Monday, April 29th:
- Acts 10:44-48
Thus Peter announces that God does not discriminate according to who they are, but accepts anyone who fears God and does righteousness, regardless of his or her race, ethnicity, or nationality. Hearing Jesus Christ’s good news of peace proclaimed to the people of Israel, the Roman official may realize that this peace is different from the Pax Romana brought by the empire. The Roman emperor is not the lord. “Jesus Christ – he is Lord of all.”
Jin Young Choi
Tuesday, April 30th:
- Psalm 98
Psalm 98 can able be understood as a psalm about singing and making music…Beginning with an exhortation to sing “a new song”…the psalm overflows with the energy of a thriving music ministry. Various musical instruments are mentioned: the lyre, trumpets and horns. The floods “clap” to keep time, and even “the hills sing together for joy”…If the hills can sing, so also might reluctant members of the assembly be exhorted to add their voices in praise of God.
Rhodora E. Beaton
Wednesday, May 1st:
- 1 John 5:1-6
Loving and doing are bound together, both in our relationship with God and our relationship with others. In Greek, verse 2 speaks of “doing” the commandments and verse 3 talks of “keeping” them. The NRSV translates both verbs “obey”, thereby blurting the author’s aim to show that interior decisions (“keeping”) must become exterior expressions (“doing”) if belief is to be genuine. Earlier the author showed this by using the verb “to walk”, indicating that believing is not simply inner illumination but, instead, leads to a pattern of behavior.
Steven J. Kraftchick
Thursday, May 2nd:
- John 15: 9-17
At the very center of John’s account Jesus’ final evening with his disciples is the love command, including the stipulation that disciples are no longer Jesus’ servants or slaves but friends, and he has chosen them so that they might love one another as he has loved them. Explicit language of love and friendship increases in the second half of the Gospel, after Jesus’ public ministry is over and when he turns to address his teaching to the community of the beloved disciples.
Deirdre Good
Friday, May 3rd:
The bible can be seen as a “talking book,” inviting dialogue and conversation….
….This shifts the discussion away from an undue emphasis on the authority of the written text to the community of faith that is talking about the Bible and talking with one another. Second, it highlights the importance of the oral transmission of scripture in the religious life of Asia. Even in the West, the primary mode of transmitting the contents of the Bible was oral until literacy became more common during the last two centuries. Third, as a talking book, its meaning is not fixed but open to negotiation in the discursive context. Fourth, it invites us to listen to a multiplicity of voices, filling in for the voiceless and uplifting the voices that have been marginalized.
Kwok Pui-Lan
