Lectionary Reflection for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This excerpt comes from Psalms for All Seasons, commenting on Psalm 1:

Psalm 1 describes and contrasts two pathways: righteousness and wickedness. Such imagery recurs throughout the psalms and other parts of the Bible (e.g., Jer. 17:5-8).

Like Pss. 19 and 119, it celebrates the significance of God’s law as a source of wisdom and blessing. Early church theologian Jerome called this “the main entrance to the mansion of the Psalter.”

Much of what follows in the Psalter either expresses or appeals to its message.

 

A prayer for reflection:

Lord our God, giver of blessing and judgment, your Son Jesus lived the only true life.
Because of him, we can know you, love you, and delight in you.
Keep us watered by your grace and rooted in your Spirit
so that our ears will hear your voice and our feet will follow your path,
giving glory to you alone. Amen.

 

©2012 Faith Alive Christian Resources. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Lectionary Reflection for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 3, 2012 By

This excerpt comes from Psalms for All Seasons, commenting on Psalm 22:

Psalm 22 is a poignant individual lament and cry for help (vv. 1-21) which, after a dramatic pivot, concludes with a hymn of praise (vv. 22-31). This hymn is a beautiful psalm in itself, paying special attention to God’s provision for the weak and needy (vv. 24, 26) and speaking of the praise of God that future generations will offer (v. 31).

Psalms 22 and 23, when taken together, form a beautiful triptych that moves from restless lament through restorative praise to calm trust. Christians frequently approach Ps. 22 Christologically, especially because two of its verses are quoted in the gospel narrative of Jesus’ suffering and death (vv. 1, 18).

 

A prayer for reflection:

Merciful God, some of your children are joyfully singing your praise.
Others are languishing in despair.
Through Jesus you are acquainted with our grief
and in him we have resurrection hope.
Bind up those who are broken, bless those who are dying, shield those who are joyous, and lead us all to your house, where we may feast together at your table. Amen.

 

©2012 Faith Alive Christian Resources. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Lectionary Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 26, 2012 By

From Genesis (BTCB) by R. R. Reno, commenting on Genesis 7:12 (alternative for Church of England):

The first feature of the flood is that divine intervention prevents sin from spiraling to its conclusion. The destructive power of the water turns back the corruptive power of evil, and in this way the flood prevents sin from descending all the way into nothingness. In an important sense, therefore, just as the garments of skin and expulsion from the garden are punishments that protect human beings from the full force of their sinful decisions, so also does the flood block the realization of the future promised in the covenant of Satan’s lie.

Furthermore, as the use of forty days (or years) throughout scripture suggests, the rains sent by God last for the standard period for purgation and purification: “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps. 51:7). This link between purgative destruction and salvation culminates in the saving death of Jesus Christ. Written in a context of persecution, the author of 1 Peter describes the trials of the faithful as tests of fire that purify the soul (1 Pet. 1:7, 22). In these trials, the suffering of Christ serves as an example (2:21). He is the one who, “when he was reviled, . . . did not revile in return” (2:23). The application is clear: the faithful are to resist the temptation to return evil for evil. Like Noah in the ark and Jesus in the wilderness, they should patiently endure affliction for the sake of righteousness.

Yet, there is a decisive twist that distinguishes Jesus from Noah and his ark. Jesus Christ does not endure death simply as a trial; his death brings life. For “by his wounds,” writes the author of 1 Peter, echoing Isa. 53, “you have been healed.” His death took place so “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:24). Christ even “went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water” (3:19–20).

It is as if, when the waters begin to rise, Christ leaps from the ark and dives into the destroying flood of death so that he can reach all the way to the bottom and rescue those drowning in the covenant of the lie. Perhaps the imagery breaks down at this point, because Christ and the church are the ark into which the faithful are incorporated. The author if 1 Peter presumes this shift: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you” (3:21)—although this assertion of allegorical correspondence is itself complex and plays across different aspects of Noah’s story. Baptism is both immersion in Christ’s death (a recapitulation of his dive into the waters of destruction) and incorporation into his risen life (a first draught of the water of life).

