Magazine /

February 19, 2014

Volume 131, Issue #4

Lectionary

Sunday, March 2, 2014: Exodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9

I grew up in Southern Baptist congregations. By the time I left high school I knew the four steps to salvation and the meaning of Jesus’ sacrificial death as a substitutionary atonement for my sins. I could articulate this understanding of salvation in clear and simple terms. Within the metanarrative of evangelical Christianity it made perfect sense and was logically coherent. Then my fundamentalism began to unravel. 

Sunday, February 23, 2014: Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48

What does God require of us? We tend to like Jesus’ most famous answer, what Scot McKnight calls the Jesus Creed: to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. But what about the answer we find in the holiness code of Leviticus and the Sermon on the Mount? Are we really ready to sign up for a program of holiness and perfection? Sure, it’s simple and to the point. But what chance do we have of living up to these radical standards?

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