ON Scripture is a weekly blog that addresses the Revised Common Lectionary texts for the week through the lens of current events. Developed by Odyssey Networks, it is written by noted church leaders and scholars.
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Odyssey Networks
ON Scripture
Odyssey Networks
ON Scripture is a weekly blog that addresses the Revised Common Lectionary texts for the week through the lens of current events. Developed by Odyssey Networks, it is written by noted church leaders and scholars.
Latest Content by ON Scripture
ON Scripture
Majesty and Tragedy in Oklahoma
By Eric D. Barreto
In churches around the world, Psalm 8's resounding praise of God will be read this Sunday. "O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Women and men will confess that these are the words of God. But we will do so with grief, with deep questions about God and the world God has crafted and continues to sustain.
Read full article...
Other Recent Content by ON Scripture
May 08, 2013
ON Scripture
How do we encounter God? Some assume it comes from adhering to tried and true practices and traditions. But sometimes we experience God through opening ourselves to what or to who is different. This has particular relevance for our time, as the United States struggles to figure out what makes for homeland security.
May 01, 2013
ON Scripture
The gospel of John tells a story of a crowd of paralytics, blind, lame - the poor - who gathered around a pool many believed would make you whole if you managed to get to the waters at just the right moment. People believed in the myth of the waters, despite how many invalids congregated there and for how long they remained there - decades in some cases. Jesus steps into this forlorn community...
April 24, 2013
ON Scripture
Have you ever heard someone described as so heavenly minded, he was no earthly good? This phrase suggests one danger of interpreting the book of Revelation. Sadly, when it comes to considering the natural world and Revelation, heavenly-mindedness often undermines care for our environment.
April 17, 2013
ON Scripture
Resurrection is the theme of the fifty days of Eastertide. Yet, for decades, the month of April has been filled with particularly horrific deaths...
April 10, 2013
ON Scripture
Interpreters have probably made too much of the nuances of Greek vocabulary in this passage, but we can readily see why Peter is grieved. The last time he stood by a charcoal fire, he failed miserably three times. Now Jesus brings Peter back to the scene and puts him through another three-fold interrogation.
April 03, 2013
ON Scripture
The resurrection story implies that bodies matter. Jesus’ resurrection is not merely a spiritual thing – the apparition of his ghost, or his ongoing spiritual influence. The Gospels all insist that the resurrection includes Jesus’ body.
March 27, 2013
ON Scripture
There is a pall over this morning. As this story begins in John’s Gospel, “it is still dark.” It is still dark where we wake up today. Beautiful, beloved children of God awake this morning in rooms where no light will break through. Morning brings no solace. It is still dark.
March 20, 2013
ON Scripture
The voice that speaks in Isaiah 50:4 – 9a is the poet of the exile himself. Here he offers an autobiographical reflection on his call as a prophet sent by God to the deported Jews in Babylon in the sixth century BCE. His message to the Jews is they are now free to go back home to Jerusalem. This freedom came, says the poet, because of the dispatch of Cyrus the Persian at the behest of YHWH, the Lord of all of history.
March 19, 2013
ON Scripture
On the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, the Beatitudes teach us that peacemakers are persons who put down conflict in favor of peace. We are reminded that making peace is not simply the absence of conflict - it is the presence of justice, reconciliation and peace. Making peace means doing all we can for the benefit of others. It means creating a sense of shalom and well-being.
March 13, 2013
ON Scripture
I have often wondered about the trajectories my life has taken. My theological views have changed over the years. I have moved from Pentecostal to Baptist to Congregational (United Church of Christ) church traditions. Yet at each step of the way, I have been able to build on the solid foundations of the past in moving to new understandings for the new circumstances in my life.
March 06, 2013
ON Scripture
In Luke 15, Jesus addresses three famous parables about being lost and found to the Pharisees and scribes who disapprove of the company Jesus keeps. Simply stated, Jesus hung out with the wrong people, with riffraff and traitors, with people none of us would ever invite to our dinner parties. And yet Jesus broke bread with them much to the dismay of his critics.