©2010 by R. R. Reno. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Lectionary Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter

April 19, 2012 By

From Luke (BTCB; forthcoming) by David Lyle Jeffrey, commenting on Luke 24: 36b-48:

But even while they are in this joyous exchange, flushed with the excitement and wonder of it all, suddenly Jesus is standing “in the midst of them” and saying, “Peace to you” (24:36). Despite the collective witness of previous encounters with the risen Lord, they are “terrified and affrighted” (ptoeō and emphobos—the doubling indicates extremity of apprehensive emotion) and think he is a ghost (24:37). As so often, he calms them down: “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?” (24:38). He points to his hands and his feet, inviting them to touch him, “for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (24:39). When he does this (24:40), they can scarcely believe for their joy and wonderment (thaumazō has the sense we employ when we refer to something wonderful as “fantastic” or “incredible,” not meaning the word literally but hyperbolically for something so marvelous our minds cannot take it in).

Luke here is as emphatic about the physicality of the resurrected body of Jesus as Paul will be later (1 Cor. 15:35–49); it is of the essence of what he is showing to have happened that every expectation of mortal nature in death has been broken through, the corruptible body having been restored and now, recognizably flesh and bones, yet an entirely new phenomenon. It can scarcely be overstressed how contrary Luke and Paul are to modernist metaphorizing and sidestepping of this absolute foundation of Christian faith and hope. John Updike, himself a modern and no pietist, nevertheless underscores this point beautifully in a poem directed against the evasive liberalism of many theologians when he insists that Jesus’s bodily resurrection is the lynch-pin of any plausible Christian future: “if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules / reknit, the amino acids rekindle,” he says, “the Church will fall.” […]

Luke would have liked Updike’s poem for the way in which it so unequivocally grasps just how real Jesus’s resurrection body is. Jesus asks for something to eat; the dumbfounded disciples give him “fish and some honeycomb,” and he sits down in front of them and eats, as I think we may reliably imagine, with relish (Luke 24:42–43). Once again, as with the angels and the women, he reminds them all of what he has previously said to them, “that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me” (24:44). He has come to “fulfill the law and the prophets,” and he has. Here too we have his clear indication that all of the scriptures—Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketubim—have spoken of the earth-shattering events to which they have been witnesses; he “open[s] their understanding,” as he had done in Emmaus, “that they might comprehend the Scriptures” (24:45). This is another, living demonstration of the real presence of Christ in his word. It was necessary for this fulfillment, the consolation of Israel for which so many for so long had yearned, that Christ, the Messiah of God, should “suffer and . . . rise from the dead the third day” (24:46).

But now a further fulfillment is necessary, namely that preaching his call to repentance and promise of the forgiveness of sins should take place “to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (24:47). And these very followers are first among those called to the apostolic task, to be “witnesses” of all that has happened and of its meaning (24:48).

©2012 by David Lyle Jeffrey. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Lectionary Reflection for the Easter Vigil Liturgy

April 5, 2012 By

From Ezekiel (BTCB) by Robert W. Jenson, commenting on Ezekiel 37:1-14:

Ezekiel 37:1–14 is undoubtedly the most famous passage in Ezekiel’s book: besides inspiring a popular song, it is prominent in both Jewish and Christian iconography and has been endlessly debated in Jewish and Christian exegesis and speculation (Zimmerli 1983: 263–65). I will declare my own enthusiasm immediately: the vision of Israel as dry bones and the promise of the bones’ resurrection are from a certain Christian point of view the effective culmination of Ezekiel’s prophecy and book, and indeed of the Old Testament.

