The Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto
Denomination: Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF)
Organization: Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ
The Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ. He joined the faculty in 2016. Previously he was Assistant Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. He was ordained by Peachtree Baptist Church (CBF) in 2006. After completing a bachelor of arts degree in religion at Oklahoma Baptist University and a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, he earned a doctoral degree in New Testament from Emory University.
His research interests range from the Acts of the Apostles to ancient and contemporary questions about race and ethnicity. In 2010, he published his first book, Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16. He is also a regular contributor to WorkingPreacher.org, and EnterTheBible.org.
For more information, visit his website.
Day1 Weekly Programs by The Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto
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Eric Barreto: In the Beginning and In the End
Tuesday June 02, 2020
Dr. Eric Barreto says Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are not a blueprint for the world or a play-by-play of the dawning of creation. Nor are they simply an ancient fairy tale we can dismiss. They’re not about us--they are first and foremost about God.
Eric Barreto: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Tuesday May 26, 2020
Dr. Eric Barreto says there's no better place to start a study of the Book of Acts than the account of Pentecost. This is a moment we often identity as the birth of the church, that moment when God's blessings poured down upon us and the church tasted God's goodness. But what happened that momentous day, and what does it all mean for us today?
Eric Barreto: In the Beginning and In the End
Tuesday June 06, 2017
Dr. Eric Barreto says Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are not a blueprint for the world or a play-by-play of the dawning of creation. Nor are they simply an ancient fairy tale we can dismiss. They’re not about us--they are first and foremost about God.
Eric Barreto: Can't We All Just Get Along?
Tuesday May 30, 2017
In his sermon for Pentecost Sunday, Dr. Eric Barreto asks, Based on the account in Acts, what would it mean for a church to be Pentecostal? He says we would seek out all kinds of people without requiring them to become like us, that we cannot be "God’s" people without "those" people.
An Unexpected Faith
Tuesday May 28, 2013
For the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, the Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto explores the unexpected faith both of a Roman centurion and a grieving widow, and offers hope to all.
Articles by The Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto
The Source and End of Unity and Belonging
Tuesday September 26, 2023
We might neglect the possibilities of human relationships in a world dominated by empire’s drive to make us enemies, contestants over scare resources, neighbors so suspicious of one another that we build ever greater walls between us.
Eric Barreto: Not Knowing (Luke 9:28-36)
Thursday May 11, 2023
This sermon was originally delivered by one of Church Anew’s advisors, Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto, as part of the opening worship for Renew 2023.
Eric Barreto: When God Surprises Us
Wednesday July 13, 2022
Do you ever wonder what God’s voice sounds like? Do you ever wonder if you would recognize God’s voice if God whispered in your ear or thundered from a mountain? I mean, we confess week after week that the Scriptures are God’s word, but what voice do you hear when we together declare, “The word of the Lord?”
Eric Barreto: Acts 1:1-11 in Uvalde
Thursday June 16, 2022
I wonder how the disciples felt when their hopes were dashed...
Eric Barreto: Not Later. Today.
Wednesday February 09, 2022
I want us to dwell on one word in Luke 4, one word that makes all the difference in how we read this text, how we come to understand the shape of God’s salvation, how we come to embody a ministry faithful to the good news of Jesus. That word is today. Today.
Eric Barreto: Laugh a Little: Scripture as Instruction Manual or Action Film?
Saturday November 06, 2021
Have you ever found yourself reading the Bible and thought to yourself: Do you know what this story reminds me of? The Fast and the Furious.
Eric Barreto: Where Do We Go From Here?
Tuesday May 18, 2021
The CDC’s announcement that vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks, whether indoors or outdoors, stirred all kinds of reactions. Victory for some. A sense that at long last, this long nightmare was starting to draw to a close in a significant — if still incomplete — way. For others, the news was not all that welcome.
Eric Barreto: 545 of Our Children
Thursday October 22, 2020
When I think about those 545 children at the border, I don’t imagine blank faces. I don’t wonder what they look like. They look like me. They look like my children. They look like Jesus.
