Lectionary
Ruminations 2.0 is a revised continuation of Lectionary Ruminations. Focusing on The Revised Common Lectionary Readings for the upcoming Sunday from New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, Lectionary
Ruminations 2.0 draws on nearly thirty years of pastoral experience. Believing that the questions we ask are often
more important than any answers we find, without overreliance on commentaries I
intend with comments and questions to encourage reflection and rumination for
readers preparing to teach, preach, or hear the Word. Reader comments are
invited and encouraged. All lectionary
links are to the via the PC(USA)
Devotions and Readings website.
FOR AN UPDATED AND REVISED VERSION, GO TO
THIS LINK
11:1 What Gentiles
had accepted the word of God?
11:2 What is the
difference between a circumcised and uncircumcised believer?
11:3 What was wrong
about Peter eating with uncircumcised men?
11:4 Some people
may need step by step explanations and others may follow intuitive leaps. Which type are you?
11:5 How and why
did Peter enter into a trance? What is a
vision. Have you ever been in a trance
or experienced a vision? What is the
difference, if any, between a “vision” and a “big dream”?
11:6 What is
significant about the animals that Peter describes?
11:7 Did Peter
audibly hear a voice that others could have heard or did he hear a voice in his
vision that others would not have been able to her? Whose voice did Peter hear?
11:8 What does it
mean that something is profane or unclean?
11:9 What had God
made clean?
11:10 It seems that
for Peter, things come and happen in threes. Why might that be?
11:11See what I
mean, “three” men!
11:12 What “Spirit”
is Peter referring to? Who is the
“us”? Who are these “six brothers”?
11:13 Had this man also
experienced a vison?
11:14 What is the
definition of a “household”? What is the implication regarding baptism of
infants?
11:15 So there was
the rush of a mighty wind, tongues as of fire, and people speaking in various
languages? It seems that the Holy Spirit fell upon these Gentile believers
before they were baptized
11:16 Would Peter
not have remembered this saying of Jesus if the account narrated above had not
happened? What sayings of Jesus might
Peter never have remembered and are now long forgotten?
11:17 Is this a
rhetorical question?
11:18 How can one
be silenced and at the same time praise God? If Gentiles were not under the Law
of Moses, then what did they have to repent of?
148:1 Why is God
usually praised from the heights but not the valleys?
148:2 Who, or what,
are the host?
148:3 How do
celestial objects praise God?
148:4 How many
gradations of heaven are there? How many heavens are between the highest
heavens and the lowest heavens?
148:5 Does this
verse refer to one of the creation accounts but not the other?
148:6 Does this
assume a pre-Copernican universe?
148:7 What are
Biblical sea monsters?
148:8 If elements
of weather obey God’s commands, then are natural weather disasters sent by God?
148:9 What trees,
if any, are not included?
148:10 Does cattle
include all domesticated livestock?
148:11 While
present throughout this psalm, the Hebraic poetic parallelism is particularly
evident in this verse.
148:12 Does this
verse remind you of any other verse or passage from the Jewish Scriptures?
148:13 How can one
praise the name of the Lord when the Lord’s is not to be pronounced?
148:14 What is a
“horn” and what does it symbolize?
21:1 This Sunday we
have at least two visions, this one and the one narrated in the First Reading
from Acts. Why do people no longer have
visions like these? When I read this passage
I think of how C.S. Lewis described the new heaven and new earth in his
Chronicles of Narnia. Why would the sea be no more?
21:2 Why are cities
feminized? The story of God’s mighty
acts might have started with a garden but it ends with a city! Apparently God was into urban renewal. Note
that Acts 11:5 also presents a vision of something coming down from heaven.
21:3 Note that the
text says God will dwell with God’s peoples and does not say that God’s peoples
will dwell with God. Why the plural “peoples”? Whose voice is heard?
21:4 We may usually
associate this verse with The Service of Witness to the Resurrection.
21:5 Who is seated
on the throne? Write what?
21:6 Where is the
spring of the water of life? Did this
passage lead to legends of the “fountain of youth”? What about the hungry?
13:31Gone out from
where or what? Who is “the Son of Man”
and what does this phrase mean? Where
does the image of “the Son of Man” come from?
13:32 What in the
world is John saying here?
13:33 Who are the
“little children”? Why are these “little
children” distinguished from the Jews?
13:34 If this is a
new commandment, what was the old commandment?
13:35 So the new
commandment is that disciples are to love other disciples? What about people who are not disciples?
ADDENDUM
I am currently a Member at Large of Upper Ohio
Valley Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I am a trained and
experienced Interim Pastor currently available to supply as a fill-in
occasional guest preacher and worship leader or serve in a half-time to
full-time position.
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