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Share FacebookXLinkedInRedditEmail Many churches are discovering the practice of reading from a lectionary. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches have historically used formal lectionaries, but the practice is growing in other Protestant church bodies. I’d like to help you make the most of the lectionary by understanding what it is, how it works, and how you can use it in your church today, particularly by helping ministers preach the lectionary.

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Share FacebookXLinkedInRedditEmail By the late first or early second century AD, the last book of the New Testament had been written. In AD 325, the Council of Nicaea would articulate the doctrine of the Trinity and adapt the church’s rule of faith into an official creed. But what happened in between these two watershed moments of church history? The second century, in particular, was an existentially defining period for the church.

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Share FacebookXLinkedInRedditEmail “When will I actually use this?” It’s a fair question asked by many a Greek student. Preachers-in-training spend hours and hours memorizing verb charts and vocabulary; learning participle, infinitive, and genitive uses; and trying to grasp the grammar until, at long last, they can pull from their vast-yet-shaky knowledge of the language to scratch out a few sentences of the New Testament.

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Share FacebookXLinkedInRedditEmail Sacrifices in the Old Testament can seem strange, even repulsive: animal death, blood splashed on altars, covenant salt, ritual uncleanliness. Yet the sacrificial language of Leviticus matters, and not only for Israel’s worship. These offerings underlie the biblical logic of Christ’s atoning death, and Christians have long discussed exactly how they do so.

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Share FacebookXLinkedInRedditEmail Most Christians who have grown up attending a gospel-preaching church can recount the famous stories from the Bible. They know about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the animals on Noah’s ark, Moses parting the Red Sea, David defeating Goliath with his sling and a stone, Daniel surviving the lions’ den, not to mention Jesus’s miracles and, of course, his crucifixion and resurrection.