Eric Barreto: Forgiveness: Can You Imagine It?
Saturday September 19, 2020
In his Church Anew post, Eric Barreto writes, Our human tendency to mistake urgency for importance is older than breaking news on cable TV or the latest viral tweet.
Eric Barreto: Trust and Conspiracy in a Pandemic (Matthew 14:22-33)
Friday August 07, 2020
In his Church Anew post, Dr. Eric Barreto urges us: Do not look to the man behind the curtain pulling the strings. Do not look for the code that explains it all. Do not look for the conspiracy that contorts and changes to explain every wrinkle and incorrect prediction.
Eric Barreto: The Death of Death (Romans 6:1-11)
Wednesday July 01, 2020
When death is not stalking our communities in the twin forms of pandemic and racism, police violence and anti-black prejudice, it may be possible to confess confidently with Paul that I am dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. But when sin entangles every aspect of our everyday lives, when racism and sexism and homophobia worm their way into every corner of this world, it may prove that much more difficult to proclaim along with Paul that I am, that we are dead to sin.
Eric Barreto: Preaching about Racism in America: What Comes Next?
Wednesday June 17, 2020
Many pastors took an important step these last few Sundays. Already dispersed into online spaces and some confronting with new urgency the ways that white supremacy afflicts black communities, congregations gathered these last two Sundays. And in some of these congregations, preachers preached perhaps for the first time about the pervasive entanglements of racism, not just in policing and policy but in the church, too. Now what?
Not a Pastel Easter: A Conversation with Kate Bowler - Church Anew
Sunday April 12, 2020
The Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto interviews Dr. Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, about the story of Easter in a new light due to this COVID-19 moment in time.
Eric Barreto: First, We Wait: Why did Jesus call the disciples to wait? (Acts 1:4a) - COVID-19
Saturday April 04, 2020
In this season of COVID-19 life, Dr. Eric Barreto asks, Why did Jesus call the disciples to wait? And now asks us to do the same (Acts 1:4a).
ON Scripture: Prophetic Resistance (Isaiah 2:1-5) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday November 21, 2016
Hatred is bubbling up among the cracks of division among us. Ideologies many of us had hoped were dormant in our body politic have returned with a roar. And we can’t be sure what comes next. For some of us, the fear we feel is not just uncertainty, but the realization that our bodies continue to be the object of so much vitriol and scapegoating
ON Scripture: Except This Foreigner (Luke 17:11-19) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday October 03, 2016
If Jesus’s words never strike me as strange, if Jesus’s words never cause me some sense of unrest, if Jesus’s words never trouble me, then I can be sure of one thing: I can be sure that I am missing something important.
ON Scripture: Who Can We Trust to Lead Us? (1 Kings 21:1-21a) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday June 06, 2016
If we were to go by the titles of books about leadership, we might be tempted to imagine that good leadership is a matter of following the right set of instructions. And this might work if we could all agree what good leadership is. The roiling presidential season just might suggest otherwise.
ON Scripture: Not Just About the Future (Revelation 7:9-17) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday April 11, 2016
This is a vision of hope and abundance, which makes such a vision so much harder to believe in a world threatened by environmental, economic, political, and personal crises. More and more, we live in a world where scarcity is the order of the day, where what we lack looms over us.
ON Scripture: All the Charlestons: We Press on for Justice (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday July 13, 2015
Weariness is the constant companion of those who seek justice. A year punctuated with tragedies around racial inequalities culminated in a burst of hateful violence during a Wednesday evening Bible study at the Mother Emanuel church. And as these nine faithful souls have been laid to rest, I have been struck by a refrain that many of my friends have been voicing.
ON Scripture: Scandalous Leaders, Scandalous Power (1 Samuel 8) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday June 01, 2015
Leaders disappoint. Leaders let us down. All of them and not just the ones with a different political label than we hold. In 1 Samuel 8, the Bible recounts an ill-fated political decision....