For it has come to this: Israel as a whole and as such (37:11) is—as Ezekiel so often threatened—well and truly dead, a strewing of remains no longer even skeletal, so definitely of the past that the bones have separated and preserve no personal identities—no one can even point and say, “Alas, poor . . . I knew him well.” The word of Gen. 2:17 has finally been fulfilled: the clash between God’s will for his human creatures, by which alone they live, and their refusal to follow that will, has been worked out in the history of Israel and has come to its inevitable conclusion.

Is then what the Lord here shows Ezekiel what it appears to be, the irreversible end of Israel’s history with the Lord? And that is, of the bearer of the Lord’s history with all humanity? Can Israel rise again? Indeed, can humanity, dependent for its specific being on the Lord’s presence in history, live as what it was created to be? The Lord puts the question to Ezekiel: “Son of a man, what do you think? Can the dead live again?”

Ezekiel has no answer; this knowledge is beyond a son of a man. But Ezekiel does know that the Lord is the giver of life; our passage is pervaded by reminiscence of the Lord’s first vivification of humankind (Gen. 2:7). And he knows that therefore the Lord can answer the question yes or no as he chooses. So he throws the question back.

For answer he receives an implicit yes: a command to prophesy life to the dead. Even in the nonbeing of death the bones can hear him, because the word given the prophet is the same word that gives being and life in the first place, that addresses precisely “things that are not” (1 Cor. 1:28). Thus Ezekiel is to do nothing less than speak the dead back to life (Ezek. 37:4–6): we arrive at the extreme possibility of the prophets’ general assignment “to pluck up and to pull down, . . . to build and to plant” ( Jer. 1:9–10). In the vision, Ezekiel speaks as commanded and the dead are raised (Ezek. 37:7–10).

©2009 by Robert Jenson. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

Filed Under: Lectionary Reflections

Lenten Season Lectio Divina Series: Paul

April 3, 2012 By

This is the sixth and final entry in our Lenten series of posts taken from Stephen Binz’s Ancient-Future Bible Study: Experience Scripture through Lectio Divina.  See our previous entries:

Week One: Abraham: “Ancestor of All”

Week Two:  David: “The Shepherd Who Is Also King”

Week Three:  Sarah: “Listen to Sarah, the Quarry of Encouragement”

Week Four: Peter: “From Crumbled Failure to Rock of Strength”

Week Five: Pilate’s Wife: “A Forgotten Advocate for Jesus”

Be sure to check out our videos that further explain this terrific series.

This week, we are posting a study from the introduction to Binz’s volume Paul: Apostle to All the Nations.

Crossing Boundaries and Removing Barriers

Lectio

Read this verse, which summarizes the heart of Paul’s teaching, as if he were addressing you directly. Expect these words to impact your mind and heart in a way that can transform your life.

2 Corinthians 5:17
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

Continue listening to God’s Word as you also listen for the ways this Scripture passage has transformed God’s church.

The heart of Paul’s teaching is the experience of union with Christ. We live in Christ; Christ lives in us. We are united with Christ through faith in his saving cross and resurrection. Crucified with Christ, the old self dies, and in his resurrection, we live a new life.

This new life involves a new way of seeing, a new way of being, a new way of living—indeed a new identity. To be “in Christ” means to live as a “new creation.” As a new creation “in Christ,” we are incorporated into the saving community, the body of Christ. This is a community in which boundaries that divided people are broken down, in which distinctions among people no longer matter.

In Paul’s day, the world was divided between Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free people, women and men. But Paul envisioned a Christian community that not only included all of these but also brought them into interdependent relationships. Part of the dramatic witness the church offered to first-century society was this attractive, alternative community of dissimilar people called into a higher unity in Christ.

Paul was a boundary breaker, always seeking to remove the barriers that divided people from one another and from God. And Paul teaches us that the church must be a boundary breaker too. Today our culture continues to be divided along lines of ethnicity, race, class, and gender. Yet, when we listen to Paul, we discover possibilities that can transcend our differences and join us into a common unity. Life in Christ is liberated life. A believer is no longer imprisoned by the prejudices, resentments, and jealousy that so often dominate human life. As Paul speaks to us, he speaks a message of “grace and peace.” When we extend grace to and make peace with one another, we become boundary breakers, and, in so doing, we offer a powerful witness of Christ to our world.