February 27, 2013
ON Scripture
Current events, like much about our lives, frequently leave us hopeless, fearful, and uncertain. Religious faith isn’t a matter of wishing away these experiences; it involves perceiving God in the midst of our hardships.
February 20, 2013
ON Scripture
As an African American biblical scholar, I would tend to see what the Bible has to say about borders, foreigners, and receiving and welcoming all. What I have found at the intersection of immigration, African Americans, and the Bible is that people have a desire to belong.
February 13, 2013
ON Scripture
Obviously, Jesus didn’t own a gun, never said anything directly about firearms. He couldn’t have. Of course, that won’t solve the debates now roiling this nation about violence and the people and tools that perpetuate it. Nonetheless, the fact that Jesus has nothing to say about guns has not stopped a number of pundits from extrapolating Jesus’ ethics on gun violence.
February 06, 2013
ON Scripture
If climate change is going to end, an urgent transformation is needed. In this week’s lectionary texts, we’re reminded of the beauty of transformative places. That’s what Transfiguration Sunday symbolizes – a sacred space of connecting with God.
January 30, 2013
ON Scripture
When we extend generosity and justice to others, it alters our relationship to them. Especially when those “others” are foreign to us. Hospitality has ways of making the people who receive it come inside and stick around, whether we really want them to or not. We see this on display in Luke 4:22-30, which tells the second half of a story about Jesus’ statements to a group assembled in his hometown synagogue, in Nazareth.
January 23, 2013
ON Scripture
This is a memorable week: on Monday the inauguration of President Obama on the holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., and on Tuesday the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court. Some people will celebrate all three with thanksgiving. Others will find nothing to celebrate – especially the decision of January 22, 1973 that struck down state laws banning abortion.
January 16, 2013
ON Scripture
Reading this second chapter of John’s gospel, when Jesus was at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, we see here also great promise, but promises unfulfilled, dashed hopes and shattered dreams. A young couple at a high moment starting life out together with great joy, but the joy becomes elusive as a problem soon develops.
January 09, 2013
ON Scripture
It is an odd juxtaposition, December 21, 2012 and January 21, 2013. The former date representing the “so-called” Mayan apocalypse where the usual suspects prepared for the end of the world – many of whom were Christians awaiting the second coming of Christ – and the latter date, which is the day President Barack Obama will be inaugurated for his second term.
January 02, 2013
ON Scripture
Just as scripture makes us see the reality of injustice, so too do the faces of those who live in poverty in America. Inequality is as visible as a toothless smile.
December 26, 2012
ON Scripture
Few narratives in the Hebrew Bible are more foreign to us than this week’s lection. We do not give away our children. In a society determined by socio-economic forces utterly beyond the control of individual citizens (e.g., globalization) we do our best to prepare ourselves for the inevitability of change. But what happens when we lose our footing?
December 20, 2012
ON Scripture
UPDATED: Sometimes, the worse the tragedy, the more abhorrent the theology it elicits. Still numb from the overwhelming evil perpetrated against helpless children and schoolteachers last Friday, now we have to read harsh words from certain Christians who seem compelled to speak for God in disorienting moments like these, and the results are frequently terrible. The rest of the church has a responsibility to get angry and repudiate the statements.
December 12, 2012
ON Scripture
Recently I had the unsettling experience of receiving unsolicited financial advice from John the Baptist. Not directly, of course— his counsel was mediated through an ancient codex, the Gospel of Luke.
December 05, 2012
ON Scripture
In Malachi 3:1-4, the Lord announces a plan to send a messenger to prepare the way of the Lord. “Malachi” means “my messenger” in Hebrew. In the Christian canon, the book of Malachi is one of the prophetic books and is the last book in the Christian Old Testament.
November 28, 2012
ON Scripture
Jeremiah’s promise of a future restoration for Israel and Judah centers on the image of a righteous branch. This image, while somewhat strange to our culture, carries along with it a rich and varied tradition, deeply rooted in the world and literature of the Old Testament. The tree of life in the Garden of Eden links trees with ideas of abundance, fertility, and renewal.