ON Scripture: Sell All Your Possessions! (Acts 4:32-35) Eric D. Barreto
Monday April 06, 2015
Inequality is a relentless blight. The hopelessness too often engendered when a lack of resources aligns with insufficient educational access, the easy prejudice of one's neighbors, and the ubiquity of oppression is dehumanizing and crushing.
ON Scripture: Should Christians be Afraid of Ebola or Climate Change or ISIS or…? (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11) by Eric D. Barreto
Monday November 10, 2014
Fear is in the air. Ebola. War. Conflict. Economic turmoil. Political victories. Political losses. This is the stuff of the nightly news. And everywhere we look we have a new villain to worry about, a new threat against which we ought to brace, a new sense of hopelessness. This is nothing new, of course. The world has always been a scary place.
Blessing Those Who Have Cursed Us (Jonah 3:10””4:11) by Eric D. Barreto
Monday September 15, 2014
The story of Jonah is a favorite in the Sunday School classroom. And for those of us who remember the story, one aspect of the narrative is most memorable. We remember that Jonah is eventually consumed by a whale or a fish or some sea creature. He spends three days in that great beast’s belly only to be jettisoned when he has finally learned his lesson. But what lesson exactly did he learn?
ON Scripture: Heaven is a Home (John 14:1-14) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday May 12, 2014
When I was five, Disney World was my vision of heaven. As I grew up in the church, my vision turned upward. Heaven was an eternal destination deferred until the moment after you die. Heaven was a place of reward and eternity. Heaven was an ethereal experience, something so otherworldly that the best we could do is speak in metaphors and images about it. Heaven, in short, had very little to do with the world as we knew it. Neither vision gets it quite right.
ON Scripture-The Bible: How to Be Perfect (Matthew 5:38-48) By Eric D. Barreto
Monday February 17, 2014
'Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect' (Matthew 5:48). Seriously, Jesus? Have you even met some of us? Have you seen the depths of our jealousies, the breadth of our greed? Have you noticed how insatiable our egos are? How deeply insecure we all are?
Eric Barreto: Was Jesus Political? Undoubtedly
Tuesday October 15, 2013
Let's get this out of the way right away: Jesus was political. His preaching was tinged with political statements. His healings carried massive political implications for the ways we structure our world and understand our neighbor. His execution was of the kind reserved for acts of political disruption. That is, he died on a cross because the political authorities of his day saw him as a threat to the political structures and order of his day.
ON Scripture-The Bible: Good Samaritans All Around (Luke 10:25-37) By Eric D. Barreto
Wednesday July 10, 2013
The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is so familiar that to some it probably starts to verge on a cliché. Even people who have never read the Bible, let alone the Gospel of Luke, know the image of compassion embodied by the Samaritan who takes the risk to help a stranger in the midst of great trouble. In fact, the notion of a Good Samaritan has a cultural cache almost entirely separate from the term’s biblical origins.
ON Scripture-The Bible: Women, Work, and the Word: Luke 7:11-17 by Eric D. Barreto
Wednesday June 05, 2013
Stories of Jesus healing people are common in the Gospel of Luke. The account of the widow of Nain in Luke 7:11-17, however, breaks a number of the patterns we expect to see around these narratives. This story revolves around Jesus and a widow whose son has died. Jesus sees her accompanying the funeral procession and is so moved by the sight that he brings her son back to life.
ON Scripture-Special: Majesty and Tragedy in Oklahoma By Eric D. Barreto
Tuesday May 21, 2013
In churches around the world, Psalm 8’s resounding praise of God will be read this Sunday. 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. As we have learned anew in the last few hours, tornadoes are indiscriminate terrors.
Eric Barreto: Love and Hope in the Wake of Boston
Tuesday April 16, 2013
We should have stopped trying by now. We should have thrown up our hands in despair and cried, "Enough." We should have relented by now, given up any hope that our lives would cease being punctuated by random violence. We should have stopped hoping for something different. But we haven't.
ON Scripture-The Bible: When People You Don’t Much Like Receive God’s Love, By Eric D. Barreto
Wednesday March 06, 2013
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.
