“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”—Jesus (Matthew 5.11) Luke’s version is even more pointed: “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they…
Jesus and the Living Water Part 3 of 3 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” (John 4:16) Stop, and consider. A woman comes for water every day in the middle of the day, instead of…
“Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman” (John 4.27). Last week we looked at Jesus and the “Us vs. Them” paradigm of the Jews and the Samaritans. This week, I’d like to…
The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) (John 4.9) This week I want to begin…
“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered…
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery . .…