Posts by jhumphries

May 4, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 98Isaiah 42:5-9This weekend’s reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 FIELD NOTES This passage of scripture from Isaiah is one of the “Servant Songs” in Isaiah. Scholars have differing opinions of who the Servant is. Some believe the Servant represents Israel; some believe it is the Messiah; and others believe the Servant can…

May 3, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 98Acts 10:1-34This weekend’s reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 FIELD NOTES I grew up in the South — back when it was much more isolated and provincial than it is now. For example, I knew only one Catholic family whose kids went to my elementary school, and until I was a teenager…

May 2, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 80Isaiah 65:17-25This weekend’s reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 FIELD NOTES Sometimes I think about heaven — what it will be like, whether we will recognize our loved ones, whether we’ll have some sort of body, and if so, what age will it be? Will I get to live in eternity as…

May 1, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 80James 3:17-18This weekend’s reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 FIELD NOTES Looking at this world, listening to the news or reading social media posts, it’s pretty evident that peace is in short supply. Do you ever wonder why human beings can’t seem to behave decently toward one another? The writer of James…

April 30, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 80Galatians 5:16-26This weekend’s reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 FIELD NOTES Today’s reading is familiar to many of us. The “Fruit of the Spirit” is something we see embroidered on tea towels or written in fancy calligraphy on posters. There’s even a children’s song that goes, “The fruit of the spirit is…

April 28, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 22:25-31Amos 9:7-15Mark 4:30-32This weekend’s reading: Matthew 16:13-20 FIELD NOTES “Inch by inch, row by row; we’re gonna make this garden grow.” We find agricultural metaphors, like the ones in our verses from Amos and Mark, throughout the Bible. Can increasingly urbanized Americans can still relate to these farming images? In…

April 27, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 22:25-31Amos 8:11-13Acts 8:9-25This weekend’s reading: Matthew 16:13-20 FIELD NOTES Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy, declared: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). The prophet Amos speaks about a “famine of hearing God’s word” in the land (8:11). But his description…

April 26, 2018   DAILY READING Psalm 22:25-31Amos 8:1-7Acts 8:1-8This weekend’s reading: Matthew 16:13-20 FIELD NOTES Today’s readings confront us with a puzzling picture of human behavior and God’s ways of relating to us. We like to find simple answers to life’s questions, but what we find here is a realistic view of complicated human conduct.…

April 25, 2018   DAILY READING Psalm 95Micah 7:8-20Mark 14:26-31This weekend’s reading: Matthew 16:13-20 FIELD NOTES We sometimes look at a person who has made a poor choice that led to trouble, and we think, “I would never do that. I would have acted differently.”  And yet we know, faced with a precarious situation like Peter in…

April 24, 2018 DAILY READING Psalm 231 Chronicles 11:1-9Revelation 7:13-17This weekend’s reading: Matthew 16:13-20 FIELD NOTES “And the Lord your God said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’. . . And David became more and more powerful, because the Lord Almighty was with him.” (1 Chron 11:2, 9) I once asked a precocious 5-year-old…