Debie Thomas

1 month ago | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Liz Charlotte Grant |Debie Thomas |Brian D. McLaren

What’s the Bible for? We asked dozens of writers to respond to this question in seven words or less, as well as to expand on their response in a few sentences. To see all of the responses together as they are posted, bookmark this page. A rip-roaring library to inspire ongoing conversationMany of us were taught to read the Bible as a law code or constitution. We interpreted it and argued about it like lawyers. We saw that it could be weaponized to cause great harm and used to prove almost anything.

1 month ago | christiancentury.org | Spencer Reece |Mac Loftin |Liz Charlotte Grant |Debie Thomas

A man has a vision. He is walking on a road. He is going to bring the followers of Jesus to Jerusalem. He will persecute them. But something happens. He is struck on a road just outside Damascus, and his life is readjusted. He then is the recipient of hardship: the Lord will show him the great things he must suffer for his name’s sake (Acts 9:16). The book in which Saul becomes Paul is called Acts.

1 month ago | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Liz Charlotte Grant |Debie Thomas |Peter Hawkins

Like any good preacher eager to move his audience into action, Jesus draws on a variety of homiletic approaches in Luke 13. On the one hand, he recalls the scary news of the day, local disasters guaranteed to put the fear of the Lord in anyone within earshot of Jerusalem. He speaks of events now lost to history but presumably vivid in the moment—cultic sacrifices mingled by Pontius Pilate with Galilean blood, a Siloam tower that crushed 18 people in its sudden fall.

1 month ago | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Liz Charlotte Grant |Debie Thomas |Peter W. Marty

To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. “Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing?” I’m pretty sure Thoreau didn’t intend this as a serious question. For mature, well-grounded, enlightened folks in his day and ours, fishing is the clear favorite.

1 month ago | christiancentury.org | Mac Loftin |Liz Charlotte Grant |Debie Thomas |Peter W. Marty

What’s the Bible for? We asked dozens of writers to respond to this question in seven words or less, as well as to expand on their response in a few sentences. To see all of the responses together as they are posted, bookmark this page. Connecting God’s people across millennia through storyPortions of the Bible horrify me with what they call God’s action and God’s will. Yet if I spurn those sections, consistency requires rejecting the gorgeous ones also—and the parts that are essential to my life.