This week we’re in the third Sunday of Advent in the Christian tradition, reading the story of the people’s return from exile as told in Ezra 1:1-4 and 3:1-13. We reflect on the varying roles of the exiles in this text, some of whom return to Judea to do the hard work of rebuilding the temple while others remain in Babylon to support the rebuilding financially. We think about the resonances of this rebuilding with the story of Solomon’s original construction of the first temple, recalling the former temple in all its glory but also remembering a time when Israel worshiped God in the wilderness without a permanent building at all. And we ponder the generational experience in this text, some in the older generations weeping at the sight of the new temple foundation being laid while others in the younger generation shout in jubilant praise. And through it all we hear the refrain, “God is good; God’s graciousness for Israel lasts forever.”

Episode 515 Rebuilding from the Ruins (Ezra 1:1-4 and 3:1-13)

Getting to the core of the biblical text.

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Today BibleWorm reads from I Corinthians 15:1-26 & 51-57, a section of Paul’s letter that is focused unwaveringly on bodily resurrection. It seems this was one of harder aspects of the faith for the people of Corinth, and it is a tough one for many modern readers too. But Paul insists that you have to believe the impossible thing, the thing that goes against what you have seen with your own eyes. There is no hedging: You not only have to wholeheartedly believe the testimony of others, that Jesus was resurrected in body, but that it will happen again. It will happen for all Christians, and, Paul seems to say here, even universally. What happens when we shift from a shift from a spiritual orientation toward the idea of eternal life to an embodied one? Why is this body piece so important to Paul? What are people, anyway?

Episode 540 The Resurrection of the Body (1 Corinthians 15:1-26 & 41-47)

This week BibleWorm reads Paul’s famous discussion of love as given in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. It’s not every day that Bobby and Amy talk about Paul’s letters and find ourselves in full agreement that Paul is in fact right. But both our Jewish and Christian traditions can fully affirm what Paul says here—that love is the one undeconstructible reality, the most fundamental principle of the cosmos and, one might say, the very essence of God. The sort of love Paul calls us to in this passage is anti-imperial, the sort of soft love that seems foolish to those who live in a world where domination, control, and pride are the logic of the day. By contrast, Paul calls us to a softer way of inhabiting the world, characterized by patience, kindness, and yielding to others, trusting and hoping in the power of love toward which the world is ultimately moving.

Episode 539 The Greatest of These Is Love (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

This week BibleWorm reads Acts 18:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, our introduction to the city of Corinth, a busy port city with all kinds of diversity and disparity ... almost like an ancient Las Vegas. And here in this city, Paul tasks the budding church with finding a way to profound unity. Speaking to a people that seem prone to latch on to the messenger instead of the message, as we humans like to do, Paul does whatever he can to sever that connection, even when that’s painful, in order to insist that his listeners find a common anchor point in something much bigger, something that unites them all: the cross itself, and only that. Is it possible for us humans to connect to something that big without holding onto the medium that gets us there? And how do we not lose the forest for the trees?

Episode 538 Unity in the Cross (Acts 18:1-14 & 1 Corinthians 1:10-18)

Today BibleWorm reads from two different books in the New Testament. We hear about Paul’s visit to the community  in Thessalonica in Acts 17:1-9 and then read from his letter to that community in 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10. As we read about the struggle of those early days for that budding church community, we wonder, what does it take for someone to throw in their lot with a revolutionary movement and really stick with it through all the real risk and seemingly constant uncertainty? And how can we support one another in living that sort of courageous life today?

Episode 537 The Church in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9 and 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10)

This week we’re continuing on in our post-Easter readings with the story of disciples’ first healing, as told in Acts 3:1-10. On their way to the temple one afternoon, Peter and John encounter a man who was born without the ability to walk. Not having any money, they heal him in the name of Jesus, then take him into the temple where he leaps and praises God. We talk about the disciples regarding the man as an equal, looking him and the eye and grasping him by the hand as they offer him healing. We discuss the risk Peter takes, pressing beyond the most obvious gifts and offering the man what he most truly needs. And we notice the most profound gift of all—the restoration of the man to his community, where he enters fully among them for what is likely the first time in his life. If only our communities could be sources of healing in the world in the same way.

Episode 515 Rebuilding from the Ruins (Ezra 1:1-4 and 3:1-13)

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