November 21, 2012
ON Scripture
“What is truth?” Pilate asked, and the question is left hanging in the air. Was he being sarcastic or was he searching for answers nobody else had given him? The answer was not a philosophical proof or a creedal proposition. Truth was the person standing in silence before Pilate.
November 14, 2012
ON Scripture
The instinct to interpret current times through the broader lens of God’s judgment is not new. Examples appear throughout the Bible. For those who believe God’s Spirit does work in the world through signs and miracles, such tragedies can function as intellectual puzzles, but they should never stop us from responding with heart, head, and hands.
November 07, 2012
ON Scripture
Is poverty what it used to be? Or has poverty grown so shameful that we dare not speak its name? So determined are we keep poverty out of view, we erase the presence of the poor from Jesus’ teachings. The widow we encounter in Mark 12:38-44 provides a case study in poverty and oppression. Unable to confront poverty, we have turned her into something safer – an example of generosity.
October 31, 2012
ON Scripture
It seems so easy, doesn’t it? Love God. Love your neighbor. The two greatest commandments encapsulate the core of faith and could--if we really were to trust God--transform the world. Similarly then and with election day looming, voting should be an easy affair: people of faith should vote for the candidates whose policies would most embody a love of God and neighbor.
October 24, 2012
ON Scripture
Unlike the variety of migration stories in the Bible, the forces creating migration for many Latina/o families are closely tied to the issues of power and hyper-consumerism. Often as a last resort do immigrant families enter the northbound currents of low-wage laborers that, as Bishop Minerva Carcaño describes, feed “the economic machine in this country.”
October 17, 2012
ON Scripture
Matthew Skinner on Mark 10:35-45 in this week's ON Scripture-The Bible lectionary resouce: Temptations to hold and wield power are usually tough to pass up. Power is alluring whether we imagine having it over others or on behalf of them, whether it’s power in society, at home, or in a workplace.
October 10, 2012
ON Scripture
Holding Bartimaeus’ story in my mind as I delved into the vast problem of human-trafficking victims, I was struck by the many connections. Those who take time to listen to victims know that no one wishes to be a prostitute any more than they wish to be a blind beggar.
October 03, 2012
ON Scripture
The problem we face today is that marriage is on a sharp decline in the United States. Fifty years ago, about three-quarters of American adults 18 and older were married, while today only 52% are. Christians should be concerned about this.
September 26, 2012
ON Scripture
As the lectionary text (Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22) for this week unfolds, Esther, Haman and King Ahasuerus are sharing a meal together. Within hours of this wine being poured, one of them will be dead and an ethnic group, destined for death, will be spared. While I wish this story ended without a single death, the text challenges us to enter the courts of our own enemies, eat with them and encounter the beginnings of understanding.
September 19, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource on Mark 9:30-37, the Rev. Dr. Matthew L Skinner writes: If pondering Jesus’ crucifixion doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you probably aren’t doing it right. I’m not referring to the gore and humiliation, which makes crucifixion repulsive no matter who the victim is. Instead, my point has to do with considering the purpose or significance of Jesus’ death.
September 12, 2012
ON Scripture
Anyone who has been at the receiving end of a bully’s wrath knows that words are as blunt as stones, as sharp as a honed stick. We should know better than to repeat the old adage about sticks and stones, but we don’t seem to grasp fully the power of words. James 3:1-12 speaks to these realities in a vivid way.
September 05, 2012
ON Scripture
Poor people. These are the two words underlying much of the political arguments coming across the airwaves right now. There is great discussion about Medicaid, Medicare, The Affordable Care Act [aka Obamacare or Romneycare], Welfare, Big Government and Social Security. But two words rarely heard in the 2012 political campaign: poor people.
August 29, 2012
ON Scripture
Human beings want religion not God. Or, to put it slightly differently (and perhaps in a more nuanced manner!), they all too easily equate religion with a very particular, culturally determined, idea of God.
August 22, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis
(ELCA)
Imagine being introduced for the first time, not by your name or what you have done, but in reference to what you will do.