Meditatio

Consider how this Scripture passage is challenging you as a member of Christ’s body today.

  • How can the church respect differences and diversity among people while seeking a higher unity?
  • How can I become a boundary breaker and thus witness to Christ today?

Oratio

After listening with the church to God’s Word, respond in prayer to God with the new understanding you have gained.

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have promised to extend the blessings of your salvation to all the people of the earth. As you called Paul to proclaim your gospel to the world, you have called your church to make disciples of all the nations. Enlighten and encourage me as I read and contemplate your inspired Word in the life and letters of Paul.

Continue praying from your heart . . .

Contemplatio

Spend some moments in quiet, placing your life in the life of Christ. Trust that God is creating you anew as he works deep within you.

 

©2011 by Stephen J. Binz. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without expressed written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Lectionary Reflection for Palm Sunday

March 29, 2012 By

This excerpt comes from Psalms for All Seasons, commenting on Psalm 118:

Psalm 118 is a psalm of thanksgiving that features two primary emphases: a grand testimony regarding the deliverance of God (vv. 5-7, 10-18, 22-23) and a strong vow to praise and confess God in worship (vv. 19-21, 24, 26-29). An unusually complex psalm, these emphases are complemented by exhortations to worship God (vv. 1-4) and to trust God (vv. 8-9) and a short prayer for God’s continued deliverance (v. 25). It describes the work of God in terms of deliverance (v. 14), discipline (v. 18), and enlightenment (v. 27). The psalm offers a vivid imagery of salvation as the move from claustrophobic constraint (v. 5), made maddening by an enemy that felt like “buzzing bees” (vv. 5, 12) to a place of spaciousness (v. 5) marked by a joyful praise of God’s people (v. 15). This psalm is quoted several times in the New Testament.

 

©2012 Faith Alive Christian Resources. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

Filed Under: Lectionary Reflections

Lenten Season Lectio Divina Series: Pilate’s Wife

March 27, 2012 By

This is the fifth entry in our Lenten series of posts taken from Stephen Binz’s Ancient-Future Bible Study: Experience Scripture through Lectio Divina. See our previous entries:

Week One: Abraham: “Ancestor of All”

Week Two:  David: “The Shepherd Who Is Also King”

Week Three: Sarah: “Listen to Sarah, the Quarry of Encouragement”

Week Four: Peter: “From Crumbled Failure to Rock of Strength”

Be sure to check out our videos that further explain this terrific series.

This week, we are posting a study from the introduction to Binz’s volume Women of the Gospels: Friends and Disciples of Jesus.

A Forgotten Advocate for Jesus

Lectio

Carefully read these words from Matthew’s Gospel, asking God’s Spirit to open your heart.

Matthew 27:15–19

15Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. 16At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. 17So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. 19While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.”

Continue seeking the significance of this passage for Matthew’s passion account.

Pilate’s wife is another of those unnamed women of the Gospel accounts who plays a behind-the-scenes role in relationship to an influential man. She intervenes with her powerful husband to try to stop the condemnation of Jesus, an “innocent man.” She doesn’t even appear in the scene at Pilate’s judgment hall; her voice is heard only through a messenger. Only this single verse of Scripture mentions her, so we have no indication whether she had even seen Jesus or encountered him during his ministry in Jerusalem.

The Gospel of Matthew sets up a dramatic contrast between the religious leaders who plead for Jesus Barabbas and Pilate’s wife, who pleads for Jesus the Messiah. The leaders are motivated by “jealousy,” while Pilate’s wife seeks justice for Jesus because of the truth revealed to her in a dream. Both the Jews and Romans took dreams very seriously, and Matthew’s account of Jesus’s birth had already shown how the Gentile magi received God’s warning in a dream in order to save the newborn’s life (2:12). Now, in this account of Jesus’s death, this Gentile woman intercedes to try to save the life of the Jewish Messiah.

