The two men in today’s reading go up to the Temple to pray. The Temple was a place of restoration. When Jesus healed a man with leprosy (see Matthew 8:1-4), he...

Jesus’ parables frequently end with a twist, a reversal of conventional thought. Today’s reading is full of reversal. It describes two persons who go to the Temple to pray. One is...

Phil Rizzuto, an eighty-nine-year-old Hall of Fame ballplayer for the New York Yankees, was in declining health and living in a nursing home in New Jersey in 2006. His teammate, buddy,...

We have focused on rescue and restoration in the scripture lessons for this week. There is another word that begins with “R” that is appropriate for today’s reading: release. Paul writes...

Our friend, whom we will call Diane, stopped communicating with my wife and me. She used to text us several times a day, but now a week would go by without...

Joel promises that God will rescue and restore God’s people. Hardships will be reversed. Instead of sending swarming locusts to eat the crops, God will bring abundant rainfall in the spring...

Sometimes we make such a mess of life that the only recourse is a cry for help—for someone to rescue us from the depths of despair or from our own worst...

Now that we’ve looked at our lazy, stubborn judge, let’s consider the widow. All we know is that she is relentless. Convinced of the merits of her case (again, a case...

Jesus’ parables rarely state the lesson that we are supposed to take from them, but the introduction to this one gives it away: the “need to pray always and not to...

I popped a grape in my mouth the other day, expecting it to be sweet. Whew! It set my teeth on edge, the oddly satisfying pain shooting down my jawline. My...