Acts 13:26-43; Mark 3:19b-35 When was the last time someone begged you to share the gospel of Christ? In today’s reading, those who hear the story of Jesus, implore Paul and Barnabas to return the next Sabbath so that they may hear the story again. They have heard the story once,