A few years ago a reading group to which I belong took on the task of reading The City of God by St Augustine Every Friday we would meet to discuss the twenty pages we had set for ourselves that week the next week we would move on to the next twenty pages By the time the academic year was windi

If I were preaching on these readings my main objective would be to avoid re-enforcing the idea strongly if sometime subliminally held by Christians that Jews are almost unavoidably legalistic and hypocritical about their arcane law nbsp It can sound as if Jesus is saying that which I would al

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp With this Gospel reading John closes his long discourse about the bread of life a discourse occasioned by Jesus feeding bread to thousands nbsp Here John repeats old themes doubts and inability to believe even betrayal nbsp Also here John repeats his claim that in

I consider myself a rather conservative scholar on matters of interpretation though honestly I do not think labels such as conservative or liberal ought to be applied to interpretation of the Scriptures The real issue in interpreting the Scriptures the major dividing line is whether one

This Sunday completes the lengthy discourse of Jesus about the bread of life nbsp On the past two Sundays Jesus has affirmed that he is the cause of a person s living beyond the grave that he will raise up a person from death to life forever nbsp It is faith in him that is asked from each of

The second reading for the Twentieth Sunday in ordinary time continues with Ephesians chapter 5 15-20 and the exhortation for holy living The NAB translates the first phrase in v 15 as watch carefully how you live which the NRSV translates be careful then how you live I like the translation