August 15, 2012
ON Scripture
The old king, David, is dead. It is time to pick his successor as king. In retrospect it seems obvious that his son, Solomon, was his rightful heir. In the moment, however, the matter of succession to the throne is highly contested.
August 08, 2012
ON Scripture
Sometimes when I read a biblical text, it makes almost perfect sense to me. Other times, the author's intent seems fairly obvious so I get a good feeling about what I am reading. When I read the lectionary passage from the Gospel of John for this week, I scratched my head. This week’s text is the third of the “bread passages” in our lectionary cycle. There is a lot of bread this summer. And it's about now that many preachers and congregants start asking, "Bread, again?"
August 01, 2012
ON Scripture
Every Bible ought to have a warning on its cover.
Some of the stories found herein will shock your senses. They will test your faith. They will stretch you. They can hurt you and hurt others. Therefore, handle these texts with care and caution.
July 25, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource: Like the story of David and Bathsheba, death and love are too often linked in the stories of women living with HIV and AIDS in Africa.
July 18, 2012
ON Scripture
This week's ON Scripture lectionary aid on Mark 6:30-34 & 53-56: The good news is that you and I can take a break at times. Rest, relaxation, vacation, is not only a God-given gift; it is a God-given necessity.
July 11, 2012
ON Scripture
This week's ON Scripture - The Bible lectionary aid features the Rev. Dr. James Childs on Mark 6:14-29: John the Baptist was convicted, convinced of his ordination to prepare the way of the Messiah with a call to repentance. Herod Antipas was conflicted, assailed by contradictory impulses within himself and vulnerable to pressures outside himself.
July 04, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Crowder
(CC(DC))
At issue in the gospel’s penultimate Sabbath story is not the identity of Jesus as “Son of Man” or “Lord of the Sabbath.” What is problematic is his family. Jesus’ biological family and their lack of status cause trouble. Jesus is too plain, too ordinary.
June 27, 2012
ON Scripture
The book of Ecclesiastes says that there is an appropriate time for every matter: there is a time to mourn and a time to laugh. The Gospel of Mark tells a story that gets the time for tears and the time for laughter all mixed up.
June 20, 2012
ON Scripture
Modern readers struggle with miracle stories like this. ... We’re prepared for Jesus’ healing miracles because they directly benefit desperate people. But “nature miracles” like stilling the storm challenge the boundaries of our imaginations.
June 13, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, the Rev. Dr. Alvin O'Neal Jackson focuses on 1 Samuel 16: This narrative drama, beautiful in its use of suspense and reversal of expectations, reminds us of the pitfalls and dangers in dismissing and discounting the value and worth of any person.
June 06, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary aid, the Rev. Dr. Matt Skinner explores Mark 3:20-35 and asks, What Makes a Family?
May 30, 2012
ON Scripture
This week's ON Scripture lectionary aid: Sze-Kar Wan on The Price of Being Prophetic: Isaiah 6.1–8; John 3.1–17. "The recent escape of the well-known blind Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng from house arrest to the American embassy has attracted a lot of attention in the media...."
May 23, 2012
ON Scripture
Christians have often hoped for a time when our racial and economic differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided.
May 16, 2012
ON Scripture
Psalm 1 is trying to provide practical advice about how to be “good” even when it feels like evil is closing in you. Stay on the right path and resist the dark side. For those in Sing Sing prison, that is a lot harder than it looks.
May 09, 2012
ON Scripture
When Peter declared, “God shows no partiality,” he opened the possibility that anyone—everyone—is welcome in the family of faith. He also put us on warning: the rules were changed for you, so that you could come in—who are you, then, to prevent God from blessing the whole human family? Who are you to stand in the way of God’s love?
May 02, 2012
ON Scripture
Some people call them “thin places,” locations where the gulf between heaven and earth narrows and we fully sense God’s presence.... Though these thin places are inherently unpredictable, we can aid in their creation. Like Philip in Acts 8, we can run to join what the Spirit is already making possible.
April 25, 2012
ON Scripture
What shape does God’s presence take in our lives? Here a reading in 1 John 3:16-24 is most helpful. This passage points to Jesus’ sacrifice as the ultimate embodiment of God’s love for us. That Jesus laid down his life for us, however, comes with a price.
