Rev 3:1-22; John 17:20–26

The life of faith revealed and nurtured in the biblical narratives is highly personal but never merely individual: always there is a family, a tribe, a nation - church. Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder

"A dissident is a person of hope, someone who imagines a better, future world, and then begins to embody that world. It's someone who speaks to promote that better, future vision and against what is wrong in the present." - Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett, Revelation for the Rest of Us

Rev 2:1-29; John 17:13–19

An introduction to the context of the Book of Revelation by Professor Emeritus at Missio Seminary, Steve Taylor.

Rev 1:1-20

Ephesians 3:14-21, Psalm 103

“Dear friend, being the Beloved is the origin and the fulfillment of the life of the Spirit. I say this because, as soon as we catch a glimpse of this truth, we are put on a journey in search of the fullness of that truth and we will not rest until we can rest in that truth. From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make.” - Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

Luke 14:15-24

John 15:1-11 / Isaiah 5:1-7

When we read Scripture in light of the resurrection, we understand Scripture as testimony to the life-giving power of God. The resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated miracle but a disclosure of God's purpose finally to subdue death and to embrace us within the life of the resurrection.... The God with whom we have to do is a God who wills life and wholeness for us. If we read the biblical story rightly as a story about this God, we will learn to read it in hopeful trust, open to joyous surprises. - Richard B. Hays, "Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection"

Mark 7:24–30

You either come to the text with a view of what is and isn’t possible in the world, which won’t allow any fresh evidence - which is not, perhaps, the best way of approaching a book like John, which is all about the challenge of the gospel to all existing world-views - or you come with at least an open mind to new possibilities hitherto unimagined. This isn’t the same as being gullible, or credulous. Nor are the extraordinary stories in the gospels designed, as some seem to have imagined, to portray Jesus as being able to do anything at all, simply for the sake of making a supernatural display. They are there, rather, as moments in the text when the strange glory of the Word-made-flesh shines through, not so much because Jesus can do whatever he wants but because this particular thing is so closely associated with what Israel’s God does at a key moment in Israel’s history. -N.T. Wright, John For Everyone, Vol 1, p.76

Isaiah 55:10-13; Mark 4:1–20

With Christ as our true teacher, we are called to a lifelong journey of joint inquiry in which we seek to embody Scripture wisely and faithfully in Christian community. After all, even as we apprentice ourselves to Christ and to saintly exemplars before and around us, we are simultaneously called to live in such a way that others will want to apprentice themselves to us. - L. Gregory Jones, "Embodying Scripture in the Community of Faith"

Matt 20:1–16

When we ignore or minimize the importance of the original context, our default position will be to fill in the textual backdrop with our own social context. In other words, we will assume that things in the biblical context are just like they are in our own. So there is no way to attain a reading of a biblical text without a context. - Jeannine K. Brown, Scripture as Communication