I did a quick inventory of my church library this week. I was curious about how many commentaries I have. A commentary is a book that analyzes scripture. There are whole books written on individual books of the bible; some are arranged by biblical authors or there are some that cover the whole bible. I discovered by a quick count 40 commentaries; authors include Karl Barth, Raymond Brown, William Barclay to name the most familiar;(show example). That's not counting my newest one. I received this in the mail while Julie and I were in Wisconsin. It is titled, The Gospel of Mark: A Reader's Guide. You may have heard of the author, Truman Stehr. This is the latest writing project of our good friend. I'm using his reader's guide for the discussion of the feeding of the 5000.
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A Hometown Miracle Worker
Psalm 48; 2 Corinthians 12: 2-10; Mark 6: 1-13 July 5, 2015 Julie and I spent a week up on Washington Island in Lake Michigan as part of my continuing Education requirement. It was a forum sponsored by The Christian Century magazine and the Wisconsin Council of Churches. Those of you who know, know these are two rather liberal institutions. So before I begin today's look at the gospel in light of my week away, a word about liberals and conservatives. The Christian Century had a cover some time back with a familiar take on these two showing the liberal saying, “Conservatives are closed minded.” and the conservative saying, “Liberals are arrogant and angry about everything.” A radio resource of mine who goes by Father-know-it-all says that these are not the best terms to describe our differences. A better way to define these differences in theology is to differentiate according to belief in supernatural acts: Does the person believe that God has acted and still acts in ways we cannot explain or are the miracles of Jesus myths and legends built up to give him status? It is a question we each should face as we get serious about our faith journey with Jesus. |
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