April 18, 2012
ON Scripture
Everyone knows about Easter morning. Many also know the story of Easter afternoon — the walk to Emmaus. But how about Easter evening? Who knows what happens then? Luke’s story of Jesus appearing to his disciples in Jerusalem is less well known, but is equally important. It revolves around a table instead of a tomb.
April 11, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, Lisa Nichols Hickman focuses on the story of Doubting Thomas in John 20:19-31: Easter faith is not about certainty. The reality of Easter is the complexity of living anew in a broken creation.
April 04, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, the Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad explores Mark's account of the resurrection, and what it tells us about how we tell the story.
March 28, 2012
ON Scripture
The Trayvon Martin story is tragic for many reasons.... As Christians move into the week that most defines our faith, a week of remembering and reliving Jesus’ death and resurrection, this idea of a broken system provides an poignant setting for us to consider the ongoing significance of what happened to him nearly 2000 years ago.
March 21, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, Dirk Lange writes, "The journey to the cross is not a glorification of death. Jesus invites us into a disruption of our tightly sealed, self-contained, seed-like identity into a God-given identity, blossoming in communion."
March 14, 2012
ON Scripture
In her lectionary resource for this week, the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer writes, "Notice the open invitation in John 3:14-15: anyone who believes. This seemingly open invitation continues throughout this most over-cited of biblical passages: John 3:16.... But then, in John 3:18, the velvet rope appears."
March 07, 2012
ON Scripture
Maybe the most divisive religious statements are the ones that make claims about how and where God can be found. Disagreements among people of faith today remind us that disputes over God’s “accessibility” never go away. Jesus’ conflicts with the authorities of his day remind us that such controversies are nothing new.
February 29, 2012
ON Scripture
God’s name- and game-changing relationship with Abraham and Sarah was described as a “covenant.” .... Mark’s gospel claims that God’s ultimate covenant with the creation had to be forged on a cross and is sealed by Jesus’ blood (Mk. 14:24).
February 22, 2012
The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Crowder
(CC(DC))
I am not a Janet Jackson aficionado, but her song, “The Pleasure Principle” from 1987 has a few lines that are still appealing almost 25 years later: “I’m not here to feed your insecurities. I wanted you to love me...It’s the pleasure principle.”
February 15, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, the Rev. Barbara K. Lundblad writes, "The transfiguration story from Mark 9 is a story we often try to explain. What happened on that mountain when Jesus went to pray with Peter, James and John?"
February 08, 2012
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, the Rev. Dr. Matthew Skinner reveals that exploring Jesus’ concern for the poor and excluded reminds us of the close connections among wealth, health, and social acceptability.
February 01, 2012
ON Scripture
This Sunday, tens of millions of people will watch the New England Patriots and the New York Giants face off in the Super Bowl. And as it happens, the Scripture reading appointed for worship is Isaiah 40:21-31...
January 25, 2012
ON Scripture
In our lectionary text from Mark this week, we encounter a crowd and a speaker, a scenario not unlike what is taking place in today’s political landscape. However, there is a twist on this seemingly familiar event.
January 18, 2012
ON Scripture
Readers almost always gravitate to the same question. Why do Simon and Andrew, then James and John after them, abandon everything to follow Jesus? Mark leaves no doubt as to the immediacy of their response.
January 11, 2012
ON Scripture
God speaks. We serve. But the first task of a prophet is to listen. Prayer and protest are married yet this does not mean that one sits in a pew of passivity and does not act. The witness of Dr. King shows otherwise.
January 04, 2012
ON Scripture
Christians seem to have a genetic disposition for describing people and events through a biblical lens. It makes sense. We are story-formed people, and the Bible shapes our political, moral and social imaginations.
December 28, 2011
ON Scripture
The enactment of religious rituals for children in the Jewish faith of Jesus’ time is the background of this only biblical glimpse we have of Jesus’ early infancy. This luminous text of hope from Luke’s Gospel is pictorial in its rendering of Jesus presentation at the temple.
