Feasts and food play a surprising role in the Scriptures when you consider how many people went to bed hungry. And maybe that’s the point. While eating and drinking sustain human life, they also create the opportunity to celebrate God as the One who provides life. And they then become metaphors throughout both the Hebrew […]
Author Archive | Madelon Maupin
Letter to the Philippians: New Criteria for Measuring Success
Have you noticed how ‘success’ keeps getting redefined? In a Western culture cruising on the ‘wealth/celebrity/image’ highway, it could be the way someone dresses, the car they drive, the size of a bank account or number of diplomas on the wall. And worse, such criteria change constantly. The Letter to the Philippians is Paul’s way […]
Paul’s Introduction to Romans and “The Gospel of God”
Discovering the variety of ways Paul opens his letters to the early Churches is like mining fields of gold—so many gems to uncover, chew on, then figure out how to apply and his introduction to Romans is no exception. Paul launches his monumental epistle to the Romans with a self-description. That alone is a spiritual aha. […]
Praying the Psalms
The Psalms don’t teach us about God so much as move us into conversation with God. Structured in five parts–really a hymnal divided into five sections–they mirror the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses. While those first five books introduce us to the great Creator, God, and His children, you might […]
The Quiet Power of I Thessalonians
Some people aspire to climb Mt. Whitney; others to write the Great American Novel. My desire has been to know the seven letters of Paul so well that they would become like old friends—familiar, trusted and treasured. The past ten years I’ve been on this quest and the latest deep dive has been in I Thessalonians. […]