Letters to the Church: Corinth (Round 1)

This week's letter is the second longest of those attributed to Paul in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians. Reading it through this week will take a little more time, but I still highly encourage you to take the time to do so! Here's how I would recommend breaking it up, if you want to read a chunk each day.

Tuesday: Chapters 1-4
Wednesday: Chapters 5-7
Thursday: Chapters 8-10
Friday: Chapters 11-14
Saturday: Chapters 15-16

This follows the breakdown of chapters in this week's video from The Bible Project (found below or at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiHf8klCCc4) and in this week's "map" (found at the bottom of this page--click to enlarge--and also in this week's bulletin). I think this is a great, really clear way of thinking about the message of 1 Corinthians and how it teaches us to deal with hot-button and potentially divisive issues in our community today. And goodness, don't we need to learn about that?

See you Sunday!

Letters to the Church: Galatia

Our second letter as we continue our series of seeking to understand how letters addressed to early church communities speak to the things we face as a community today is Galatians. It's only 6 chapters, so I hope you'll read the whole thing over this week (2 chapters today and one each day that follows and you'll be there! It's even better if you read it through in one sitting, but I am a realistic woman:)). Here's a link to an online text: Read Galatians Here.

Before or after you read it, take 9 minutes to watch the great video below from The Bible Project. You can also follow this link to view it on YouTube.




Here's our Bible Project "map" of the book, which will also be in the bulletin Sunday.

As you read, look, and listen...what connections do you see between this church and ours? Come ready to share your insights during the sermon on Sunday!

Letters to the Church: Thessalonica

Welcome to our summer sermon series! This summer we will be focusing on letters written in the name of Paul to early church communities throughout what are now Turkey, Greece, and Italy. What do the issues small churches in these ancient cities have to do with the issues our modern church faces in Annapolis? That's what we hope to find out together!

Each week we will read excerpts of a different letter in worship, but I want to challenge you to read the whole letter before we gather in worship. This sounds like a lot, and some letters are a bit long, but this week's is not--1 Thessalonians (we are going not in the order the letters appear in the Bible, but in the order most scholars believe the letters were written--hence why this book, believed by most to be the first New Testament book written, is our starting point). Before or after you read the letter, watch the YouTube video below produced by The Bible Project, which summarizes the book beautifully in only 7 minutes (if you get this by email, go to the blog to see the video). There's also a visual map of the book, which will also be in our bulletin Sunday, which you can click on to enlarge and explore.

I look forward to diving together into this part of scripture in which we haven't spent much time together--I think it has vital things to teach us!