December 21, 2011
ON Scripture
"If there is a war on Christmas, I think the assault is both more subtle and more pernicious than these perplexed conspiracy theories."
December 14, 2011
ON Scripture
What does it mean to wait for God in a broken world? What does it mean to wait in a time in which God’s promise of redemption is met by the despair of the poor, the greed of those who exploit others, and the rage of those who commit violence? What does Advent mean for the real world?
December 07, 2011
ON Scripture
The fear about exposure and judgment comes to white hot focus in a remarkable biblical story, told early in the Gospel of John, about an investigative team dispatched from the capital city to interrogate an enigmatic preacher named John the Baptizer.
November 30, 2011
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, Dr. Michael Joseph Brown delves into Mark 1:1-8 and finds God can be an abrupt and unsettling force in our lives.
November 23, 2011
ON Scripture
Here comes Black Friday, even earlier than usual. Bell-ringers are appearing outside stores. Advertisers are shifting the consumerism-as-therapy machine into high gear. And Christians say: This is a good time to think about the world falling apart. We’re not trying to be morose. We’re starting Advent.
November 16, 2011
ON Scripture
If Ezekiel were among us now, he might well conclude that the emergence of the “99%” is a scourge from God that intends to expose and bring down social policies, practices, and institutions that are out of sync with God’s will for shalom.
November 09, 2011
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, noted scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann examines Zephaniah 1: "This poem features extravagant language about a coming time of loss, disaster, distress, and suffering."
November 02, 2011
ON Scripture
This week’s text, Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25, features a great dramatic meeting as the culmination of arriving in the land of promise. Read Dr. Walter Brueggemann's lectionary reflections.
October 26, 2011
ON Scripture
Noted theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann begins a four-part series for the ON Scripture lectionary resource by focusing on Jeremiah 31:31-34.
October 19, 2011
ON Scripture
This week's ON Scripture lectionary resource: New Testament professor Jaime Clark-Soles on Matthew 22:34-46: Loving God, loving neighbor, and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
October 12, 2011
ON Scripture
It couldn’t hurt for Jesus to show up and weigh in on America’s current economic and political challenges. It might be helpful if he issued a declaration about who should pay taxes, and how much. Then again, this would likely get him killed all over again.
October 05, 2011
The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Crowder
(CC(DC))
Much in this country’s political landscape from Populist ideology to New Deal praxis has centered on equal access and opportunity for all. Yet, almost two thousand years earlier than these movements, first century C.E. New Testament literature points to similar struggles.
September 28, 2011
ON Scripture
How many of the Ten Commandments can you name? If you are like most Americans, the number is far below the full ten. A 2007 survey reported that most Americans could rattle off the ingredients of a Big Mac more readily than the Ten Commandments
September 21, 2011
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture lectionary resource, Dr. Greg Carey writes, "Ezekiel speaks compellingly to the current situation in the United States. But is the prophet’s message true?"
September 14, 2011
ON Scripture
Our notions of justice usually cannot help but be influenced by our own circumstances and by our opinions about what we and others deserve. We insist justice has to do with equality, but a lot of the time it's a word we toss around to keep people and things we don't like at bay. And then along comes Jesus, eager to mess even more with our regular attitudes about what's right or fair.
September 07, 2011
ON Scripture
We haven’t had any clear victories to sing about since September 11, 2001. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were ambiguous from the start and drag on to this day. Thousands have been killed, both soldiers and civilians. While many cheered the death of Osama bin Laden, his death has not turned sorrow into joy or filled an empty place at the table. What song shall we sing now?
August 31, 2011
ON Scripture
Matthew 18:15-20 is an insider's text for outsiders. From Matthew's perspective, Jesus is both warning and assuring those inside the young Christian church. It is a church, however, whose members stand outside the main streams of both religious and civil practice.
August 24, 2011
ON Scripture
In this week's ON Scripture column, Dr. Greg Carey writes, "Few Christians abandon everything for the gospel’s sake. Most of us simply fit our Christianity into the open spots on our calendars. But in this passage Jesus links the life of discipleship with his own path."
