While a prisoner in Rome, Paul wrote a carefully crafted personal letter to Philemon, a fellow Christian and owner of an enslaved person named Onesimus, who had stolen from Philemon and...

Have you looked in a mirror and wished you were different—not just your outward appearance but the deeper, inner features? We see imperfections that no one else would notice and question...

I used to play hide-and-seek with my children. They would hide, and I would search for them. The fun of seeking was knowing that someone was hiding, and the fun of...

Everyone was affected in some way by the great uncertainty of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic was global, and social unrest reached nearly every part of the United States. We all discovered...

When I was in college, I often went to the campus ceramics center to relax from my studies by crafting earthenware dishes, vases, and other vessels. I would take a lump...

A guest would not normally presume to tell the host who should be on the invitation list, but Jesus is not your typical guest. He uses his status as a guest...

In our scene for today, Jesus is at the house of a leader of the Pharisees to share in a meal. As he watches the other guests arrive, he takes notice...

The author of Hebrews ends on what some scholars speculate may have been an afterthought. If so, perhaps the author wanted to leave readers with one final encouragement: Praise God and...

Hospitality is a major theme throughout the Bible. The unidentified author of this letter emphasizes the central role hospitality played in the early Christian community, noting that welcoming strangers may mean...

People like rituals. We like predictable, daily rhythms as we progress from early morning to bedtime. We mark time by the changing seasons and the calendar of special occasions. It was...