Her pleading is ultimately unsuccessful as her vacillating husband gives in to the pressure of the crowds. The Gospel doesn’t tell us what happened to Pilate’s wife, either immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus when she encountered her husband again, or the direction of her life from then on. However, the indication that she “suffered a great deal” for Jesus, a New Testament indicator of discipleship, may hint at the later tradition that she became a follower of Christ.

Meditatio

Imagine and consider the behind-the-scenes drama taking place in the heart of Pilate’s wife while her husband sits on the judgment seat.

What might be some of the motivations of Pilate’s wife in urging her husband to have nothing to do with the murder of this innocent man? What does it tell me about the importance of suffering for the truth?

After the death of Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” what might be some of the conversation between Pilate and his wife? What can I learn and imitate from her witness?

Oratio

Respond in prayer to God, who gives you new insights and hope through listening to his Word.

God of all creation, you created man and woman in your image and sent Jesus the Christ to teach us how to live together in your love. Jesus drew forth the courage and beauty of the women of the Gospels and brought restoration and hope to their lives. He wept with them in their pains, laughed with them in their joys, affirmed them in their resiliency, and empowered their lives with confident trust. Bless my life as I listen, reflect, and pray with the Gospel texts of these women. Transform my life as you did theirs with the power of your Word.

Continue to pray to God from your heart . . .

Contemplatio

Remain in peaceful quiet and place yourself in God’s loving embrace. Ask God to give you whatever gift he desires for you during these moments.

©2011 by Stephen J. Binz. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without expressed written permission is strictly prohibited.

Filed Under: Lent 2012: Lectio Divina Series Tagged With: ,

Lenten Season Lectio Divina Series: Peter

March 20, 2012 By

This is the fourth entry in our Lenten series of posts taken from Stephen Binz’s Ancient-Future Bible Study: Experience Scripture through Lectio Divina. Three weeks ago we introduced the concept of lectio divina and posted a study on Abraham. The following week we posted a study on David titled “The Shepherd Who Is Also King.” Last week we had a study on Sarah titled “Listen to Sarah, the Quarry of Encouragement.”

Be sure to check out our videos that further explain this terrific series.

This week, we are posting a study from the introduction to Binz’s volume Peter: Fisherman and Shepherd of the Church.

From Crumbled Failure to Rock of Strength

Lectio

Listen to these challenging words that Jesus addressed to Peter at the Last Supper.

Luke 22:31–32

31“Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, 32but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

After letting these prophetic words sink in, continue searching for their significance in the ongoing ministry of Peter the apostle.

These brief verses from Luke’s account of the Last Supper summarize the ordeal of Simon Peter’s discipleship during the passion account and anticipate his role beyond the Gospel and into the life of Christ’s church. Jesus speaks of three aspects of Peter’s testing: his sifting by Satan, his turning back to following Jesus, and his role in strengthening his brothers.

Jesus says that Satan has demanded “to sift all of you like wheat” (v. 31), that is, to severely test the disciples for the purpose of destroying their faith. The devil has already taken Judas, and now he is attempting to take the other disciples too. Indeed, that very night Peter’s fear will overpower his faith, and he will deny Jesus three times.

Jesus’s plan for his community of disciples involves Peter’s repentance and return to discipleship. Jesus assures Peter that he has prayed for him so that his faith will not collapse in the time of crisis. Though Peter will falter in faith, he will weep bitterly over his failing, marking the beginning of his turning back to Jesus.

In the remainder of his Gospel and in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, Luke demonstrates Peter’s pivotal role among the other disciples in his ministry of strengthening them. Peter’s complete return to Jesus is not brought about by his own initiative but through the sovereign initiative of his risen Lord. The disciples exclaim, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” (24:34). The strength of Peter’s testimony convinces the others to join in affirming Jesus’s resurrection. The Acts of the apostles shows that Peter gathers the disciples again as a community in Jerusalem and that he becomes the leading figure in the infant church.