ON Scripture-The Bible: Giving Up Guns for Lent (Luke 4:1-13) By Eric D. Barreto
Wednesday February 13, 2013
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.
ON Scripture-The Bible: Dr. Eric Barreto: How to Vote like a Christian (Mark 12:28-34)
Wednesday October 31, 2012
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.
ON Scripture: Eric Barreto on James 3:1-12: Sticks, Stones, and the Power of Words
Wednesday September 12, 2012
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.
ON Scripture: Dr. Eric Barreto on Acts 2:1-21: Think Differently About Difference
Wednesday May 23, 2012
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.
ON Scripture: Dr. Eric Barreto on Psalm 23 and 1 John 3:15-24
Wednesday April 25, 2012
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.
Dr. Eric Barreto: Lent and Love: A Reflection on John 3:16
Thursday April 05, 2012
Many of us would likely struggle to define love succinctly. Many of us would not even know where to start. Love is one of those words that you can't possibly understand just by looking it up in the dictionary.
Dr. Eric Barreto: Los Tres Reyes: Did We Miss a Holiday?
Friday January 06, 2012
El Dia de los Tres Reyes is an important holiday for our sisters and brothers in Latin America. It was a significant day for my own family growing up. What are we missing by ignoring it?
ON Scripture: Eric Barreto on Luke 2:1-20: The "Real" War On Christmas?
Wednesday December 21, 2011
"If there is a war on Christmas, I think the assault is both more subtle and more pernicious than these perplexed conspiracy theories."
ON Scripture: Eric Barreto on Exodus 20: 10 Commandments--Rules and Regulations?
Wednesday September 28, 2011
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
Dr. Eric Barreto: Preaching and Ethnic Diversity
Thursday September 08, 2011
I would argue the dream of a "post-racial" society is ultimately empty. Such hopes emerge from a positive aspiration that we might move toward a society in which racial and ethnic prejudice is no longer granted a divisive and destructive force among us. However, our differences linger on for better or for worse.
ON Scripture: Dr. Eric Barreto on Exodus 1:8-2:10: Faith in the Past, Present & Future
Wednesday August 17, 2011
In his ON Scripture post, Dr. Eric Barreto writes, "In the Exodus story as in many of our lives, deliverance and suffering are interlaced. Our hopeful prayers are not always answered, and grace may take a different shape than we might have expected."
Dr. Eric Barreto: The Gospel according to Roger Ebert and the Homiletical Voice
Saturday August 13, 2011
When I hear someone complain that Twitter is simply a space for narcissists to announce their choice of breakfast, I can't help but think of Roger Ebert.
Dr. Eric Barreto: Don't Try This at Home
Thursday July 28, 2011
Are our sermons commercials for the radical Christian life that warn in the fine print, "Don't try this at home?" Are we more concerned with the side effects than the healing Jesus promises?
Dr. Eric Barreto: Can We Talk?
Wednesday June 29, 2011
Theological disputes are rending many of our churches apart. These too frequently destructive arguments force a difficult question upon us. Can we have discussions any more that do not degenerate to the taking of mutually exclusive positions?
Dr. Eric Barreto: A God Who Breaks All the Rules
Wednesday June 15, 2011
Looking back, I am surprised that moving from Puerto Rico to Louisiana wasn't more traumatic than it was.
The Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto: Truth and Truthiness
Wednesday June 08, 2011
Seemingly today, all the world's knowledge and data at our fingertips and yet wisdom and truth telling are no easier to discover. Too often, truth and truthiness look just alike.
Video by The Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto
Dr. Eric Barreto: Celebrating Our Differences
Monday October 13, 2014
In this Day1 Reflection video, the Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto encourages us to celebrate our diversity and draws encouragement from Acts 2.
Radio by The Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto
Day1 Worship On the Way Podcast - Pilot
Tuesday May 12, 2020
Day1 is pleased to present a pilot for a potential new weekly podcast: Worship On the Way. Experience a half hour worship experience with hymns, songs, and prayers, along with a powerful sermon by an outstanding Day1 preacher.