Tag: bible

  • Preaching Paths 25 February 2024

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary The gospel lection this week, Mk 8:31-38, falls into two sections. First, verses 31-33 bring to a head questions about Jesus’ identity and mission that have been intensifying since the middle of Mark’s first chapter. Verses 34-38 then spell out the costs of discipleship, reframed now by…

  • Preaching Paths 18 February 2024

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Most of the verses comprising today’s lection, Mark 1:9-15, are familiar. We’ve encountered vv.9-11, Jesus’ baptism and divine commission, on the Sunday of Baptism of Our Lord. John the Baptist’s arrest and the inauguration of Jesus’ preaching ministry were read on Epiphany 3B.  Today’s new material, vv…

  • Preaching Paths 11 February 2024 Transfiguration Sunday

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Mark’s gospel presents the ministry of Jesus as the pivotal event in a two-tiered struggle for the triumph of the reign of God, fought on both an earthly plane and a heavenly one. Mark presents Jesus confronting Satanic temptation and evil spirits long before he contends with…

  • Preaching Paths 24 December 2023

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary The visit of God’s heavenly emissary, Gabriel, to a young woman in insignificant Nazareth  (Luke1:26-38) is not Gabriel’s first birth-announcing errand in Luke. Some six months earlier, Gabriel visited the priest Zechariah to announce that his barren wife Elizabeth would give birth to a son, God’s appointed…

  • Genesis 32: 22-31:Jacob and the divine wrestler

      22 ᾿Αναστὰς δὲ τὴν νύκτα ἐκείνην ἔλαβε τὰς δύο γυναῖκας καὶ τὰς δύο παιδίσκας καὶ τὰ ἕνδεκα παιδία αὐτοῦ καὶ διέβη τὴν διάβασιν τοῦ ᾿Ιαβώκ· 23 καὶ ἔλαβεν αὐτοὺς καὶ διέβη τὸν χειμάρρουν καὶ διεβίβασε πάντα τὰ αὐτοῦ. 24 ὑπελείφθη δὲ ᾿Ιακὼβ μόνος, καὶ ἐπάλαιεν ἄνθρωπος μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἕως πρωΐ. 25 εἶδε δέ, ὅτι…