Jesus’s double address, “Simon, Simon” (v. 31), signals Jesus’s particular concern for Simon Peter and his desire to assign a unique ministry to him. This is the only passage in Luke’s Gospel that indicates why Jesus might have given Simon the name “Peter,” a name that means “rock.” Though Simon certainly did not act very rocklike during the passion of Jesus, through genuine repentance and the forgiveness of the risen Jesus, he becomes the rock of strength for the early church.

Meditatio

Reflect on the experiences of Peter in his failure, his repentance, and his strengthening ministry. Consider how he might be a friend and mentor in your discipleship.

Jesus assured Peter of his prayers for him so that Peter’s faith would not fail. How might this assurance of Jesus’s prayers have helped Peter to get through his period of testing without abandoning his faith? In what way do I depend on prayer for my own strength in times of trial?

Peter’s experience of failure as a disciple enabled him later to be a bettersource of strength for others. In what way have I found strength for others through my experiences of failure?

Oratio

After listening to God’s Word in Scripture, respond in prayer to God, who always listens to your voice.

Lord Jesus Christ, you chose Simon Peter as your disciple and prayed for him in times of trial. As the first among your stumbling disciples, he struggled with doubt and fear, failing you in your most desperate hour. Teach me, through the example of Peter’s life, how to trust in you and depend on your grace. As I continue to listen, reflect, and pray these biblical texts of Peter’s life, strengthen me and help me to be a source of strength for my brothers and sisters.

Continue to give voice to your heart . . .

Contemplatio

Jesus assured Peter of his prayers for him so that Peter’s faith would not fail. Remain in peaceful quiet for a few minutes and be aware of Jesus’s prayerful support of you. Feel the passionate care of Jesus for you.

©2011 by Stephen J. Binz. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without expressed written permission is strictly prohibited.

Filed Under: Lent 2012: Lectio Divina Series

Lectionary Reflection for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 14, 2012 By

From Numbers (BTCB) by David L. Stubbs, commenting on Numbers 21: 4-9:

The raising of the bronze serpent occurs at a turning point in Numbers—the seventh and final rebellion of Israel before they reach the plain of Moab. While the entire incident is presented quickly and without explicit interpretation, both the fiery serpents and the raising of the bronze serpent are picked up elsewhere in scripture as important and representative. The serpents are representative of the trials and hardships of Israel in the wilderness (Deut. 8:15; Wisdom of Solomon 16:5, 10), and the bronze serpent itself was apparently preserved by the people and later placed in the Jerusalem temple (2 Kgs. 18:4). The image of the raising of the serpent is taken up by Christ himself as a figure for his own “lifting up” (John 3: 14; cf. 8:28; 12:32; 19:37), commented on with great frequency by patristic interpreters, and became an important typological image in Christian art. This is also one of the only three Numbers passages in the Revised Common Lectionary; it is read in Lent and paired with John 3:14. . . .

In contemplating the cross, Christians—like Israel looking at the bronze serpent— can see in it God’s judgment of and revelation of their sin, God’s victory over sin, and a call to faith and discipleship. But unlike the bronze serpent, which suggested a way of discipleship, Christians can see hanging on the cross the one who fulfilled that way. Christians can see that their own way through the desert has been made straight and level by the one who successfully pioneered that path, and then pray they would be united with him through the power of the spirit. At least one central meaning of the Eucharist is precisely this, that we want to take into ourselves the manna from heaven, Jesus Christ, who is our life and our salvation, so that we will have the strength and faith to be obedient on the journey. The Israelites in the desert were shown the path and learned that they needed to trust in God for their spiritual healing. Christians in Christ’s cross see the providence of God, the “plan for the fullness of time” made manifest. We pray to have that way imprinted in us yet more fully through the grace of God.

 ©2009 by David L. Stubbs. Published by Brazos Press. Unauthorized use of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

 

 

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