Sunday, April 26, 2015

Lectionary Ruminations 2.0 for Sunday, May 3, 2015, the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)

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

8:26 How do you deal with angels in your teaching and preaching?  Why Philip? So what that this is a wilderness road?
8:27-28 There is a lot in this verse to unpack.  Why are we told so much about this man? Is there anything special about Ethiopia? What is a eunuch? What or who is “the Candace”? Why would an Ethiopian come to Jerusalem to worship?
8:29 Has the angel of 8:26 become the spirit?
8:30-31 Why would the Ethiopian be reading aloud? Why would anybody read anything on their own if they needed a guide to help them understand it?
8:32b-33 Where in Isaiah is this found?
8:34 What an opportune question!
8:35 Perhaps the lesson we should learn from this is to proclaim the good news beginning with where people have questions.
8:36 Was there a reason why this Ethiopian eunuch should not have been baptized?
8:37 This sure sounds like confessional language but does it say everything we would expect an adult being baptized today to say?
8:38 To bad we don’t have a description of the baptism. Then again, maybe we should be thankful that we don’t have a description.
8:39 Why would the Spirit snatch Philip away?
8:40 What do you know about Azatos? Did Philip stop proclaiming the good news when he arrived at Caesarea?

22:25 Who, or what, is the great congregation?  What vows?
22:26 What do we do with the shift from the second person to the first person?
22:27 How many ends does the earth have? How many families of the nations are there?
22:28 How do we understand dominion?
22:29 Who are sleeping in the earth? Is death being contrasted with life?
22:30 How can the Psalmist speak for posterity? How many generations?
22:31 How can anything be proclaimed to people not yet born? Done what?

4:7 Who is “us”?
4:8 What does it mean to say that God is love?
4:9 Why did God’s love have to be revealed?
4:10 How can a sacrifice atone? Does this passage presume any particular theory of the atonement?
4:11 But what does it mean to love one another?
4:12 What does not seeing God add to the argument? How is God’s love perfected in us?
4:13 Who is “we”? Is it logical to shift from so abruptly from loving to abiding, from the Son to the Spirit?
4:14 What is the meaning of “world”?
4:15 See Acts 8:37. What does it mean to abide?
4:16a What is the difference between knowing and believing?
4:16b I think this is not only good poetry but good theology.
4:17 What and when is the day of judgement?  What does  “as he is, so are we in this world” mean?
4:18 I like this verse.  What does this verse say to hell, fire and damnation preachers and their sermons?
4:19 Could be argued that without God’s love we cannot love?
4:20 How does this verse inform Christian ethics? What about loving people who are not brothers and sisters in Christ?
4:21 After fourteen verses about love why say anything about a commandment? Who is “him”? How does this relate to the New Commandment of John’s Gospel?

15:1 Is there a difference between a vine and the true vine? What is the meaning of “true”? Is there such a thing as the false vine?
15:2 What branches do we find within ourselves? Even fruit producing vines are occasionally cut back.
15:3 How does the word cleanse? Is cleansing the same as pruning?
15:4 How do we abide? See 1 John 4:13.
15:5 Note that this is one (of the seven) “I am” sayings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. What is more important, bearing lots of inferior fruit or less but superior fruit?
15:6 Are we still talking about the branches within us? I think it is wrong to, in any way, connect this verse to any concept of hell or fires of hell.
15:7 Is Jesus the same as his words? Whatever we wish?
15:8 Is bearing much fruit something other than becoming Jesus disciple? Not that Jesus uses the plural “disciples”.

ADDENDUM
I am currently serving at the Interim Pastor of The Presbyterian Church of Cadiz, worshiping at 154 West Market Street, Cadiz, Ohio, every Sunday at 11:00 AM. Please like The Presbyterian Church of Cadiz on facebook.

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